In the past, Flaubert implied, idiots had had no clue as to what the carbon structure of diamonds was. Their shallowness had been entirely and reliably evident. But now the press had made it very possible for a person to be at once unimaginative, uncreative, mean-minded and extremely well informed. The modern idiot could routinely know what only geniuses had known in the past, and yet he still was an idiot- a depressing combination of traits that previous ages had never had to worry about. The news had, for Flaubert, armed stupidity and given authority to fools.
Alain de Botton
Related I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ... KELLY JONES And not only of even mainly because of the protection it had given him - it was thanks to his own st... MICHAEL ENDE I have had shoulder injuries in the past, but usually it's from training. WARREN CUCCURULLO She understood that it had never just been about talent: it had also always been about money. Ethan ... MEG WOLITZER They were talking more distantly than if they were strangers who had just met, for if they had been ... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It had been an awful thing to lose Henry the first time, to matrimony, but to discover what a false ... ANNA GODBERSEN He knew now, and the knowledge was hard, that his task had never been to undo what he had done, but ... URSULA K. LE GUIN He had learned some of the things that every man must find out for himself, and he had found out abo... THOMAS WOLFE But once, in his anger, Aidan had asked me whether I thought I had wasted my life, and I had told hi... JOHN BOYNE I recognized him then; that is, I finally comprehended what I had known but had never been able to f... ALEKSANDAR HEMON Now very much against her will, she thought of the way Jace had looked at her then, the blaze of fai... CASSANDRA CLARE It's the most ridiculous thing that only an idiot could believe. He didn't have a death wish. He had... PHILIP RUSSELL No one could ever be for me what [he] had been because he had known me when, and that had kept me aw... ELIZABETH BERG Before he had come to the town he had known about nothing but death: here he had learnt to live, to ... ANNE HOLM The only contact we could have with the void was through this little the void had produced as quinte... ITALO CALVINO I didn't want to tell her what an idiot I had been ? how I had put her and our family at risk. BILL SATURNO There was never going to be a right time for a band that was still recording and had health in its e... PETER GARRETT When I first got here, he was talking about games from two years ago and mistakes he had made. He's ... BRANDON DOMAN He had appeared beside her because she had wanted him to. She had called him to her, and was calling... ALICE HOFFMAN She smiled. She knew she was dying. But it did not matter any longer. She had known something which ... AYN RAND He was about to go home, about to return to the place where he had had a family. It was in Godric’... J.K. ROWLING The most important thing had always been what other people thought-appearances before herself or her... DANIEL KEYES Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes. Moralists had... OSCAR WILDE Astrid had gone to look at the burn zone. Doing the right thing. Kids had yelled at her. Demand... MICHAEL GRANT I had wanted to live forever as a gypsy girl; I had wanted to live forever as a child, tumbling down... MELANIE BENJAMIN But she had known, better than anyone else, what demons he had faced, had known how hard he had foug... DONNA WOOLFOLK CROSS But he had been in love once, that he knew. Once and only once, and a long time ago. And it had chan... NICHOLAS SPARKS The car was consistent and the balance was set up. But I had a bad radio and had no clue what was go... SCOTT DIXON So I saw that there was only me. There was only me who could worry about what was happening here, in... MARKUS ZUSAK It was made very clear to me in discussions with Mr. Libby's counsel that he had personally approved... FLOYD ABRAMS In the past, I had my idols but today I enjoy learning from all the soccer I watch. ANDRES INIESTA Peter was not with them for the moment, and they felt rather lonely up there by themselves. He could... J.M. BARRIE After the comedy boom of the '80s, there was a certain formula that comedians had to do and coul... SCOTT AUKERMAN . . . [A] creationist spy named Luther Sunderland snuck into a closed scientific meeting of the Syst... DONALD R. PROTHERO This was a young man who had a very rough time growing up, but he never showed that, never complaine... EDWARD ROMERO Speculation was now news. News had been confused with fact. Fact had been replaced by expert opinion... JOHN M. KELLER I suddenly felt that it was all the same to me whether the world existed or whether there had never ... FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY By the time we've made it, we've had it. MALCOLM FORBES And at ten, or whatever time, in the morning we had the press conference, what we knew is there had ... WILLIAM SCRANTON I had tried to be happy by telling myself that man is an animal, like any other which sought its mea... G.K. CHESTERTON Four years was enough of Harvard. I still had a lot to learn, but had been given the liberating noti... JOHN UPDIKE Jill... had explained homosexuality, after Mike had read about it and failed to grok--and had given ... ROBERT A. HEINLEIN the past only had whatever power you gave it; life was what you made it and if you wanted something ... SARA ZARR I was inquiring as to a little more detail, and he informed me that he had been told that the presid... QUIN SNYDER We came in and had a set goal in mind. We knew what we had to do was control the tempo. I knew I had... DENA SANTORO Yet her experience had consisted less in a series of pure disappointments than in a series of substi... THOMAS HARDY He was about to kiss me. I was sure of it. I had never been kissed before and had no idea what to do... HEIDI PELTIER This was the way he had to go; he had no choice. He had never had any choice. He was only a dreamer. URSULA K. LE GUIN Because Adam practised at many things, Adam was good at many things, but this – what was it even c... MAGGIE STIEFVATER His mind drifted back to times past. He missed the companionship of his old pack. He had grown up in... ALAN KINROSS The unfortunate thing is that, sometimes, we slip, but, fortunately, consciously or unconsciously, w... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH The others cast themselves down upon the fragrant grass, but Frodo stood awhile still lost in wonder... J.R.R. TOLKIEN I watched the black ocean in his eyes and saw this flash behind them and understood what he had mean... T.J. KLUNE What happened at Hiroshima was not only that a scientific breakthrough had occurred and that a great... ARCHIBALD MACLEISH In the past, he had never questioned the fact that he was a prince; like the fact that he was the ch... NAHOKO UEHASHI We had two men to choose from, and Neil Armstrong, reticent, soft-spoken, and heroic was our only ch... CHRIS KRAFT [But the most insurmountable difficulties were family. Stein's wife had travelled to Wales and his d... GRAHAM WILLIAMS Singing as a full-time job was not something I had given a lot of thought to and I had no clear noti... CHARLEY PRIDE I didn't know Michael Hastings very well, but one thing about him was always obvious - he was bo... MATT TAIBBI He was inspired, and yet he wants books! He had been preaching for thirty years, and yet he wan... CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON Although she was ashamed to admit it now, the darkness in him had been the largest part of his allur... J.R. WARD There was a fascinating duality about Matthew that Daisy had never encountered in another man. At so... LISA KLEYPAS He's for you and wants to help you be the person He created you to be. CRAIG GROESCHEL No, what numbed these fields, peopled with bad dreams was not the oppressive grip of a plague but ra... JULIEN GRACQ She remembered the story from her childhood, about Adam and Eve in the garden, and the talking snake... ORSON SCOTT CARD It had been her mercy, her refusal to kill a known enemy, that had made me realize the Order was wro... JULIE KAGAWA Horace’s pulse was racing and adrenaline was surging into his system. But he showed no sign of it.... JOHN FLANAGAN I started to empty the dishwasher and then remembered that there was an alternative to my thoughts a... SARAH MOSS Nevertheless, the book gave Jack a feeling he had never had before, that the past was like a story, ... KEN FOLLETT His thought process when he signed that deal was that he had a chance to be with the Red Sox for lif... GREGG CLIFTON She had seen just now what she had only sensed before, that the whole world was ready to be their en... PATRICIA HIGHSMITH He had a real spirit for growth. He was good at bringing in new ideas and making sure we had the rig... FRED CUEN He had been hit by Betsy when it came through, and had rebuilt. Now he had a solid house, one of the... DON HALVORSEN Now the hurt, angry and scared little boy was easy to spot behind the mawkish facade. Carol and I ma... ABRAHAM VERGHESE She had lost herself in this old work, her personality dissolving into it, so that she had been set ... IAIN PEARS Feast of Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, 988 I suddenly saw that all the time it was not I who... BEDE GRIFFITHS In the past, when we've tried gene therapy, we haven't had tools that have allowed targeted ... JENNIFER DOUDNA There was something distinctly American about it all, a fundamental difference in perspective and pl... SUNIL YAPA Randolph is a much improved team from previous years. In the past, they would only have a handful of... KATHLEEN MCCARTHY No thoughtful man ever came to the end of his life, and had time and a little space of calm from whi... WOODROW WILSON Each of them had done their best. Matt was still his friend. For Meredith, maybe the day would come ... L.J. SMITH Keith had it a little better than most kids here because he had two parents in the same household wh... JEFF HILL Whether or not, he felt very much at home in this state. It was to places like this that they had se... DOUGLAS WOOLF Despite their depressing circumstances, the Hernandez family had a certain dignity and strength abou... JAMES C. DOBSON It was him, it was always him, they only needed to stand there with their feet buried into the muddy... C. JOYBELL C. It had happened. I had brought the dream out into reality and it had dissolved. It was just a dream ... JAMES FRANCO He would have liked his own funeral if he could have seen it. It was small and quiet, and really not... PETER S. BEAGLE I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream past the wit of man to say what dream it was. Man ... WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Man's nature, he postulated, was to be a "free conscious producer," but so far he had not been able ... ROBERT C. TUCKER Adam was beginning to realize he hadn't known Ronan at all. Or rather, he had known part of him and ... MAGGIE STIEFVATER A third layer of nativeness was composed of those whom others thought directly descended, even the t... MOHSIN HAMID The poor wretch, she had given up so much and could yet smile at her trouble. He himself had never s... A.E. COPPARD No, it had never been like this for him before, with anyone. Of all the women he’d known, she was ... J.D. ROBB He had quickly happened upon the truth which many lonely contemporaries would never discover, the tr... STEPHEN FRY I could have been a Judge, but I never had the Latin for the judgin'. I never had it, so I'd had it,... PETER COOK Tibby, who was not fond of change, had once told Bridget that the present, no matter what it brought... ANN BRASHARES Of course I was delighted the flight was over, but I still had to worry about cleaning up inside the... ALAN SHEPARD I had once tried to write, had once reveled in feeling, had let m crude imagination roam, but the im... RICHARD WRIGHT [Cooper called Libby directly, Abrams told NPR, and was referred to his lawyer for authorization. Ab... FLOYD ABRAMS Having arrived at this point, he had found no direction in which to go save that of further withdraw... PAUL BOWLES
More Alain de Botton
Pick up any newspaper or magazine, open the TV, and you'll be bombarded with suggestions of how ... ALAIN DE BOTTON Atheism is having a heyday in the born-again United States. ALAIN DE BOTTON What bothers me is that there is so much emphasis on food, rather than gathering and meeting - so th... ALAIN DE BOTTON Though it may feel otherwise, enjoying life is no more dangerous than apprehending it with continuou... ALAIN DE BOTTON One rarely falls in love without being as much attracted to what is interestingly wrong with someone... ALAIN DE BOTTON We read the weird tales in newspapers to crowd out the even weirder stuff inside us. ALAIN DE BOTTON There's a whole category of people who miss out by not allowing themselves to be weird enough. ALAIN DE BOTTON Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone - and finding that that's ok with them. ALAIN DE BOTTON The more familiar two people become, the more the language they speak together departs from that of ... 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ALAIN DE BOTTON What we typically call love is only the start of love. Our understanding of love has been hijacked a... ALAIN DE BOTTON On account of its scale and complexity, the world will always outstrip the capacity of any single bo... ALAIN DE BOTTON Kant and Hegel are interesting thinkers. But I am happy to insist that they are also terrible writer... ALAIN DE BOTTON Emotional life is - alongside work - one of the great challenges of existence and is a theme that I ... ALAIN DE BOTTON The most attractive are not those who allow us to kiss them at once (we soon feel ungrateful) or tho... ALAIN DE BOTTON Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books that were w... ALAIN DE BOTTON There are few more effective ways to promote tolerance between suspicious neighbours than to force t... ALAIN DE BOTTON There's a constant tension between the excitement of new people and security with one person. If... 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ALAIN DE BOTTON One's doing well if age improves even slightly one's capacity to hold on to that vital truism: "This... ALAIN DE BOTTON A good half of the art of living is resilience. ALAIN DE BOTTON ...workplace dynamics are no less complicated or unexpectedly intense than family relations, with on... ALAIN DE BOTTON We are humiliated by what is powerful and mean, but awed by what is powerful and noble. ALAIN DE BOTTON Literature has always had its circus side, its freaks and its frivolities - and maybe that's all par... ALAIN DE BOTTON I love the idea of a university as away from capitalist values, where people can do things that don&... ALAIN DE BOTTON What makes the prospect of death distinctive in the modern age is the background of permanent techno... ALAIN DE BOTTON It seems, in fact, that the more advanced a society is, the greater will be its interest in ruined t... 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ALAIN DE BOTTON Snobbery exists in all areas of life, not least literary criticism. By snobbery I mean, any method o... ALAIN DE BOTTON Pick up any newspaper or magazine, open the TV, and you'll be bombarded with suggestions of how to h... ALAIN DE BOTTON It is the most ambitious and driven among us who are the most sorely in need of having our reckless ... ALAIN DE BOTTON I've tried to write about Heathrow before and been escorted off the premises. ALAIN DE BOTTON Because I have this thing about birthdays--they always remind me of death and forced jollity. ALAIN DE BOTTON He was a volatile mixture of confidence and vulnerability. He could deliver extended monologues on p... ALAIN DE BOTTON The feeling one has no time to get anything done provides the pressure that guarantees one does get ... ALAIN DE BOTTON I'm fascinated by Comte's clear-eyed analysis of what was wrong with modern society, which i... ALAIN DE BOTTON The largest part of what we call 'personality' is determined by how we've opted to defend ourselves ... ALAIN DE BOTTON It is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value. Acquaintance with grief ... ALAIN DE BOTTON The most courageous act in politics is to try to understand your opponent. ALAIN DE BOTTON The idea of a book that can make a change to your life, that can affect your perspective, is a beaut... ALAIN DE BOTTON The philosophy I love is very selective. It is really just the bit that is involved in a search for ... ALAIN DE BOTTON It is hope--with regard to our careers, our love lives, our children, our politicians, and our plane... ALAIN DE BOTTON I learnt to stop fantasising about the perfect job or the perfect relationship because that can actu... ALAIN DE BOTTON He was marked out by his relentless ability to find fault with others' mediocrity--suggesting that a... ALAIN DE BOTTON There are books that speak to us of our own lives with a clarity we cannot match. They prevent the m... ALAIN DE BOTTON On paper, being good sounds great but a lot depends on the atmosphere of the workplace or community ... ALAIN DE BOTTON Travel is a lot like love. ALAIN DE BOTTON What is fascinating about marriage is why anyone wants to get married. ALAIN DE BOTTON I feel that the great challenge of our time is the communication of ideas. ALAIN DE BOTTON Learning to give up on perfection may be just about the most romantic move any of us could make. ALAIN DE BOTTON Work is a way of bringing order to chaos, and there's a basic satisfaction in seeing that we are... ALAIN DE BOTTON I like working with people. I believe change can only come through collaboration. ALAIN DE BOTTON I see religion as a storehouse of lots of really good ideas that a secular world should look at, rai... 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ALAIN DE BOTTON We don't need to be constantly reasonable in order to have good relationships; all we need to have m... ALAIN DE BOTTON To look at the paper is to raise a seashell to one's ear and to be overwhelmed by the roar of humani... ALAIN DE BOTTON I think of myself as quite a shy person. But when I'm curious about something, I'll go quite... ALAIN DE BOTTON Artworks are especially good at helping our psyches in a variety of ways: they rebalance our moods, ... ALAIN DE BOTTON [T]he unsympathetic assessments we make of others are usually the result of nothing more sinister th... ALAIN DE BOTTON It is not only the hostility of others that may prevent us from questioning the status quo. Our will... ALAIN DE BOTTON The most boring and unproductive question one can ask of any religion is whether or not it is true. ALAIN DE BOTTON Whatever modern democracies may tell themselves about their commitment to free speech and to diversi... ALAIN DE BOTTON The true nature of bureaucracy may be nowhere more obvious to the observer than in a developing coun... ALAIN DE BOTTON To be loved by someone is to realize how much they share the same needs that lie at the heart of our... ALAIN DE BOTTON We fall in love because we long to escape from ourselves with someone as beautiful, intelligent, and... ALAIN DE BOTTON Being content is perhaps no less easy than playing the violin well: and requires no less practice. ALAIN DE BOTTON A storyteller who provided us with such a profusion of details would rapidly grow maddening. Unfortu... ALAIN DE BOTTON We used to build temples, and museums are about as close as secular society dares to go in facing up... ALAIN DE BOTTON The Anxiety of Sunday afternoon: your unlived lives and infinite possibility pressing upon the const... ALAIN DE BOTTON Blessed with riches and possibilities far beyond anything imagined by ancestors who tilled the unpre... ALAIN DE BOTTON We need a home in the psychological sense as much as we need one in the physical: to compensate for ... ALAIN DE BOTTON Even if our loved ones have assured us that they will be busy at work, even if they told us they hat... ALAIN DE BOTTON You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneven... ALAIN DE BOTTON What a peculiar civilisation this was: inordinately rich, yet inclined to accrue its wealth through ... ALAIN DE BOTTON Despite the best efforts of critics and the hopes of authors, our tastes in books are probably as in... ALAIN DE BOTTON We would like to go and see the field that Millet…shows us in his Springtime, we would like Claude... ALAIN DE BOTTON Our feelings of anxiety are genuine but confused signals that something is amiss, and so need to be ... ALAIN DE BOTTON Paying tax should be framed as a glorious civic duty worthy of gratitude - not a punishment for maki... ALAIN DE BOTTON It was no longer her absence that wounded me, but my growing indifference to it. Forgetting, however... ALAIN DE BOTTON Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is someone there to see us existing, we c... ALAIN DE BOTTON Every fall into love involves the triumph of hope over self-knowledge. We fall in love hoping we won... ALAIN DE BOTTON Nature puts us all in our places. Being made to feel small isn't something we welcome when it's done... ALAIN DE BOTTON in Flaubert’s eyes, that only entirely illiterate and uneducated Frenchmen now stood a chance of b... ALAIN DE BOTTON A clean conscience is the preserve of those without sufficient imagination. ALAIN DE BOTTON Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself. ALAIN DE BOTTON But we would do well to meditate daily, rather as the religious do on their God, on the 9.5 trillion... ALAIN DE BOTTON To a shameful extent, the charm of marriage boils down to how unpleasant it is to be alone. This isn... ALAIN DE BOTTON One of the best protections against disappointment is to have a lot going on. ALAIN DE BOTTON What kills us isn't one big thing, but thousands of tiny obligations we can't turn down for fear of ... ALAIN DE BOTTON Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books written bec... ALAIN DE BOTTON It is precisely when we hear little from our partner which frightens, shocks, or sickens us that we ... ALAIN DE BOTTON Unrequited love may be painful, but it is safely painful, because it does not involve inflicting dam... ALAIN DE BOTTON It's clear to me that there is no good reason for many philosophy books to sound as complicated as t... ALAIN DE BOTTON Jarenlang kwam ik bij het boodschappen doen langs een huis dat weliswaar een van de lelijkste gebouw... ALAIN DE BOTTON Snobbery exists in all areas of life, not least literary criticism. By snobbery I mean, any method o... ALAIN BOTTON Kant and Hegel are interesting thinkers. But I am happy to insist that they are also terrible writer... ALAIN BOTTON I passionately believe that's it's not just what you say that counts, it's also how you say it - tha... ALAIN BOTTON I am in general a very pessimistic person with an optimistic, day-to-day take on things. The bare fa... ALAIN BOTTON