Part 3, 1974 - 1979 Victory And Defeat, p. 189
Memoirs (1993)
“Workers were occupied with the ancient task of trying to stay alive, which simply happened to require, in a consumer economy overwhelmingly based on the satisfaction of peripheral desires, a series of activities all to easily confused with clownishness.”
Source: The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2009), p. 97.
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Alain de Botton 146
Swiss writer 1969Related quotes
'Two Essays on Theodore Roethke'
Essays and reviews, As Of This Writing (2003)
Book 1, Chapter 39
Discourses on Livy (1517)
Context: Anyone who studies present and ancient affairs will easily see how in all cities and all peoples there still exist, and have always existed, the same desires and passions. Thus, it is an easy matter for him who carefully examines past events to foresee future events in a republic and to apply the remedies employed by the ancients, or, if old remedies cannot be found, to devise new ones based upon the similarity of the events. But since these matters are neglected or not understood by those who read, or, if understood, remain unknown to those who govern, the result is that the same problems always exist in every era.
Source: The Secret of Childhood (1936), Ch. 23
1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), Stump Orator (May 1, 1850)