It seems, in fact, that the more advanced a society is, the greater will be its interest in ruined things, for it will see in them a redemptively sobering reminder of the fragility of its own achievements. Ruins pose a direct challenge to our concern with power and rank, with bustle and fame. They puncture the inflated folly of our exhaustive and frenetic pursuit of wealth.

Kant and Hegel are interesting thinkers. But I am happy to insist that they are also terrible writers.

If optimism is important, it's because many outcomes are determined by how much of it we bring to the task. It is an important ingredient of success. This flies in the face of the elite view that talent is the primary requirement of a good life, but in many cases the difference between success and failure is determined by nothing more than our sense of what is possible and the energy we can muster to convince others of our due. We might be doomed not by a lack of skill, but by an absence of hope!

Being content is perhaps no less easy than playing the violin well: and requires no less practice.

I learnt to stop fantasising about the perfect job or the perfect relationship because that can actually be an excuse for not living.

As victims of hurt, we frequently don't bring up what ails us, because so many wounds look absurd in the light of day.

Pegging your contentment to the overall state of the world rather than of your own life: the basis of morality, or a sort of madness?