"Two centuries ago, our forbears would have known the precise history and origin of nearly every one of the limited number of things they ate and owned, as well as of the people and tools involved in their production. … The range of items available for purchase may have grown exponentially since then. but our understanding of their genesis has diminished almost to the point of obscurity. We are now as imaginatively disconnected from the manufacture and distribution of our goods as we are practically in reach of them, a process of alienation which has stripped us of myriad opportunities for wonder, gratitude and guilt."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
University of Cambridge alumniTelevision personalitiesNon-fiction authorsFellows of the Royal Society of LiteraturePeople from Zürich
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
p. 35.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alain_de_Botton
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Alain de Botton
63 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Alain de Botton →
Related Quotes
"It would scarcely be acceptable, for example, to ask in the course of an ordinary conversation what our society holds…"
"It wasn't only fanatics and drunkards who began conversations with strangers in public."
"Deciding to avoid other people does not necessarily equate with having no desire whatsoever for company; it may simpl…"
"Life is near-death experience."
"I think where people tend to end up results from a combination of encouragement, accident, and lucky break, etc. etc.…"
"This ideal University of Life … would never take the importance of culture for granted. It would know that culture is…"
"Socrates compared living without thinking systematically to practicing an activity like pottery or shoemaking without…"
"There may be no good reason for things to be the way they are."
"It is by finding out what something is not that one comes closest to understanding what it is."
"Philosophy had supplied Socrates with convictions in which he had been able to have rational, as opposed to hysterica…"