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21 " Logically enough, the office and the nunnery have been singularly popular in the imaginations of pornographers. We should not be surprised to learn that the erotic novels of the early modern period were overwhelmingly focused on debauchery and flagellation amongst clergy in vespers and chapels, just as contemporary Internet pornography is inordinately concerned with fellatios and sodomies performed by office workers against a backdrop of work stations and computer equipment. "
― Alain de Botton , The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work
22 " Blind impatience is equally evident in the fruit section. Our ancestors might have delighted in the occasional handful of berries found on the underside of a bush in late summer, viewing it as a sign of the unexpected munificence of a divine creator, but we became modern when we gave up on awaiting sporadic gifts from above and sought to render any pleasing sensation immediately and repeatedly available. "
23 " Let death find us as we are building up our matchstick protests against its waves. "
24 " It is surely significant that the adults who feature in children's books are rarely, if ever, Regional Sales Managers or Building Services Engineers. "
25 " The true nature of bureaucracy may be nowhere more obvious to the observer than in a developing country, for only there will it still be made manifest by the full complement of documents, files, veneered desks and cabinets - which convey the strict and inverse relationship between productivity and paperwork. "
26 " It seems easier to respond to our enthusiasms by trading in facts than by investigating the more naive question of how and why we have been moved "
27 " When does a job feel meaningful? Whenever it allows us to generate delight or reduce suffering in others. Though we are often taught to think of ourselves as inherently selfish, the longing to act meaningfully in our work seems just as stubborn a part of our make-up as our appetite for status or money. "
28 " De door alcohol opgewekte gevechten die op zaterdagavonden in provincieplaatsen uitbreken zijn voorspelbare symptomen van onze verbolgenheid over deze vrijheidsberoving. Ze herinneren ons aan de prijs die we betalen voor onze dagelijkse onderwerping aan orde en beleid - en aan de woede die stilletjes aanzwelt achter een gezagsgetrouwe en inschikkelijke façade. "
29 " We gaan in op reusachtige, ongrijpbare collectieve projecten, zodat we ons afvragen wat we vorig jaar deden, sterker nog, waar wij zijn gebleven en wat er van ons geworden is. We zien onze verspilde krachten onder ogen tijdens het pathos van een pensioneringsfeestje. "
30 " Hoe machtig onze technologie en hoe complex onze ondernemingen ook mogen zijn, het opmerkelijkste kenmerk van onze moderne arbeid is uiteindelijk misschien wel iets wat in onszelf zit, een aspect van onze mentaliteit: de wijdverbreide overtuiging dat ons werk ons gelukkig moet maken. "
31 " Onszelf beschouwen als het middelpunt van het heelal, de huidige tijd als het hoogtepunt van de geschiedenis en onze geplande vergaderingen als gebeurtenissen van het grootst mogelijke gewicht, voorbijgaan aan de lessen die begraafplaatsen ons leren, slechts nu en dan een boek lezen, de druk van deadlines voelen, tegen collega's snauwen, ons door conferentieroosters heen werken met vermeldingen als:'11.00 uur tot 11.15 uur: koffiepauze', ons inhalig en zonder scrupules gedragen en ten slotte opbranden in de strijd - misschien is dit alles uiteindelijk de wijsheid die ons werk ons te bieden heeft. "
32 " I found myself wishing that the rest of mankind would follow the engineers' example and agree on a series of symbols which could point incontrovertibly to certain elusive, vaporous and often painful psychological states — a code which might help us feel less tongue-tied and less lonely, and enable us to resolve arguments with swift and silent exchanges of equations. "
33 " How different everything is for the craftsman who transforms a part of the world with his own hands, who can see his work as emanating from his being and can step back at the end of a day or lifetime and point to an object — whether a square of canvas, a chair or a clay jug — and see it as a stable repository of his skills and an accurate record of his years.. "
34 " In denying the natural place reserved for longing and error in the human lot, the bourgeois ideology denies us the possibility of collective consolation for our fractious marriages and our unexploited ambitions, and condemns us instead to solitary feelings or shame and persecution for having stubbornly failed to become who we are. "
35 " For most of human history, the only instrument needed to induce employees to complete their duties energetically and adroitly was the whip.But the rules of employment had to be rewritten with the emergence of tasks whose adequate performance required their protagonists to be a significant degree content, rather than simply terrified or resigned. Once it became evident that someone who was expected to remove brain tumours, draw up binding legal documents or sell condominiums with convincing energy could not profitably be sullen or resentful, morose or angry, the mental well-being of employees commenced to be a supreme object of managerial concern. "
36 " ...the disciplined and sedated authority of the scientist entrusted with the safe management of unfeasible rage "
37 " We might define art as anything which pushes our thoughts in important yet neglected directions. "
38 " Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who theorised that a society would grow wealthy to the extent that its members forfeited general knowledge in favour of fostering individual ability in narrowly constricted fields. "
39 " When does a job feel meaningful? Whenever it allows us to generate delight or reduce suffering in others. "
40 " We had learnt to feel respect for circuit boards and pity and guilt towards glaciers. "