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41 " The Germans, always a proficient people in the coining of compound words, invented the term Ruinenlust to describe this new passion. 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. "
― Alain de Botton , The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work
42 " However, any sadness we might feel about the demise of the generalist can be offset by the recognition that our age offers us access to unimpeachable masters of specific trades, for example, the storage of bitumen or the construction of ship-loading conveyors – in itself as comforting as the thought that there exist professors of medicine concentrated solely on the workings of human liver enzymes, or that at any time, several hundred scholars across the world are investigating nothing but the later Merovingian period of Frankish history, writing up their findings for the Zeitschrift für Archäologie des Mittelalters, an academic journal published by the humanities department at the University of Tübingen. "
43 " What renders the ships and ports invisible is an unwarranted prejudice which deems it peculiar to express overly powerful feelings of admiration towards a gas tanker or a paper mill – or indeed towards almost any aspect of the labouring world. "
44 " What makes the prospect of death distinctive in the modern age is the background of permanent technological and sociological revolution against which it is set, and which serves to strip us of any possible faith in the permanence of our labours. Our ancestors could believe that their achievements had a chance of bearing up against the flow of events. "
45 " All societies have had work at their centre; ours is the first to suggest that it could be something much more than a punishment or a penance. Ours is the first to imply that we should seek to work even in the absence of a financial imperative. Our choice of occupation is held to define our identity to the extent that the most insistent question we ask of new acquaintances is not where they come from or who their parents were but what they do, the assumption being that the route to a meaningful existence must invariably pass through the gate of remunerative employment. "
46 " To look at the paper is to raise a seashell to one’s ear and to be overwhelmed by the roar of humanity. "
47 " The start of work means the end to freedom, but also to doubt, intensity and wayward desires. "
48 " excellence and, ‘if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat’. "
49 " But perhaps he speaks like this not so much because he wishes to keep secrets as because years of circumnavigating the earth, breathing conditioned air and headlining conferences, have hollowed out his personality. It may have been a decade since he was left alone in a room with nothing to do. I feel my boredom turn to pity for someone who one might otherwise imagine had precious little to be pitied for. "
50 " Office civilisation could not be feasible without the hard take-offs and landings effected by coffee and alcohol. "
51 " Epoca de dinaintea apariției științei, oricâte cusururi ar fi avut, cel puțin le oferise reprezentanților ei liniștea sufletească ce decurge din faptul că știi că toate realizările omenești nu înseamnă nimic prin comparație cu splendoarea Universului. Mai binecuvântați când vine vorba despre înzestrări tehnice, dar mai puțin smeriți ca atitudine mentală, noi am fost lăsați să ne luptăm cu sentimente de invidie, de angoasă și de aroganță ce decurg din faptul că nu avem la dispoziție un depozitar al venerației mai fascinant decât semenii noștri geniali, exacți, dotați cu semnalizatoare și neliniștitori. "
52 " The alcohol-inspired fights that break out in market towns on Saturday evenings are predictable symptoms of fury at our incarceration. They are a reminder of the price we pay for our daily submission at the altars of prudence and order — and of the rage that silently accumulates beneath a uniquely law-abiding and compliant surface. "
53 " 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. It is because we are meaning-focused animals.. "
54 " But we should be wary of restricting the idea of meaningful work too tightly, of focusing only on the doctors, the nuns of Kolkata or the Old Masters. There can be less exalted ways to contribute to the furtherance of the collective good and it seems that making a perfectly formed stripey chocolate circle which helps to fill an impatient stomach in the long morning hours between nine o'clock and noon may deserve its own secure, if microscopic, place in the pantheon of innovations designed to alleviate the burdens of existence. "
55 " ...what effacement of the individual ego, a life in science now entailed. "
56 " We require such 'sensuous' arts, Hegel suggested, because many important truths will impress themselves upon our consciousness only if they have been moulded from sensory, emotive material. "
57 " The great works of art have about them the quality of a reminder. "
58 " Critical to both our imaginative impoverishment and our practical enrichment is the field of endeavour known as logistics, a name rooted in the Ancient Greek military figure of the logistikos or quartermaster, who was once responsible for supplying an army with food and weaponry. "
59 " The field seems to require a painfully uncommon synthesis of imagination and realism. "
60 " That fish taken out of the water several continents away could in a matter of hours be here in a warehouse in Northamptonshire is evidence of nothing short of logistical genius, based on a complex interplay of technology, managerial discipline and legal and economic standardisation. "