It seems that most of us could benefit from a brush with a near-fatal disaster to help us recognise the important things that we are too defeated or … - Alain de Botton

What we find exotic abroad may be what we hunger for in vain at home.

I gladly come back to the theme of the absurdity of our education: its end has not been to make us good and wise, but learned. And it has succeeded. It has not taught us to seek virtue and to embrace wisdom: it has impressed upon us their derivation and their etymology … We readily inquire, ‘Does he know Greek or Latin?’ ‘Can he write poetry and prose?’ But what matters most is what we put last: ‘Has he become better and wiser?’ We ought to find out not who understands most but who understands best. We work merely to fill the memory, leaving the understanding and the sense of right and wrong empty.

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