Religion for Atheists – Alain de Botton

It seems to know that we strive to be powerful chiefly because we are afraid of what will happen to us without high rank: we risk being stripped of dignity, being patronized, lacking friends and having to spend our days in coarse and dispiriting surroundings. P33

We have grown sick from being left to do as we please without sufficient wisdom to exploit our liberty. P77

To judge by what they do rather than what they airily declaim, universities are in the business of turning out a majority of tightly focused professionals (lawyers, physicians, engineers) and a minority of culturally well-informed but ethically confused arts graduates aptly panicked about how they might remuneratively occupy the rest of their lives. P104

that we have within us a precious, childlike, vulnerable core which we should nourish and nurture on its turbulent journey through life. P114