Alain de Botton
- The Wisdom of Animals
Animals implicitly mock our self-importance and absorption and so return us to a fairer, more modest sense of our role on the planet. They invite us into a world in which most of the things that obsess us have no significance - which corrects our characteristic over-investment in matters which make only a limited contribution to the essential task of existence: to be kind, to make the most of our talents, to love, and to appreciate.
