Tom Hodgkinson Quotes

Quotes about:

• The art of living is the art of bringing dreams and reality together.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Dream, Art, Maturity

  47 Copy quote

• In a world where you are constantly asked to be 'committed,' it is liberating to give yourself the license to be a dilettante. Commit to nothing. Try everything.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Giving, Trying, World

  Tom Hodgkinson (2006). “How to be Free”

  38 Copy quote

• Being lazy does not mean that you do not create. In fact, lying around doing nothing is an important, nay crucial, part of the creative process. It is meaningless bustle that actually gets in the way of productivity. All we are really saying is, give peace a chance.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Lying, Mean, Giving

  "Idle thoughts" by Tom Hodgkinson, www.theguardian.com. August 18, 2006.

  18 Copy quote

• We bore ourselves in order to earn money that we'll later spend on trying to de-bore ourselves

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Order, Trying, Bores

  6 Copy quote

• Laziness works. And the simple way to incorporate its health benefits into your life is simply to take a nap.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Simple, Naps, Benefits

  "Live lazy, live long - look at Britain's oldest man" by Tom Hodgkinson, www.theguardian.com. November 5, 2012.

  7 Copy quote

• Life is becoming no more than staring at the screen.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Becoming, Life Is, Staring

  4 Copy quote

• In the West, we have become addicted to work. Americans now work the longest hours in the world. And the result is not health, wealth and wisdom, but rather a lot of anxiety, a lot of ill health and a lot of debt.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Ill Health, Anxiety, Debt

  Tom Hodgkinson (2013). “How to Be Idle: A Loafer's Manifesto”, p.11, Harper Collins

  8 Copy quote

• Guilt is also a way for us to express to others that we are a person of good conscience.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Guilt, Way, Persons

  Tom Hodgkinson (2006). “How to be Free”

  10 Copy quote

• Self-importance is a trap, because the moment we start to think that we actually matter is the moment when things start to go wrong. The truth is that you are supremely unimportant and nothing matters. All of man's striving is for nothing; all effort is wasted. To realize that everything is meaningless is tremendously liberating, since it then leaves us completely free to create our own lives and ignore the plans that others have for us.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Men, Thinking, Self

  12 Copy quote

• We think we have to work because the advertising industry has elevated wants into needs. The newspapers and the television batter us incessantly with the latest "must-haves", whether that's shoes, videogames or patio heaters. As a result, mums think they "have" to work at Tesco in order to buy expensive trainers.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Thinking, Order, Shoes

  "Idle thoughts" by Tom Hodgkinson, www.theguardian.com. July 1, 2006.

  9 Copy quote

• We have an idea that if something we're doing isn't actually earning money, or spending it, then it's completely worthless. But if you start to work less, you can actually start to give more to society, but on a local level.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Ideas, Giving, Levels

  "How To Be Idle: An Interview with Tom Hodgkinson". Interview with Katie Renz, www.motherjones.com. June 8, 2005.

  7 Copy quote

• In both word and deed, one of the greatest idlers of all time was John Lennon. In his songs we see repeated defences of simply lying around doing nothing.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Song, Lying, Idlers

  "Idle thoughts" by Tom Hodgkinson, www.theguardian.com. August 18, 2006.

  7 Copy quote

• The idea of a government is to create an ordered, willing work force where there's no trouble. I think idlers are generally seen as potentially dangerous because they're asking questions.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Thinking, Asking Questions, Government

  "How To Be Idle: An Interview with Tom Hodgkinson". Interview with Katie Renz, www.motherjones.com. June 8, 2005.

  9 Copy quote

• Little things like making clothes, baking bread, cooking, even useless things like bird-watching, sketching flowers, playing guitar in the home - that sort of time is gone. And the time we have? We're so exhausted, we want to let ourselves get sucked in to the escape world of TV. I'm speaking from experience; I'm not above all this.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Flower, Home, Guitar

  "How To Be Idle: An Interview with Tom Hodgkinson". Interview with Katie Renz, www.motherjones.com. June 8, 2005.

  7 Copy quote

• Life has been reduced to a series of long periods of boredom in the office punctuated by high-octane "experiences" which you can rack up on your list of things to do before you die. That's not really living: that is slavery with the occasional circus thrown in.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Boredom, Office, Long

  Tom Hodgkinson (2011). “Brave Old World: A Month-by-Month Guide to Husbandry, or the Fine Art of Looking After Yourself”, p.16, Penguin UK

  4 Copy quote

• Beauty feeds us. Anarchy is beauty. We are against the grey people. We want to decorate, like those fantastic Indian lorries which are covered with flowers. Beauty must conquer the lust for order; order is ugliness.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Flower, Order, People

  4 Copy quote

• Truly, the bench is a boon to idlers. Whoever first came up with the idea is a genius: free public resting places where you can take time out from the bustle and brouhaha of the city, and simply sit and watch and reflect.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Cities, Ideas, Watches

  "Idle thoughts" by Tom Hodgkinson, www.theguardian.com. February 3, 2006.

  16 Copy quote

• Indolence of course is an absolutely crucial part of the creative process: you do not find poets sitting in rows in cavernous word factories, staring at screens. They are rather to be found lolling on the sofa or strolling through the groves, nursing their melancholic temperaments and losing themselves in extended reveries.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Nursing, Creative, Sitting

  "A lack of elegy" by Tom Hodgkinson, www.theguardian.com. November 7, 2006.

  4 Copy quote

• The siesta provides a delightful detour from the working day and it also has a practical value as far as productivity is concerned. Winston Churchill had a good long siesta every day during the second world war and he said it was the thing that enabled him to cope with the pressure.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  War, Long, World

  "Idle thoughts" by Tom Hodgkinson, www.theguardian.com. July 28, 2006.

  7 Copy quote

• Management gurus in general are, I think, best avoided. All too often they reduce your working life to a list of rules to be followed. Targets are aimed at. Goals kicked at. You then break the rules or forget them and, hey presto, you start beating yourself up.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Thinking, Goal, Target

  "Idle thoughts" by Tom Hodgkinson, www.theguardian.com. May 19, 2006.

  4 Copy quote

• Faffing is completely harmless, whereas its opposite - dynamic, purposeful activity - is often very harmful. Faffers do not tend to kill people or make them work 12-hour days or sell them shoddy merchandise or lend them vast sums of money that they cannot pay back.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Opposites, People, Pay

  "The joy of simply faffing around" by Tom Hodgkinson, www.theguardian.com. August 12, 2008.

  4 Copy quote

• By taking out a loan, I am committing myself to years of interest repayments, and therefore to years of wage slavery. And the UK has been borrowing like crazy since 1694, when the Bank of England was invented. This means that we are locked into high taxation to pay for 300 years of wars and other costly and generally disastrous state enterprises.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Crazy, War, Mean

  "Ideas for modern living: usury" by Tom Hodgkinson, www.theguardian.com. April 3, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

• We have to wonder whether digital technology, rather than making it easier to communicate, is actually doing the opposite. We now sit alone at a keyboard, firing off zeros and ones into the ether. Offices are silent.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Technology, Opposites, Office

  "Why I decided to pull the plug on email" by Tom Hodgkinson, www.theguardian.com. March 6, 2007.

  4 Copy quote

• To me there is no more depressing sight than a five-year-old staring at a screen, unsmiling, mouse in hand. Besides whatever dreadful things this prolonged exposure to screens is doing to their brains, computer games tend to be solitary affairs, and produce little laughter.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Depressing, Laughter, Sight

  "The joy of traditional games" by Tom Hodgkinson, www.theguardian.com. December 10, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

• We need to claim lunch back. It is our natural right. It has been stolen from us by our rulers. The fear that keeps you chained to your desk, staring at your screen, does not serve your spirit. Lunch is a time to forget about being sensible, practical, efficient. A proper lunch should be spiritually as well as physically nourishing. Cosy, convivial, a treat; lunch is for loafers.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Lunch, Doe, Needs

  Tom Hodgkinson (2007). “How to be Idle”, p.68, Penguin UK

  7 Copy quote

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