Pastime Quotes - Page 6

• In this poor body, composed of one hundred bones and nine openings, is something called spirit, a flimsy curtain swept this way and that by the slightest breeze. It is spirit, such as it is, which led me to poetry, at first little more than a pastime, then the full business of my life. There have been times when my spirit, so dejected, almost gave up the quest, other times when it was proud, triumphant. So it has been from the very start, never finding peace with itself, always doubting the worth of what it makes.

  Matsuo Basho

  Writing, Poetry, Doubt

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• You must not think
  That we are made of stuff so fat and dull
  That we can let our beard be shook with danger
  And think it pastime.

  William Shakespeare

  Courage, Thinking, Dull

  William Shakespeare (1850). “Apophthegms from the plays of Shakespeare, by C. Lyndon”, p.16

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• There is continual spring, and harvest there Continual, both meeting at one time: For both the boughs do laughing blossoms bear, And with fresh colours deck the wanton prime, And eke attonce the heavy trees they climb, Which seem to labour under their fruits load: The whiles the joyous birds make their pastime Amongst the shady leaves, their sweet above, And their true loves without suspicion tell abroad.

  Edmund Spenser

  Sweet, Time, Spring

  1590 Of the Garden of Adonis. The Faerie Queen, bk.3, canto 6, stanza 42.

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• The signs of excessive indulgence in this destructive pastime are easily detectable. They are these: A disposition to eat, to drink, to smoke, to meet together convivially, to laugh, to joke, and tell indelicate stories— and mainly, a yearning to paint pictures.

  Mark Twain

  Laughing, Together, Stories

  Mark Twain (1992). “Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches & Essays: 1852-1890”, Library of America

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• Fantasy football is actually an amazing American pastime, because it takes the ultimate team sport, NFL and football, and turns it into the quest for individual achievement.

  Jeff Schaffer

  Sports, Football, Team

  Source: deadline.com

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• When I play with my cat, who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me?

  Michel de Montaigne

  Sports, Cat, Play

  "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations" by John Bartlett, 10th ed., 1919.

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• Perhaps the chief cause which has retarded the progress of poetry in America, is the want of that exclusive cultivation, which so noble a branch of literature would seem to require. Few here think of relying upon the exertion of poetic talent for a livelihood, and of making literature the profession of life. The bar or the pulpit claims the greater part of the scholar's existence, and poetry is made its pastime.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Thinking, America, Progress

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, J. D. McClatchy (2000). “Poems and Other Writings”, p.794, Library of America

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• The intellect must not be kept at consistent tension, but diverted by pastimes.... The mind must have relaxation, and will rise stronger and keener after recreation.

  Seneca the Younger

  Relaxation, Mind, Stronger

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• Don't quote me on this, but if they ever manage to ban beer advertising in baseball you can kiss the national pastime goodbye.

  Roger Maris

  Leadership, Sports, Baseball

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• Poetry has never been a favorite American pastime.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Poetry

  Natalie Goldberg (2016). “Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within”, p.75, Shambhala Publications

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• The worst thing you can do is invest in companies you know nothing about. Unfortunately, buying stocks on ignorance is still a popular American pastime.

  Peter Lynch

  Ignorance, Investing, Buying

  Peter Lynch (2012). “Beating the Street”, p.12, Simon and Schuster

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• Not reading poetry amounts to a national pastime here.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Reading, Poetry, Amount

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• The chase is among the best of all national pastimes; it cultivates that vigorous manliness for the lack of which in a nation, as in an individual, the possession of no other qualities can possibly atone.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Quality, Individual, Possession

  Theodore Roosevelt (2000). “Hunting Trips of a Ranchman and The Wilderness Hunter”, p.14, Modern Library

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• The young doctor should look about early for an avocation, a pastime, that will take him away from patients, pills, and potions.

  William Osler

  Doctors, Pills, Looks

  Sir William Osler, Mark E. Silverman, T. J. Murray, Charles S. Bryan, American College of Physicians--American Society of Internal Medicine (2003). “The Quotable Osler”, p.181, ACP Press

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• I'm obsessed with beards. First of all, beards make you look like more of an animal. Second, I kind of like biting beards; it's a pastime of mine.

  Kesha

  Animal, Looks, Biting

  Interview with Matt Diehl, www.interviewmagazine.com. March 19, 2010.

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• Praise and blame alike mean nothing. No, delightful as the pastime of measuring may be, it is the most futile of all occupations, and to submit to the decrees of the measurers the most servile of attitudes.

  Virginia Woolf

  Attitude, Mean, Occupation

  Virginia Woolf (2015). “A Room of One's Own: And Three Guineas”, p.80, Oxford University Press, USA

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• I'm perfectly happy complaining, because it's cathartic, and I'm perfectly happy arguing with people on the Internet because arguing is my favourite pastime - not programming.

  Linus Torvalds

  People, Complaining, Arguing

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• I tend to get comfortable with the dialogue and find out who the person is in the script and try to hit that. People are sort of independent of their occupations and their pastimes. You don't play a politician or a fireman or a cowboy - you just play a person.

  Billy Campbell

  Independent, Cowboy, Play

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• How sometimes nature will betray its folly, Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime To harder bosoms!

  William Shakespeare

  Nature, Weakness, Sometimes

  William Shakespeare (1806). “The Plays of William Shakespeare”, p.176

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• What earthly good is golf? Life is stern and life is earnest. We live in a practical age. All around us we see foreign competition making itself unpleasant. And we spend our time playing golf? What do we get out of it? Is golf any use? That's what I'm asking you. Can you name me a single case where devotion to this pestilential pastime has done a man any practical good?

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Golf, Men, Names

  P. G. Wodehouse (2009). “The Clicking of Cuthbert: Easyread Large Bold Edition”, p.2, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Golf combines two favorite American pastimes: taking long walks and hitting things with a stick.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Golf, Long Walks, Two

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Modern Manners: An Etiquette Book for Rude People”, p.265, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• You are welcome to your intellectual pastimes and books and art and newspapers; welcome, too, to your bars and your whisky that only makes me ill. Here am I in the forest, quite content.

  Knut Hamsun

  Art, Book, Intellectual

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• Baseball is our national pastime, that is if you discount political campaigning.

  Ronald Reagan

  Baseball, Political, Discounts

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• If it's just a pastime, keep doing it because it's relaxing and to blow off some steam. But if you're not sure if you want to do it, or you're thinking you can be famous, you shouldn't do it because you want to be famous. You have to do it because you love it and you want to play for people. And if that's what you want to do, then do it, but you can't go into it with that mindset of "we'll be in a band and we'll be famous."

  Joan Jett

  Thinking, Blow, Play

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• PASTIME, n. A device for promoting dejection. Gentle exercise for intellectual debility.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Exercise, Intellectual, Gentle

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.160, 谷月社

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