Tom Hodgkinson Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• One of the least arduous but most productive of gardening jobs, the magic of deadheading never fails to delight me. It was a revelation when the principle was explained to me: that flowers are the attempt by the plant to reproduce itself. So if you cut the heads off before the flower turns into seeds, the plant will continue to flower.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Jobs, Flower, Cutting

  "The best things in life are..." by Tom Hodgkinson, www.theguardian.com. January 6, 2007.

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• Idleness allows you to turn a situation from boredom to pleasure.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Boredom, Pleasure, Situation

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• Faffing is good. It is an important part of life. Faffing is when we disconnect from the matrix and idle for a while, like a car. Our body and spirit know deep down that human beings were not made for constant toil so subconsciously creates space through the mechanism of faffing.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Space, Car, Important

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

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• 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

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• I originally welcomed the mobile phone as it seemed to me that it would enable you to work from anywhere. On the mobile, who was to know if you were sitting on the branch of a tree or sitting in an office? But it instead had the opposite effect: instead of freeing us from the office, it allowed the office to take away our freedom.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Phones, Opposites, Office

  "Idle thoughts" by Tom Hodgkinson, www.theguardian.com. June 9, 2006.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• These days we seem more bound to our bosses than ever before. We even identify our own selves with the jobs we do: "What do you do?" is the first question we ask each other at parties, as if a job title could express a fundamental truth about our personality.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Jobs, Party, Self

  "Idle thoughts" by Tom Hodgkinson, www.theguardian.com. June 23, 2006.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• The best thing that can happen to anybody is to be sacked or made redundant because often that's when you think, "I don't want to become one of the living dead. I haven't got anything to lose, now I can start to follow my own dreams."

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Dream, Thinking, Want

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

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• The accusation 'unprofessional' means 'You did not behave like a machine today.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Mean, Machines, Today

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

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• I would like to propose slow cycling. Commute by bike. At a stroke, you remove the need for and absurd cost of public transport. Cycling is almost completely free. There is no longer any need for the gym as you get fit by cycling. And you can go at your own pace.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Cycling, Needs, Cost

  "Idle thoughts" by Tom Hodgkinson, www.theguardian.com. February 11, 2006.

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• Being good to people is the only insurance policy you need.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  People, Needs, Be Good

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• There's nothing new about anti-work philosophy. History is dotted with individuals and groups who decided that laziness was next to godliness and work was a waste of time.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Philosophy, Groups, Laziness

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

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• The terrible thing about the internet and Amazon is that they take the magic and happy chaos out of book shopping. The internet might give you what you want, but it won't give you what you need.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Book, Shopping, Giving

  "The best things in life are..." by Tom Hodgkinson, www.theguardian.com. January 6, 2007.

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• If you look at the literature of the 19th century, you get things like Kafka and Dostoevsky, who basically write about feeling bored and alienated. That's because we lost contact with the important things in life like work that you enjoy, or the garden, nature, your family and friends.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Writing, Garden, Things In Life

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

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• Often, the things that a lot of work has gone into have been incredibly bad because they're over-worked.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Gone, Has Beens

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

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• Part of this individualism is you feel this pressure that you alone have to conquer the world, and if you don't work all the hours God gives then you start feeling really guilty. If you can stop feeling guilty, then I think it's easier to start doing what you want to do.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Thinking, Conquer The World, Giving

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

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• Guilt is also a way for us to express to others that we are a person of good conscience. 'I feel really guilty about getting drunk last night,' we say, when in actual fact we feel no guilt whatsoever or, at least, we could choose to feel no guilt. When people say to me, 'I drank too much last night,' I always reply, 'I drank exactly the right amount.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Night, Drunk, People

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

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• The reason laziness is rarely pushed as a lifestyle option is down to one simple reason: money. There are fortunes to be made out of active lifestyles. Gyms charge fees. But no one is going to make money out of sleep. It is free.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Sleep, Simple, Laziness

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

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• Faffing of course does not fit the programme. We are supposed to be busy, productive citizens.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Doe, Citizens, Busy

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

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• Writing a book is a brilliant thing because once you've finished it, you've done it, and there's the potential for it to go on earning you a living without you doing any more work on it. It's absolutely ideal for an idler.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Book, Writing, Idlers

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

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