Leisure Quotes - Page 19

• Blest leisure is our curse; like that of Cain, It, makes us wander, wander earth around, To fly that tyrant Thought. As Atlas groan'd The world beneath, we groan beneath an hour.

  Edward Young

  Tyrants, Atlas, Cain

  Edward Young (1821). “Night Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality”, p.25

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• This is very important -- to take leisure time. Pace is the essence. Without stopping entirely and doing nothing at all for great periods, you're gonna lose everything...just to do nothing at all, very, very important. And how many people do this in modern society? Very few. That's why they're all totally mad, frustrated, angry and hateful.

  Charles Bukowski

  Essence, People, Mad

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• Not that the moderns are born with more wit than their predecessors, but, finding the world better furnished at their coming into it, they have more leisure for new thoughts, more light to direct them, and more hints to work upon.

  Jeremy Collier

  Light, Culture, Hints

  Jeremy Collier (1728). “Essays upon several moral subjects”, p.70

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• nothing like a few restful weeks contemplating the decline of civilization to restore the humors. What I did on my summer vacation was listen to a lot of people talk about the decline of practically everything - you could call it the leisure of the theory class.

  Molly Ivins

  Summer, Vacation, Civilization

  Molly Ivins (2010). “You Got to Dance with Them What Brung You”, p.200, Vintage

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• A plongeur is a slave, and a wasted slave, doing stupid and largely unnecessary work. He is kept at work, ultimately, because of a vague feeling that he would be dangerous if he had leisure. And educated people, who should be on his side, acquiesce in the process, because they know nothing about him and consequently are afraid of him.

  George Orwell

  Fear, Stupid, People

  George Orwell (2012). “Down and Out in Paris and London”, p.86, Lulu.com

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• The quasi-peaceable gentleman of leisure, then, not only consumes of the staff of life beyond the minimum required for subsistence and physical efficiency, but his consumption also undergoes a specialisation as regards the quality of the goods consumed. He consumes freely and of the best, in food, drink, narcotics, shelter, services, ornaments, apparel, weapons and accoutrements, amusements, amulets, and idols or divinities.

  Thorstein Veblen

  Idols, Gentleman, Quality

  Thorstein Veblen (2016). “THE THEORY OF THE LEISURE CLASS: An Economic Study of American Institutions and a Social Critique of Conspicuous Consumption: Development of Institutions That Shape Society and Influence the Livelihood of Citizens: Based on Sociological & Economical Theories of Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Adam Smith and Herbert Spencer”, p.48, e-artnow

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• The influences that have lifted the race to a higher moral level are education, freedom, leisure, the humanizing tendency of a better-supplied and more interesting life. In a word, science and liberalism . . . have accomplished the very things for which religion claims the credit.

  E. Haldeman-Julius

  Race, Interesting, Credit

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• There are branches of learning and education which we must study merely with a view to leisure spent in intellectual activity, and these are to be valued for their own sake; whereas those kinds of knowledge which are useful in business are to be deemed necessary, and exist for the sake of other things.

  Aristotle

  Education, Views, Intellectual

  Aristotle, (2016). “Aristotle's Politics: Writings from the Complete Works: Politics, Economics, Constitution of Athens”, p.214, Princeton University Press

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• For the classics philosophical insight was the product of a life of leisure; for me a life of leisure is the product of philosophical insight.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Philosophical, Insight, Products

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2010). “The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms”, p.84, Random House

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• Destroy our leisure and you break love's bow.

  Ovid

  Love, Bows, Break

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• Letters form a by-path of literature, a charming, but occasional, retreat for people of cultivated leisure.

  Agnes Repplier

  People, Letters, Path

  Agnes Repplier (1904). “Compromises”

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• Passing too eagerly upon a provocation loses the guard and lays open the body; calmness and leisure and deliberation do the business much better.

  Jeremy Collier

  Body, Retribution, Passing

  Jeremy Collier (1720). “Essays Upon Several Moral Subjects: Part III. ... By Jeremy Collier, M.A.”, p.31

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• Jupiter has no leisure to attend to little things.

  Ovid

  Jupiter, Littles, Little Things

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• You men out there probably think you already know how to dress for success. You know, for example, that you should not wear leisure suits or white plastic belts and shoes, unless you are going to a costume party disguised as a pig farmer vacationing at Disney World.

  Dave Barry

  Humorous, Party, Men

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• The houses of this country (Maharashtra) are exceedingly strong and built solely of stone and iron. The hatchet-men of the Govt. in the course of my marching do not get sufficient strength and power (i.e. time) TO DESTROY AND RAZE THE TEMPLES OF THE INFIDELS that meet the eye on the way. You should appoint an orthodox inspector (darogha) who may afterwards DESTROY THEM AT LEISURE AND DIG UP THEIR FOUNDATIONS

  Aurangzeb

  Country, Strong, Eye

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• The illustrious and noble ought to place before them certain rules and regulations, not less for their hours of leisure and relaxation than for those of business.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Relaxation, Rules And Regulations, Noble

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• In my mind nothing is more abhorrent than a life of ease. None of us has any right to ease. There is no place in civilization for the idler.

  Henry Ford

  Civilization, Mind, Abhorrent

  Henry Ford (2015). “My Life and Work: Top Biography”, p.10, 谷月社

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• True Work is the necessity of poor humanity's earthly condition. The dignity is in leisure. Besides, 99 hundredths of all the work done in the world is either foolish and unnecessary, or harmful and wicked.

  Herman Melville

  Work, Humanity, Wicked

  Herman Melville, Lynn Horth (1993). “Correspondence”, p.464, Northwestern University Press

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• It's not a man's working hours that are important--it's his leisure hours. That's the mistake we all make.

  Agatha Christie

  Mistake, Men, Important

  Agatha Christie (2010). “The Labours of Hercules (Poirot)”, p.7, HarperCollins UK

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• A principal aim of education is to give students a taste for literature, for the books of life and power, and to accomplish this, it is necessary that their minds be held aloof from the babblement and discussions of the hour, that they may accustom themselves to take interest in the words and deeds of the greatest men, and so make themselves able and worthy to shape a larger and nobler future; but if their hours of leisure are spent over journals and reviews, they will, in later years, become the helpless victims of the newspaper habit.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Book, Men, Years

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• There are few things it is more important to learn than how to live on little and be therewith content: for the less we need what is without, the more leisure have we to live within.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Important, Needs, Littles

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• I intend to discuss some perplexing issues which are raised once we embrace the hypothesis that society can be deschooled; to search for criteria which may help us distinguish institutions which merit development because they support learning in a deschooled milieu; and to clarify those personal goals which would foster the advent of an Age of Leisure (schole) as opposed to an economy dominated by service industries.

  Ivan Illich

  Issues, Goal, Support

  "Deschooling Society". Book by Ivan Illich, 1971.

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• What shelter to grow ripe is ours? What leisure to grow wise?

  Matthew Arnold

  Wise, Shelter, Grows

  Matthew Arnold (1994). “Dover Beach and Other Poems”, p.34, Courier Corporation

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• Once efficiency is universally accepted as a rule, it becomes an inner compulsion and weighs like a sense of sin, simply because no one can ever be efficient enough, just as no one can ever be virtuous enough. And this new sense of sin only contributes further to the enervation of leisure, for the rich as well as the poor. The difficulty of carrying on a leisure-oriented tradition of culture in a work-oriented society is enough in itself to keep the present crisis in our culture unresolved.

  Clement Greenberg

  Culture, Carrying On, Sin

  "Art and Culture: Critical Essays". Book by Clement Greenberg, pp. 31-32: "The Plight of Culture" (1953), 1961.

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• The fundamental fact in the lives of the poor in most parts of America is that the wages of common labor are far below the benefits of AFDC, Medicaid, food stamps, public housing, public defenders, leisure time and all the other goods and services of the welfare state.

  George Gilder

  America, Benefits, Facts

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