Leisure Quotes - Page 22

• 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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• Love can't flourish in a "society" based on money and meaningless work, but rather requires complete economic, as well as personal, freedom, leisure time and the opportunity to engage in intensely absorbing, emotionally satisfying activities which, when shared with those you respect, lead to deep friendship, but which our "society" provides practically no opportunity to engage in.

  Valerie Solanas

  Opportunity, Our Society, Economic

  Manifesto by Valerie Solanas, 1967.

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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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• It is in general true that in order to create works of art one has to have leisure. On the other hand I think that one needs to experience resistance in a practical sense, and even that which is poignant to bring out what makes easy reading for others. Too much deprivation of course, means death.

  Marianne Moore

  Art, Reading, Mean

  Marianne Moore (1997). “The Selected Letters of Marianne Moore”, Alfred A. Knopf

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• What does competency in the long run mean? It means to all reasonable beings, cleanliness of person, decency of dress, courtesy of manners, opportunities for education, the delights of leisure, and the bliss of giving.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Running, Mean, Opportunity

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1875). “Success and Its Conditions”, p.293

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• From the point of view of the employer, it is in any case simply an item of cost, to be reduced to a minimum if it cannot be eliminated altogether, say, by automation. From the point of view of the workman, it is a "disutility"; to work is to make a sacrifice of one's leisure and comfort, and wages are a kind of compensation for the sacrifice.

  E. F. Schumacher

  Sacrifice, Views, Comfort

  E.F. Schumacher (1975). “Small is Beautiful”

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• although I love a rich life, I hate an overcrowded life. I believe in rumination and lose half the beauty of all things when I am deprived of the time to ruminate.

  Anais Nin

  Time, Hate, Believe

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• People who work hard often work too hard. ... May we learn to honor the hammock, the siesta, the nap and the pause in all its forms.

  Alice Walker

  Work, Naps, People

  Alice Walker (2013). “The Cushion in the Road: Meditation and Wandering as the Whole World Awakens to Being in Harm's Way”, p.146, New Press, The

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• To rove about, musing, that is to say loitering, is, for a philosopher, a good way of spending time.

  Victor Hugo

  Way, Philosopher, Spending Time

  Victor Hugo (1862). “Marius”, p.9

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• It is said that for money you can have everything, but you cannot. You can buy food, but not appetite... fun, but not joy; acquaintances, but not friends; leisure, but not peace. You can have the husk of everything for money, but not the kernel.

  Arne Garborg

  Fun, Food, Joy

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• There can be no education without leisure; and without leisure, education is worthless.

  Sarah Josepha Hale

  Education, Worthless

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• There is no place in the world, I imagine, for a philosopher with a sense of humor, a new leisure, and an inquiring turn of mind!

  Mary Roberts Rinehart

  Philosophy, Mind, World

  Mary Roberts Rinehart (2013). “The Red Lamp”, p.16, Overamstel Uitgevers

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• Only those who have earned leisure know how to use it profitably.

  Elsa Maxwell

  Use, Know How, Knows

  Elsa Maxwell (1954). “R.S.V.P.: Elsa Maxwell's own story”

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• Leisure, some degree of it, is necessary to the health of every man's spirit.

  Harriet Martineau

  Men, Degrees, Spirit

  Harriet Martineau (1837). “Society in America”, p.124

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• Idleness is righteous if it is comfortable. Uncomfortable idleness is sin & sinful waste.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Waste, Sin, Righteous

  Sylvia Townsend Warner, Claire Harman (1994). “The diaries of Sylvia Townsend Warner”, Virago Pr

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• I have no leisure to think of style or of polish, or to select the best language, the best English - no time to shine as an authoress. I must just think aloud, so as not to keep the public waiting.

  Isabel Burton

  Thinking, Shining, Waiting

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• Jupiter has no leisure to attend to little things.

  Ovid

  Jupiter, Littles, Little Things

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