Quotations about Leisure
FUN is the safety-valve to let off the steam pressure out of the boiler to keep the old thing from busting. ~Josh Billings, revised by H. Montague
If you are losing your leisure, look out, you may be losing your soul. ~Logan Pearsall Smith
A man can never be idle with safety and advantage until he has been so trained by work that he makes his freedom from times and tasks more fruitful than his toil has been. When work has disciplined a man, he may safely be left to himself... ~Hamilton Wright Mabie
It is a missed opportunity not to idle away the few precious moments of life intended for that purpose. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
It was the hour of four in the afternoon, and already in hillside homesteads the day was nearly done. There was everywhere an air of that sweet, old-fashioned leisure which the world has nearly lost. It lingered in the slant sunlight that threw shadows across the winding road... ~Florence Bone (1875–1971), The Morning of To‑Day, 1907
'Fate offers a greater human life to mankind now, a vaster life,' Foxfield went on. 'This is a platitude now. Man can fly, he can travel swiftly to the ends of the earth, see and hear everything that happens about his globe, satisfy all his needs with an ever-diminishing exertion and then, facing a monstrous leisure, find himself superfluous even for his own needs… And there you are!'
I turned conclusively against Foxfield's coming Age of Miserable Leisure. Nothing of that sort is going to happen.
"We are all employed in commerce during the day; but in the evening, voyez vous, nous sommes serieux." These were the words. They were all employed over the frivolous mercantile concerns... during the day; but in the evening they found some hours for the serious concerns of life. I may have a wrong idea of wisdom, but I think that was a very wise remark. ~Robert Louis Stevenson, An Inland Voyage, 1878
All of us, from time to time, need a plunge into freedom and novelty, after which routine and discipline will seem delightful by contrast. ~André Maurois
There isn't much FUN in physic, but a good deal of physic in fun. ~Josh Billings, revised by H. Montague
To the art of working well a civilized race would add the art of playing well. ~George Santayana
God loves an idle rainbow,
No less than labouring seas.
~Ralph Hodgson
HAMMOCK From the Lat. hamus, hook, and Grk. makar, happy. Happiness on hooks. ~Charles Wayland Towne, The Foolish Dictionary, Executed by Gideon Wurdz, Master of Pholly, Doctor of Loquacious Lunacy, etc., 1904
Even in the unsettled state of mind I was in, I almost wished to lie down on one of the benches under the shady gallery, listen to the play of the fountain and the songs of the birds, and to forget myself for a while. ~William W. Russ, "In Perilous Ways," 1898
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. ~Lucius Annaeus Seneca, "On Tranquillity of Mind"
I love old poems, ladies who lived in past times. Life was maybe not easier, but people took time to idle sometime, and mostly they took time admiring a sunrise, the flowers opening their hearts, etc. ~Marie-Ancolie Romanet
In fourteen hundred ninety-two,
Columbus got us all a day off school.
With just three ships he sailed over,
So we could have some me time in October.
~South Park, "Holiday Special," 2017, written by Trey Parker
...any notion of the serious life of leisure, as well as men's taste and capacity to live it, had disappeared. Leisure became entertainment. ~Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind
After about two hours of steady bed rest and television, the world always looks a little better. After about ten hours, it always looks a lot worse. ~The Wonder Years, "The Phone Call," 1988, written by A. Scott Frank
I could have been a doctor, but there were too many good shows on TV. ~Jason Love, jasonlove.com
He enjoys true leisure who has time to improve his soul's estate. ~Henry David Thoreau
He had always been possessed of a leisure which he had nursed and protected, instead of squandering it in vain activities. His carefully guarded hours had been devoted to the cultivation of a fine intelligence and a few judiciously chosen habits; and none of the disturbances common to human experience seemed to have crossed his sky. ~Edith Wharton, "The Eyes," Tales of Men and Ghosts, 1910