35 quotes found
Writer · British
British writer
“Career is just posh slavery.”
“All of our technology is completely unnecessary to a happy life”
“All of our technology is completely unnecessary to a happy life.”
“The art of living is the art of bringing dreams and reality together.”
“Idleness for me is not a giving up on life but a spirited grabbing hold of it.”
“Pain will never leave us. Instead of putting energy into destroying pain, we need to put energy into creating pleasure.”
“Our dreams take us into other worlds, alternative realities that help us make sense of day-to-day realities.”
“In a world where you are constantly asked to be 'committed,' it is liberating to give yourself the license to be a dilettante. Commit to nothing. Try everything.”
“...[W]e should be mucking about all the time, because mucking about is enjoying life for its own sake, now, and not in preparation for an imaginary future. It's obvious that the mirth-filled man, t...”
“If Adam and Eve were not hunter-gatherers, then they were certainly gatherers. But, then, consumer desire, or self-embitterment, or the 'itch,' as Schopenhauer called it, appeared in the shape of t...”
“Labour-saving devices just make us try to cram more pointless activities into each day, rather than doing the important thing, which is to enjoy our life.”
“A conclusion Ive come to at the Idler is that it starts with retreating from work but its really about making work into something that isnt drudgery and slavery, and then work and life can become o...”
“Therefore, the idle parent who wants to stop the whining needs to stop whining himself, and one way is to resist the call to work ever longer and harder hours. Throw your BlackBerry into the river....”
“Life has been reduced to a series of long periods of boredom in the office punctuated by high-octane experiences which you can rack up on your list of things to do before you die. Thats not really ...”
“Computers tend to separate us from each other - Mum's on the laptop, Dad's on the iPad, teenagers are on Facebook, toddlers are on the DS, and so on.”
“We no longer sing and dance. We don't know how to. Instead, we watch other people sing and dance on the television screen. Christmas, which was once a festival of active enjoyment, has turned into ...”
“Festivals are fun for kids, fun for parents and offer a welcome break from the stresses of the nuclear family. The sheer quantities of people make life easier: loads of adults for the adults to tal...”
“Being lazy does not mean that you do not create. In fact, lying around doing nothing is an important, nay crucial, part of the creative process. It is meaningless bustle that actually gets in the w...”
“Laziness works. And the simple way to incorporate its health benefits into your life is simply to take a nap.”
“Beauty, pleasure, freedom and plenty of sleep: these are the hallmarks of a successful idler's break. Travel should not be hard work.”
“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 ...”
“I could happily lean on a gate all the livelong day, chatting to passers-by about the wind and the rain. I do a lot of gate-leaning while I am supposed to be gardening; instead of hoeing, I lean on...”