I collect quotations, and keep them here for my own amusement. Here they are:
- “You, as an individual, can decide right now to start listening to that tiny voice inside, the one you've pushed aside for so long, the voice that asks ""how come I have to spend all this time doing all this stuff I don't want to do?"" Somewhere deep inside you, you know that you were meant for greater things; you know that you came to this planet to play, you know that there's a part of you that simply wants to be happy. As soon as you begin to allow this voice in you to speak, you will be guided, you will know what to do. The ""right"" course of action will become clear.”
-- Sarah Nelson - “Isn't it obvious that the whole purpose of machines is to get rid of work? When you get rid of the work necessary for producing basic necessities, you have leisure time for fun or for new and creative explorations and adventures. But, with the characteristic blindness of those who cannot distinguish symbol from reality, we allow our machinery to put people out of work - not in the sense of being at leisure, but in the sense of having no money, and having to accept public welfare.”
-- Alan Watts - “We must begin to question the meaning of work and think about what it means to us personally. We must learn to value our ""unproductive"" work - child care, house work, gardening, conversation, reading, cultural pursuits, art making, musing, day dreaming, napping, ""wasting"" time. All of these are necessary for a civilized society.”
-- Poppy Dixon - “I am a free soul who hates paying attention to things I am not interested in. Consequently, I have rarely been comfortable in the role of "employee.""”
-- Steve Solomon - “Nobody talks more of free enterprise and competition and the best man winning than the man who inherited his fathers store or farm.”
-- C. Wright Mills - “The wisdom of a learned man cometh by the opportunity of leisure: and he that hath little business shall become wise.”
-- Ecclesiasticus (38:24) - “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and to see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I wanted to live deeply and suck all the marrow of life.”
-- Henry David Thoreau - “I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing.”
-- Michel Eyquem de Montaigne - “He is his own best friend, and takes delight in solitude, whereas the man of no virtue or ability is his own worst enemy and is afraid of solitude.”
-- Aristotle - “Wealth is the ability to experience life.”
-- Henry David Thoreau - “Being rich is having money; being wealthy is having time.”
-- Margaret Bonnano - “The question for each man to settle is not what he would do if he had means, time, influence and educational advantages, but what he will do with the things that he has.”
-- Hamilton Wright Mabie - “My trade and my art is living.”
-- Michel Eyquem de Montaigne - “Philosophy is an act of living.”
-- Plutarch - “Art is the proper task of life.”
-- Freidrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - “Life is a Do-It-Yourself project.”
-- Denis Waitley - “Unrest of spirit is the mark of life.”
-- Karl Augustus Menninger - “If I were a physician, I would prescribe a holiday to any patient of mine who considered his work important.”
-- Bertrand Russell (In Praise of Idleness) - “One of the surest signs of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.”
-- Bertrand Russell (In Praise of Idleness) - “It is preoccupation with possessions more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.”
-- Bertrand Russell (In Praise of Idleness) - “Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such a departure as a criticism of themselves.”
-- Bertrand Russell (The Conquest of Happiness) - “One should respect public opinion insofar as it is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond that is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.”
-- Bertrand Russell (The Conquest of Happiness) - “The secret of happiness is this - let your interest be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.”
-- Bertrand Russell (The Conquest of Happiness) - “The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.”
-- Bertrand Russell (Marriage and Morals) - “It is because modern education is so seldom inspired by a great hope that it so seldom achieves great results. The wish to preserve the past rather than the hope of creating the future dominates the minds of those who control the teaching of the young.”
-- Bertrand Russell (The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959)