This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus
Be not dilatory in doing, nor confused in conversation, nor vague in thought; leave thyself leisure in thy life.
Character | Conversation | Leisure | Life | Life | Thought |
Herbert Hoover, fully Herbert Clark Hoover
The moral and spiritual forces of our country do not lose ground in the hours we are busy on our jobs; their battle is the leisure time. We are organizing the production of leisure. We need better organization of its consumption.
Battle | Better | Character | Leisure | Need | Organization | Time |
Temptation rarely comes in working hours. It is in their leisure time that men are made or marred.
Character | Leisure | Men | Temptation | Time |
Employ thy time well if thou meanest to gain leisure; and since thou art not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour. Leisure is time for doing something useful, and this leisure the diligent man will obtain, but the lazy man never, for a life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things.
Art | Laziness | Leisure | Life | Life | Man | Time | Will | Wisdom | Art |
To devote a portion of one's leisure to doing something for someone else is one of the highest forms of recreation.
Leisure | Recreation | Wisdom |
Every person in the world may not become a personage. But every person may become a personality. The happiest people are those who think the most interesting thoughts. Interesting thoughts can live only in cultivated minds. Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development, who love good music, good books, good pictures, good plays at the theater, good company, good conversation - what are they? They are the happiest people in the world; and they are not only happy in themselves, they are the cause of happiness in others.
Books | Cause | Conversation | Good | Happy | Leisure | Love | Means | Music | People | Personality | Wisdom | World | Happiness | Think |
The men who are really busiest have the most leisure for everything.
John Piper, fully John Stephen Piper
Idleness and the incapacity for leisure correspond with one another; leisure is the contrary of both. Leisure is only possible to a man who is at one with himself and also at one with the world. These are the presuppositions of leisure, for leisure is an affirmation. Idleness, on the other hand, is rooted in the omission of these two affirmations.
Scipio Africanus, fully Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus
I'm never less at leisure than when at leisure, or less alone than when alone.
Nathalie Sarraute, fully Nathalie Tcherniak Sarraute
Today, thanks to technical progress, the radio and television, to which we devote so many of the leisure hours once spent listening to parlor chatter and parlor music, have succeeded in lifting the manufacture of banality out of the sphere of handicraft and placed it in that of a major industry.
Industry | Leisure | Listening | Music | Progress | Television | Wisdom |