Great Throughts Treasury

"To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization." - Arnold J. Toynbee, fully Arnold Joseph Toynbee

"To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level." - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell

"Leisure, though the propertied classes give its name to their own idleness, is not idleness. It is not even a luxury: it is a necessity, and a necessity of the first importance. Some of the most valuable work done in the world has been done at leisure, and never paid for in cash or kind. Leisure any be described as free activity, labor as compulsory activity. Leisure does what it likes: labor does what it must, the compulsion being that of Nature, which in these latitudes leaves men no choice between labor and starvation." - George Bernard Shaw

"The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation... A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell." - George Bernard Shaw

"Nobody can live in society without conventions. The reason why sensible people are as conventional as they can bear to be is that conventionality saves so much time and thought and trouble and social friction of one sort or another that it leaves them much more leisure for freedom than unconventionality does." - George Bernard Shaw

"He enjoys true leisure who has time to improve his soul's estate." - Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau

"What is leisure but opportunity for more complete and entire action?" - Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau

"There can be no high civilization where there is not ample leisure." - Henry Ward Beecher

"If wealth is to be valued because it gives leisure, clearly it would be a mistake to sacrifice leisure in the struggle for wealth." - John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury, 4th Baronet, Sir John Lubbock

"We need science, more and better science, not for its technology, not for leisure, not even for health and longevity, but for the hope of wisdom which our kind of culture must acquire for its survival." - Lewis Thomas

"We do not know a nation until we know its pleasures of life, just as we do not know a man until we know how he spends his leisure. It is when a man ceases to do the things he has to do, and does the things he likes to do, that the character is revealed. It is when the repressions of society and business are gone and when the goads of money and fame and ambition are lifted, and man's spirit wanders where it listeth, that we see the inner man, his real self." - Lin Yutang

"Leisure and the cultivation of human capacities are inextricably interdependent." - Margaret Mead

"Leisure nourishes the body, the mind too feeds upon it." - Ovid, formally Publius Ovidius Naso NULL

"Leisure and solitude are the best effect of riches, because mother of thought. Both are avoided by most rich men, who seek company and business, which are signs of being weary of themselves." - William Temple, fully Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet

"Leisure is the best of all possessions." - Socrates NULL

"The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are the more leisure we have." - William Hazlitt

"A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars. " - Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau

"It has occurred to me that the thing you have, that all men have enough of, is perhaps the thing that you care for the best, and that is your leisure - the leisure you have to think; the leisure you have to be let alone; the leisure you have to throw the plummet into your mind, and sound the depth and dive for things below." - James A. Garfield

"Whether [teaching] contexts come from richness of experience, a restless curiosity, opportunities for leisure and study, or from an education aimed at breadth, they are necessities for affecting the learning of diverse students. " - Kenneth Eble, fully Kenneth Eugene Eble

"The divine purpose of the present information revolution, for instance, which gives an individual unprecedented power and opportunity, is to allow us to share knowledge—spiritual knowledge—with each other, empowering and unifying individuals everywere. We need to use today’s interactive technology not just for business or leisure but to interlink as people – to create a welcome environment for the interaction of our souls, our hearts, our visions." - Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe

"Friendship is a very taxing and arduous form of leisure activity." - Mortimer J. Adler, fully Mortimer Jerome Adler

"My reluctance to enter into religious controversies has never been the result of fear or weakness, however. I may say that I did not start examining my religion only yesterday. Indeed, early on, I recognized it as a duty to examine my opinions and acts, and if, since my youth, I have dedicated my leisure hours to worldly wisdom and the humanities, it was solely with the intention of preparing myself for this necessary [self-] examination. I could have had no other motives for this. In my situation I could not expect the slightest temporal advantage from such studies. I knew well that I could not prosper in worldly affairs in this way. And as for pleasure? Therefore, as you see, had I lacked a sincere belief in my own religion, the result of my inquiries would have made itself visible in a public act. But because [those inquiries] strengthened me in my fathers' [religion], I was able to continue quietly on my way without having to account for my convictions to the world." - Moses Mendelssohn

"In spite of oppressors, in spite of false leaders, in spite of labor's own lack of understanding of its needs, the cause of the worker continues onward. Slowly his hours are shortened, giving him leisure to read and to think. Slowly his standard of living rises to include some of the good and beautiful things of the world. Slowly the cause of his children becomes the cause of all. His boy is taken from the breaker, his girl from the mill. Slowly those who create the wealth of the world are permitted to share it. The future is in labor's strong, rough hands." - Mother Jones, referring to Mary Harris Jones

"Medicine is a strange mixture of speculation and action. We have to cultivate a science and to exercise an art. The calls of science are upon our leisure and our choice the calls of practice are of daily emergence and necessity." - Peter Mere Latham

"If a man has important work, and enough leisure and income to enable him to do it properly, he is in possession of as much happiness as is good for any of the children of Adam." - R. H. Tawney, fully Richard Henry Tawney

"I now realize that education is a last wild effort on the part of the authorities to prevent an overdose of leisure from driving the world mad. Learning is no longer an improver; it is merely the most expensive time-filler the world has ever known." - Quentin Crisp, born Denis Charles Pratt

"He who knows not how to use his leisure has more work than when he is working at work." - Ennius, fully Quintus Ennius NULL

"The challenge of screenwriting is to say much in little and then take half of that little out and still preserve an effect of leisure and natural movement." - Raymond Chandler, fully Raymond Thornton Chandler

"Long toil and short leisure are part of the heavy price we pay for our North American standard of living. It is reputed to be the highest in the world, and so it should be, for it is bought at an inordinate price." - Robertson Davies

"Global environmentalists have said and written enough to leave no doubt that their goal is to destroy the prosperous economies of the world's richest nations." - Russell Kirk

"We make Idols of our concepts, but Wisdom is born of wonder." - Saint Gregory, aka Pope Gregory I, St. Gregory the Dialogist, "Gregory the Great" NULL

"Art is the conveyance of spirit by means of matter." - Salvador de Madariaga, fully Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo

"The criminal excesses of unlimited capitalistic liberty had soon been checked thanks to the unlimited liberty of the press." - Salvador de Madariaga, fully Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo

"The press freedom depends almost every other freedom." - Salvador de Madariaga, fully Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo

"What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures, to make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright." - Samuel Gompers

"What we have endeavored to secure in industrial relations is industrial peace. When industrial justice prevails, industrial peace will follow. It is a result and not an end in itself." - Samuel Gompers

"All power of fancy over reason is a degree of insanity." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"The seeds of knowledge may be planted in solitude, but must be cultivated in public." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"My worst mistake has been not grasping that time goes by. It was going by and there I was, set in the attitude of the ideal wife of an ideal husband. Instead of bringing our sexual relationship to life again I brooded happily over memories of our former nights together." - Simone de Beauvoir, fully Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir

"Everything that has ever been called folk art has always reflected domination." - Theodor W. Adorno, born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund

"A man must first care for his own household before he can be of use to the state. But no matter how well he cares for his household, he is not a good citizen unless he also takes thought of the state. In the same way, a great nation must think of its own internal affairs; and yet it cannot substantiate its claim to be a great nation unless it also thinks of its position in the world at large." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

"We should be treated with great respect, great affection and compassion. It is very important to treat our bodies with the utmost respect, with understanding, with compassion. If you know how to treat your body and your feelings with such respect, you will also be able to treat another person with the same respect and that is how we build peace." - Thich Nhất Hanh

"With how great labour or with how great paine men winne good, to the world leave it shall; unto the pit goeth naught but the careyne. [carcass]" - Thomas Hood

"So long as I was in your sight I was your heart, your soul, your treasure; And evermore you sobb’d and sigh’d Burning in flames beyond all measure: –Three days endured your love to me, And it was lost in other three!" - William Byrd

"Oh, laugh or mourn with me the rueful jest, a cassocked huntsman and a fiddling priest!" - William Cowper

"In the effort to tell a whole story, to see it whole and clear, I have had to imagine more than I have known." - Wendell Berry

"It is, for example, axiomatic that we should all think of ourselves as being more sensitive than other people because, when we are insensitive in our dealings with others, we cannot be aware of it at the time: conscious insensitivity is a self-contradiction." - W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden

"One of the most important lessons that experience teaches is that, on the whole, success depends more upon character than upon either intellect or fortune." - W. E. H. Lecky, fully William Edward Hartpole Lecky

"Hence, as the line of sight to the upper part is the longer, it makes that part look as if it were leaning back. But when the members are inclined to the front, as described above, they will seem the beholder to be plumb and perpendicular." - Vitruvius, fully Marcus Vitruvius Pollio NULL