Tom Hodgkinson

“Being safe is fiction.”

— Tom Hodgkinson

“A diet of solely mental work is suffocating.”

— Tom Hodgkinson

“It's easier to robe the poor.”

— Tom Hodgkinson

Life is about recapturing lost freedoms.

— Tom Hodgkinson

Travelling fills me with dread.

— Tom Hodgkinson

“Career is just posh slavery.”

— Tom Hodgkinson

Idleness allows you to turn a situation from boredom to pleasure.

— Tom Hodgkinson

I count it as a certainty that in paradise, everyone naps.

— Tom Hodgkinson

“It seems no body's business to try to better things”

— Tom Hodgkinson

We bore ourselves in order to earn money that we'll later spend on trying to de-bore ourselves

— Tom Hodgkinson

I love the 19th-century idea of the flaneur, the poet wandering through the streets.

— Tom Hodgkinson

The accusation 'unprofessional' means 'You did not behave like a machine today.

— Tom Hodgkinson

There is nothing so perfect as pinball and a pint at 11 a.m.

— Tom Hodgkinson

I seethe at the humiliation of airport security checks.

— Tom Hodgkinson

I've found that there isn't any correlation whatsoever between the hours put in and the quality of what comes out. Most of…

— Tom Hodgkinson

“No! Be weak! Give up! You can’t do everything. Lower your standards. Get friends to come and help you.”

— Tom Hodgkinson

“Education is like pruning ; it wrecks the natural growth of the tree in favour of a form that is useful to…

— Tom Hodgkinson

I don't put much faith in the political system because it's a question of how are you going to run capitalism, not…

— Tom Hodgkinson

Beauty, pleasure, freedom and plenty of sleep: these are the hallmarks of a successful idler's break. Travel should not be hard work.

— Tom Hodgkinson

Computers tend to separate us from each other - Mum's on the laptop, Dad's on the iPad, teenagers are on Facebook, toddlers…

— Tom Hodgkinson

Sensible people advise against drinking on an empty stomach, but to my mind it is the best sort of drinking.

— Tom Hodgkinson

When walking, you see things that you miss in a motor car or on the train. You give your mind space to…

— Tom Hodgkinson

We need to claim lunch back. It is our natural right. It has been stolen from us by our rulers. The fear…

— Tom Hodgkinson

Of all the depressing abuses of language in business, there is none that gets me so incensed as the rampant overuse of…

— Tom Hodgkinson

I've never understood activity holidays since we seem to have far too much activity in our daily lives as it is. Find…

— Tom Hodgkinson

Embrace the faff. Stare out of the window. Bend paperclips. Stand in the middle of the room trying to remember what you…

— Tom Hodgkinson

I would like to propose slow cycling. Commute by bike. At a stroke, you remove the need for and absurd cost of…

— Tom Hodgkinson

These days we seem more bound to our bosses than ever before. We even identify our own selves with the jobs we…

— Tom Hodgkinson

I originally welcomed the mobile phone, as it seemed to me that it would enable you to work from anywhere. On the…

— Tom Hodgkinson

The best thing that can happen to anybody is to be sacked or made redundant because often that's when you think, "I…

— Tom Hodgkinson

Self-importance is a trap, because the moment we start to think that we actually matter is the moment when things start to…

— Tom Hodgkinson

“After the alarm clock, it is the turn of Mr Kellogg to shame us into action. 'Rise and Shine!' he exhorts us…

— Tom Hodgkinson

“But, sadly, our manly struggle to conform to the slave-like work rhythms of present-day custom has led to the nap being replaced…

— Tom Hodgkinson

“Idleness as a waste of time is a damaging notion put about by its spiritually vacant enemies. The fact that idling can…

— Tom Hodgkinson

I like the idea of becoming [fairly] good at lots of things rather than very good at just one thing. So it…

— Tom Hodgkinson

“It is precisely to prevent us from thinking too much that society pressurizes us all to get out of bed. In 1993,…

— Tom Hodgkinson

If Adam and Eve were not hunter-gatherers, then they were certainly gatherers. But, then, consumer desire, or self-embitterment, or the 'itch,' as…

— Tom Hodgkinson

“I count it as an absolute certainty that in paradise, everyone naps. A nap is a perfect pleasure and it's useful, too.…

— Tom Hodgkinson

All poets are idlers, even if all idlers are not poets.

— Tom Hodgkinson

When people say " I just don't have enough time " they mean " I prioritized something else.

— Tom Hodgkinson