All Tom Hodgkinson Quotes
- I've given up email. Well, almost. At the weekend I set up one of those auto-reply messages, informing my correspondents that I would no longer… Auto
- In both word and deed, one of the greatest idlers of all time was John Lennon. In his songs we see repeated defences of simply… All
- Indolence, of course, is an absolutely crucial part of the creative process: you do not find poets sitting in rows in cavernous word factories, staring… Absolutely
- It takes a while to master the art of hammock-lounging. At first I could only manage five minutes or so before I thought I ought… Art
- Long weekends at festivals, short weeks at home, all summer long: now that is surely preferable to the immense cost and headache of the nuclear… All
- Management gurus in general are, I think, best avoided. All too often they reduce your working life to a list of rules to be followed.… Aimed
- My hope is that flexible working and varying shift patterns will give workers a taste for idling and that they will gradually demand greater reductions… Demand
- Punk was a protest against work and against boredom. It was a sign of life, a rant, a scream, a rejection of bourgeois morals. But… Arguably
- The siesta provides a delightful detour from the working day and it also has a practical value as far as productivity is concerned. Winston Churchill… Churchill
- The world's richest half billion people - that's about seven per cent of the global population - are responsible for fifty per cent of the… Billion
- These days we seem more bound to our bosses than ever before. We even identify our own selves with the jobs we do: 'What do… Ask
- Truly, the bench is a boon to idlers. Whoever first came up with the idea is a genius: free public resting places where you can… Bench
- We have to wonder whether digital technology, rather than making it easier to communicate, is actually doing the opposite. We now sit alone at a… Alone
- We think we have to work because the advertising industry has elevated wants into needs. The newspapers and the television batter us incessantly with the… Advertising
- When stuck years ago in a job I hated, my only friend was the public bench. As the tedious mornings dragged on, how I would… Able
- Working is bad enough in the winter, but in the summer it can become completely intolerable. Stuck in airless offices, every fibre of our being… Airless
- 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… Asked
- ...[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… Adult
- There is nothing so perfect as pinball and a pint at 11 a.m. Inspirational
- Sensible people advise against drinking on an empty stomach, but to my mind it is the best sort of drinking. Advise
- 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,… Adam
- Idleness for me is not a giving up on life but a spirited grabbing hold of it. Giving
- 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… Activities
- A conclusion I’ve come to at the Idler is that it starts with retreating from work but it’s really about making work into something that… Become One
- The art of living is the art of bringing dreams and reality together. Art