It is already possible to imagine a society in which the majority of the population, that is to say, its laborers, will have almost as much leisure as in earlier times was enjoyed by the aristocracy. When one recalls how aristocracies in the past actually behaved, the prospect is not cheerful.
We are closer to the ants than to the butterflies. Very few people can endure much leisure.
Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.
Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.
Lie down and listen to the crabgrass grow, the faucet leak, and learn to leave them so.
If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work; But when they seldom come, they wished for come.
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.
It is well to lie fallow for a while.
In itself and in its consequences the life of leisure is beautiful and ennobling in all civilised men's eyes.
