Quotes by Tom Hodgkinson

About Tom Hodgkinson:

Tom Hodgkinson is a British writer, socialist and the editor of The Idler, which he established in 1993 with his friend Gavin Pretor-Pinney. His philosophy, in his published books and articles, is of a relaxed approach to life, enjoying it as it comes rather than toiling for an imagined better future. The Idler was originally a series of essays written by Dr Johnson from 1758 to 1760.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Pain will never leave us. Instead of putting energy into destroying pain, we need to put energy into creating pleasure.

Tom Hodgkinson

The art of living is the art of bringing dreams and reality together.

Tom Hodgkinson

Our dreams take us into other worlds, alternative realities that help us make sense of day-to-day realities.

Tom Hodgkinson

Life has been reduced to a series of long periods of boredom in the office punctuated by high-octane “experiences” which you can rack up on your list of things to do before you die. That’s not really living: that is slavery with the occasional ...

Tom Hodgkinson

What is required as we travel towards full unemployment is not new legislation but a gradual change of mental attitude, a shift in values. As our taste for idling grows, we will refuse to work for old-fashioned bosses who demand a five-day, 40-hour, ...

Tom Hodgkinson

In this age of getting what you want and getting it now, the simple pleasure of browsing is often forgotten.

Tom Hodgkinson

When we are busy at work and busy at home, an hour's walking every day becomes a real luxury. If done alone, the walk injects a period of meditation into the day, and if done in company, it allows space for some really good conversation.

Tom Hodgkinson

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 keyboard, firing off zeros and ones into the ether. Offices are silent.

Tom Hodgkinson

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 to get out and go and help a child learn how to swim or something. But after observing the Mexicans' capability for stari...

Tom Hodgkinson

Malé děti poznají lépe Coca-Colu než pórek. Je to tím, že Coca-Cola za marketing ročně utratí dvě miliardy dolarů.

Tom Hodgkinson

Therefore, the idle parent who wants to stop the whining needs to stop whining himself, and one way is to resist the call to work ever longer and harder hours. Throw your BlackBerry into the river. Unslave yourself. Hard work will not lead to health ...

Tom Hodgkinson

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. Targets are aimed at. Goals kicked at. You then break the rules or forget them and, hey presto, you start beating y...

Tom Hodgkinson

Boredom is the very opposite of beauty and truth. Life has been sacrificed to profit, and the result is boredom on a massive scale.

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 Schopenhauer called it, appeared in the shape of the serpent. This capitalistic monster awakens in Adam...

Tom Hodgkinson

Career is just posh slavery.

Tom Hodgkinson

Guilt is also a way for us to express to others that we are a person of good conscience. 'I feel really guilty about getting drunk last night,' we say, when in actual fact we feel no guilt whatsoever or, at least, we could to feel no guilt. When peop...

Tom Hodgkinson

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 nothing. Try everything.

Tom Hodgkinson

...[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 imaginary future. It's obvious that the mirth-filled man, the cheerful soul, the childish adult is the one who h...

Tom Hodgkinson

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

Tom Hodgkinson

Now I'm no biologist, but it seems to make a lot of sense that slow lives, as well as being enjoyable, are long lives. One only has to think of the example of the tortoise for proof of this theory from the animal world.

Tom Hodgkinson

Author Bio

  • NameTom Hodgkinson
  • DescriptionBritish writer
  • Born1968
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionWriter