My Day (1935–1962)
Source: This is My Story
Context: If man is to be liberated to enjoy more leisure, he must also be prepared to enjoy this leisure fully and creatively. For people to have more time to read, to take part in their civic obligations, to know more about how their government functions and who their officials are might mean in a democracy a great improvement in the democratic processes. Let's begin, then, to think how we can prepare old and young for these new opportunities. Let's not wait until they come upon us suddenly and we have a crisis that we will be ill prepared to meet. (5 November 1958)
Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)
“He enjoys true leisure who has time to improve his soul's estate.”
"Some Thoughts on the Common Toad" http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/site/work/essays/commontoad.html, Tribune (12 April 1946)
Context: Certainly we ought to be discontented, we ought not simply to find out ways of making the best of a bad job, and yet if we kill all pleasure in the actual process of life, what sort of future are we preparing for ourselves? If a man cannot enjoy the return of spring, why should he be happy in a labour-saving Utopia? What will he do with the leisure that the machine will give him?
Source: 1930s, In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (1935), Ch. 1: In Praise of Idleness, p. 13 https://books.google.com/books?id=CnlbMP_vBmgC&pg=PA13
'Painting and Culture' p. 56
Search for the Real and Other Essays (1948)
“Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining they are unemployed.”
In 1981, in reference to an economic recession, as quoted in "Long line of princely gaffes", BBC News (1 March 2002)
1980s
Of Time, Work, and Leisure (1962)
“Man works when he is partially involved. When he is totally involved he is at play or leisure.”
1990s and beyond, "The Agenbite of Outwit" (1998)
