“The frivolous work of polished idleness.”
James Mackintosh (1765–1832) British politician
Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy (1830), Section VI: Foundation of a More Just Theory of Ethics — "Thomas Brown", paragraph 3.
Slate interview, 2015
Context: His (C. S. Lewis's) work is not frivolous in the way that Tolkien is frivolous, though it seems odd to call a novel of great intricacy and enormous popularity frivolous. I just don’t like the conclusions Lewis comes to, after all that analysis, the way he shuts children out from heaven, or whatever it is, on the grounds that the one girl is interested in boys. She’s a teenager! Ah, it’s terrible: Sex — can’t have that. And yet I respect Lewis more than I do Tolkien.
“The frivolous work of polished idleness.”
James Mackintosh (1765–1832) British politician
Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy (1830), Section VI: Foundation of a More Just Theory of Ethics — "Thomas Brown", paragraph 3.
“World events are the work of individuals whose motives are often frivolous, even casual.”
Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer
"The Twelve Caesars"
1990s, United States - Essays 1952-1992 (1992)
Neil Gaiman (1960) English fantasy writer
"Mythcon 35 Guest of Honor Speech", in Mythprint (October 2004) http://www.mythsoc.org.nyud.net:8090/mythcon/35/speech/
Alan Axelrod (1952) American historian
Alan Axelrod, Business Book Juggernaut – An interview with Mike Hofman, Jun 1, 2004 http://www.inc.com/magazine/20040601/qa.html.
Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright
The God-Seeker (1949), Ch. 50
Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer
Source: One Minute Nonsense (1992), p. 96
("Leela" is more commonly spelled "Lila")
Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author
1980s–1990s, Barbarians inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays (1999)
Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist
'Unpatriotic Gore: Gore Vidal'
Essays and reviews, At the Pillars of Hercules (1979)
Sadao Araki (1877–1966) Japanese general
Quoted in "World War II almanac" - Page 9 - by Robert Goralski - History - 1981
Antoni Tàpies (1923–2012) Catalan painter, sculptor and art theorist
In 'Tapies, or the Materiality of Painting', by Klaus Dirscherl; as quoted in Materialities of Communication, ed. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Karl Ludwig Pfeiffer, Stanford University Press, 1988, p. 184
1981 - 1990