“According to Cato the Elder, Scipio Africanus was wont to say that he was never less at leisure than when at leisure, nor less alone than when alone.”
Book III, section 1
De Officiis – On Duties (44 BC)
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Marcus Tullius Cicero180
Roman philosopher and statesman -106–-43 BCRelated quotes
Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher
32 Dionysius
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders
“Man works when he is partially involved. When he is totally involved he is at play or leisure.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …
1990s and beyond, "The Agenbite of Outwit" (1998)
Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living
Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 153. Often quoted as: "If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live."
Samuel Gompers (1850–1924) American Labor Leader[AFL]
The Shoe workers' journal, Volume 16 (1915) p. 4
Variant: What does labor want? We want more school houses and less jails. More books and less guns. More learning and less vice. More leisure and less greed. More justice and less revenge. We want more … opportunities to cultivate our better natures.
“The right kind of leisure is better than the wrong kind of work.”
Baltasar Gracián book The Art of Worldly Wisdom
Más vale el buen ocio que el negocio.
Maxim 247
The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)
Sebastian de Grazia book Of Time
Of Time, Work, and Leisure (1962)
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
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)
