“Music is a pastime, a relaxation from more serious occupations.”
Letter to V A Krylov, 1867, in Borodin: Collected Letters.
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Alexander Borodin 1
Russian composer, doctor and chemist 1833–1887Related quotes

“Serious occupation is labor that has reference to some want.”
Pt. I, sec. 2, ch. 1
Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1832), Volume 1

“Men have died for this music. You can’t get more serious than that.”
Epigram —Dizzy Gillespie
Source: Moon Over Soho (2011)

“Degeneracy can be fun but it's hard to keep up as a serious lifetime occupation.”
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Afterword (1984)
Context: The hippies had in mind something that they wanted, and were calling it "freedom," but in the final analysis "freedom" is a purely negative goal. It just says something is bad. Hippies weren't really offering any alternatives other than colorful short-term ones, and some of these were looking more and more like pure degeneracy. Degeneracy can be fun but it's hard to keep up as a serious lifetime occupation.

The Opportunity in the Law, 39 American Law Review 555, 555 (1905).
Extra-judicial writings

"Rien du tout, ou la conséquence" ("Nothing, or the Consequence"), in A Perfect Vacuum (1971), tr. Michael Kandel (1978)

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