“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 Borodin1
Russian composer, doctor and chemist 1833–1887Related quotes
“Serious occupation is labor that has reference to some want.”
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel book Lectures on the Philosophy of History
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.”
Ben Aaronovitch book Moon Over Soho
Epigram —Dizzy Gillespie
Source: Moon Over Soho (2011)
“Degeneracy can be fun but it's hard to keep up as a serious lifetime occupation.”
Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
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.
David Hume book Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary
Part I, Essay 18: The Sceptic
Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1741-2; 1748)
Louis Brandeis (1856–1941) American Supreme Court Justice
The Opportunity in the Law, 39 American Law Review 555, 555 (1905).
Extra-judicial writings
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) Polish science fiction author
"Rien du tout, ou la conséquence" ("Nothing, or the Consequence"), in A Perfect Vacuum (1971), tr. Michael Kandel (1978)
Daniel Radcliffe (1989) English actor
http://dan-radcliffe.net/index.php/information/facts-favorites/