“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?”

—  George Orwell

"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?

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 30, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "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 …" by George Orwell?
George Orwell photo
George Orwell 473
English author and journalist 1903–1950

Related quotes

Eleanor Roosevelt photo

“If man is to be liberated to enjoy more leisure, he must also be prepared to enjoy this leisure fully and creatively.”

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)

Gay Talese photo

“He has everything, he cannot sleep, he gives nice gifts, he is not happy, but he would not trade, even for happiness, what he is….”

Gay Talese (1932) American writer

"Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" (Esquire, April 1966)

Michel De Montaigne photo

“He who does not give himself leisure to be thirsty cannot take pleasure in drinking.”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book I, Ch. 42
Essais (1595), Book I

Robert A. Heinlein photo

“A slave cannot be freed, save he do it himself. Nor can you enslave a free man; the very most you can do is kill him!”

Robert A. Heinlein book Double Star

Source: Double Star

“He that always waits upon God is ready whenever He calls. Neglect not to set your accounts even; he is a happy man who to lives as that death at all times may find him at leisure to die.”

Owen Feltham (1602–1668) English writer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 180.

Tom Robbins photo

“Logic only gives man what he needs. Magic gives him what he wants.”

Tom Robbins book Another Roadside Attraction

Another Roadside Attraction (1971)

Albert Einstein photo

“The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
A.E. Housman photo

“A man who possesses common sense and the use of reason must not expect to learn from treatises or lectures on textual criticism anything that he could not, with leisure and industry, find out for himself. What the lectures and treatises can do for him is to save him time and trouble by presenting to him immediately considerations which would in any case occur to him sooner or later.”

A.E. Housman (1859–1936) English classical scholar and poet

"The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism", a lecture delivered on August 4, 1921

Arthur Schopenhauer photo

“Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will.
Einstein paraphrasing Schopenhauer. Reportedly from On The Freedom Of The Will (1839), as translated in The Philosophy of American History: The Historical Field Theory (1945) by Morris Zucker, p. 531
Variant translations:
Man can do what he wants but he cannot want what he wants.
As quoted in The Motivated Brain: A Neurophysiological Analysis of Human Behavior (1991) by Pavel Vasilʹevich Simonov, p. 198
We can do what we wish, but we can only wish what we must.
As quoted by Einstein in "What Life Means to Einstein: An Interview by George Sylvester Viereck" The Saturday Evening Post (26 October 1929) p. 17. A scan of the article is available online here http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp-content/uploads/satevepost/what_life_means_to_einstein.pdf (see p. 114).
Attributed
Source: Essays and Aphorisms

Related topics