Quotes about relaxation
page 2

“Video games are a waste of time for men with nothing else to do. Real brains don't do that. On occasion? Sure. As relaxation? Great. But not full time— And a lot of people are doing that. And while they're doing that, I'll go ahead and write another novel.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Salon.com (29 August 2001)

Men, People, Game, Time

“Ted Cruz: Donald, relax.
Donald Trump: I'm relaxed. You're the basket case. Go ahead, don't get nervous.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

CNN-Telemundo Republican debate http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-wp-blm-carlson-6454d89c-dc90-11e5-8210-f0bd8de915f6-20160226-story.html (25 February 2016) 2010s, 2016, February

“How old are you, Brian? You ought to know by now that something always breaks up love affairs unless both parties are willing to compromise themselves. And that compromising is harder to do the older and less flexible and more independent you are. It just isn’t in you, Brian. You could no more get married now than you could become a priest, or a sculptor, or a greengrocer.”
Duffy opened his mouth to voice angry denials, then one corner turned up and he closed it. “Damn you,” he said wryly. “Then why do I want to, half the time?”
Aurelianus shrugged. “It’s the nature of the species. There’s a part of a man’s mind that can only relax and go to sleep when he’s with a woman, and that part gets tired of always being tensely awake. It gives orders in so loud a voice that it often drowns out the other components. But when the loud one is asleep at last, the others regain control and chart a new course.” He grinned. “No equilibrium is possible. If you don’t want to put up with the constant seesawing, you must either starve the logical components or bind, gag and lock away in a cellar that one insistent one.”
Duffy grimaced and drank some more brandy. “I’m used to the rocking, and I was never one to get motion-sick,” he said. “I’ll stay on the seesaw.”

Tim Powers book The Drawing of the Dark

Aurelianus bowed. “You have that option, sir.”
Source: The Drawing of the Dark (1979), Chapter 18 (p. 247)

Love, Nature, Sleep, Time

“I see Legros less often sometimes at Andler's as little as possible it means I get to bed late and I am short of funds, it is very pleasant nonetheless Courbet is so charming, Legros often goes there they get on very well he has some superb articles in the figaro. in the gazette des Beaux Arts.... then he will have one in the courrier du Commerce those are the ones I know about. success, women, good food, wine, beer, new acquaintances as a result of these articles, in short an accolade!!!!!!!!.... success can be harmful, it makes you relax, you sit on it and are distracted.... you alone should correct the faults, you know what I think of advice, correction. the gifted man should walk alone, straight to his goal, what happens is nothing, rejection, success, selling pleasing, all that is nonsense.”

Henri Fantin-Latour (1836–1904) painter from France

quote from a letter of Fantin-Latour, Paris, 26 June 1859, to James Whistler in London; from The Correspondence of James McNeill Whistler - Repository: Glasgow University Library http://www.whistler.arts.gla.ac.uk/correspondence/people/display/?cid=1073&nameid=Fantin_Latour_IH&sr=0&rs=1&surname=Fantin-latour&firstname= - System Number: 01073; Call Number: MS Whistler F 4.

Women, Food, Art, Beer

“The pursuit of peace and progress cannot end in a few years in either victory or defeat. The pursuit of peace and progress, with its trials and its errors, its successes and its setbacks, can never be relaxed and never abandoned.”

Dag Hammarskjöld (1905–1961) Swedish diplomat, economist, and author

United Nations Bulletin Vol. XVI, No. 4 (15 February 1954)

Peace, Error, Success, Victory

“Relax, you're among friends now. The long hard day is over and the roly-poly funny man is before you.”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005–2014)

“To look back is to relax one's vigil.”

Bette Davis (1908–1989) film and television actress from the United States

The Lonely Life http://books.google.com/books?id=iyNaAAAAMAAJ&q=%22To+look+back+is+to+relax+one's+vigil%22&pg=PA11#v=onepage (1962)

“Great question to ask, to relax: What should I consider right now, decide what, and let go?”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

2 July 2012 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/220039630240747521 Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

Question

“It's no more daunting in there than in a Georgian drawing room. You sit on a supremely comfortable chair- it'd be even better if it were a wingback, I'm surprised it's not- overlooking acres of leather and wood. You're never tempted, as you are in a Maybach, to push a button just to find out what it does. And then having to spend the rest of the journey trying to find which button undoes whatever the first button did. This makes for a hugely relaxing drive. So relaxing, in fact, that you sometimes forget that you're in a car. I did.”

Jeremy Clarkson (1960) English broadcaster, journalist and writer

Rolls-Royce, p. 25
I Know You Got Soul (2004)

Cars, Drawing, Forgetting

“Rollers on the beach, wind in the pines, the slow flapping of herons across sand dunes, drown out the hectic rhythms of city and suburb, time tables and schedules. One falls under their spell, relaxes, stretches out prone. One becomes, in fact, like the element on which one lies, flattened by the sea; bare, open, empty as the beach, erased by today’s tides of all yesterday’s scribblings.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh book Gift from the Sea

Gift from the Sea (1955)

Time, Sea

“The essential art of dying consists of being easy-going and relaxed while at the same time staying mentally undistracted and one-pointed. Therefore, the one who is dying should imagine the most beautiful thing above his head and wish to go there as often as possible.”

Lama Ole Nydahl (1941) Danish lama

Fearless Death: Buddhist Wisdom on the Art of Dying (2012)

Beauty, Art, Imagination, Time

“We need to shut down this Gitmo prison? Well, don't shut it down - we just need to start an advertising campaign. We need to call it, 'Gitmo, the Muslim resort.' Any resort that treated people like this would have ads all over the New York Times trying to get people to come down and visit for some R&R, for some rest and relaxation.”

Rush Limbaugh (1951) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, author, and television personality

Stated about Guantanamo Bay, on The Rush Limbaugh Show, (June 14, 2005), quoted in —

People, Time

“My mother wore these in a relaxed, family context. It was a more informal side which of course had no reason to be seen or shown in other exhibitions.”

Caroline, Princess of Hanover (1957) Princess of Monaco

Family

“Leaves of brown they fall to the ground.
And it's here, over there leaves around.
Shut the door, dim the lights and relax.
What is more, your desire or the facts?”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

Autumn Song
Song lyrics, Hard Nose the Highway (1973)

Light

“Any kind of creative activity is likely to be stressful. The more anxiety, the more you feel that you are headed in the right direction. Easiness, relaxation, comfort — these are not conditions that usually accompany serious work.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

Joyce Carol Oates interviews herself (2013)

Feeling

“Well, what kind of thing does make you feel calm and peaceful?"
"Killing demons. A good clean kill is very relaxing. The messy ones are more annoying, because you have to clean up afterward--"
"No. No killing. We're trying to make you feel peaceful. Blood, killing, war, those are all non-peaceful things. Isn't there anything else you like?"
"Weapons. I like weapons.”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

"I'm starting to think we have a problematic issue of personal philosophy here."
Jordan Kyle and Jace Herondale, pg. 27-29
The Mortal Instruments, City of Heavenly Fire (2014)

War, Peace, Feeling, Thinking

“What happens when our eye sees a rose? What do we do when that happens? Our mind does something, to be sure, in the mere fact of taking in the object, grasping its color, its shape, and so on. We have to be awake and active. But all the same, it is a "relaxed" looking, so long as we are merely looking at it and not observing or studying it, counting or measuring its various features. Such observation would not be a "relaxed" action; it would be what Ernst Jünger termed an "act of aggression." But simply looking at something, gazing at it, "taking it in," is merely to open our eyes to receive the things that present themselves to us, that come to us without any need for "effort" on our part to "possess" them.”

Josef Pieper (1904–1997) German philosopher

Source: Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948), Leisure, the Basis of Culture, p. 9
The Ernst Jünger quote is from Blätter und Steine (Hamburg, 1934), p. 202.

Color, Effort, Study, Parting

“MDA per se is relaxed about exactly what models it transforms, so long as the modeling language in which the models are expressed can be defined.”

Stephen J. Mellor (1952) British computer scientist

Source: MDA Distilled. Principles of Model-Driven Architecture, 2003, p. 36.

“At any rate, whether we expect another invasion or not, our views of the human future must be greatly modified by these events. We have learned now that we cannot regard this planet as being fenced in and a secure abiding place for Man; we can never anticipate the unseen good or evil that may come upon us suddenly out of space. It may be that in the larger design of the universe this invasion from Mars is not without its ultimate benefit for men; it has robbed us of that serene confidence in the future which is the most fruitful source of decadence, the gifts to human science it has brought are enormous, and it has done much to promote the conception of the commonweal of mankind. It may be that across the immensity of space the Martians have watched the fate of these pioneers of theirs and learned their lesson, and that on the planet Venus they have found a securer settlement. Be that as it may, for many years yet there will certainly be no relaxation of the eager scrutiny of the Martian disk, and those fiery darts of the sky, the shooting stars, will bring with them as they fall an unavoidable apprehension to all the sons of men.”

H. G. Wells book The War of the Worlds

Book II, Ch. 10 (Ch. 27 in editions without Book divisions): The Epilogue
The War of the Worlds (1898)

Men, Fate, Confidence, Star

“I did quite a lot of TV shows over the latter half of 2004 - all those 100 Greatest and 100 Worst and all that kind of stuff. So I was a little bit overexposed. But I think you need to do that once in your career, and that's how you become famous. You get overexposed once, and then people know your name and you can relax a bit.”

Jimmy Carr (1972) British comedian and humourist

Peter Ross (August 14, 2005) "The Joker As the face of Channel 4 he's known for his sharp suits and sharper one-liners, but what has spurred Jimmy Carr on during his swift rise from anonymity to ubiquity?", The Sunday Herald.

People, Thinking

“She envied Camille. Camille was a tramp, Mildred thought. And things were so much easier for a tramp. There was no conscience, no sense of loss, nothing but a wonderful, relaxed, stretching-cat selfishness. She could go to bed with anyone she wanted to and never see him again and have no feeling of loss or insecurity about it. That was the way Mildred thought it was with Camille. She wished she could be that way, and she knew she couldn't. Couldn't because of her mother. And the unbidden thought entered her mind—if her mother were only dead Mildred's life would be so much simpler. She could have a secret little place to live somewhere. Almost fiercely, she brushed the thought away. "What a foul thing to think," she said to herself ceremoniously. But it was a dream she often had.”

John Steinbeck book The Wayward Bus

Source: The Wayward Bus (1947), Ch. 13. Mildred is the daughter of Elliot and Bernice Pritchard.

Life, Secret, Dreams, Way

“Relax for a moment my Jerry
Come out of your dark monastery
While Venus is beaming above.
Darling, let's talk about love.”

Cole Porter (1891–1964) American composer and songwriter

"Let's Not Talk About Love"
Let's Face It (1941)

Love

“[About Fortran] On October 11, 1963, my suggestion was to pass on a request of our customers to relax the ALGOL 60 rule of compulsory declaration of variable names and adopt some reasonable default convention such as that of FORTRAN. […] The story of the Mariner space rocket to Venus, lost because of the lack of compulsory declarations in FORTRAN, was not to be published until later.”

C. A. R. Hoare (1934) British computer scientist

The Emperor's Old Clothes

“I think there's a time to work, and everyone has to kind of adjust. And then there's a time to relax, and be the mom or take the kids on vacation when you need to wind down. So it's a matter of planning, and being able to map out your year or your week or let's start with the day. It is just being multi-tasking and being available.”

Vanessa L. Williams (1963) American actress, singer and former Miss America

Vanessa Williams: 'Vacation' http://www.cbsnews.com/news/vanessa-williams-vacation/ (April 6, 2004)

Moms, Thinking, Time

“If I'm in a bad mood, my thing is I go clean! That's what relaxes me! I go and clean everything.”

Corbin Bleu (1989) American actor, model, dancer, producer, and singer-songwriter

Tigerbeat interview (2006)

Mood

“These stories offer us a model of how real refreshment of body and spirit is achieved. Three things are worth noting. First, rest comes as an invitation from Jesus. Recently, Pope Francis recommended to a group of priests that they should be open to the rest that comes from Jesus, rather than relying on other ways to relax, some of which can be very unhealthy, if not destructive. We can use entertainment, mind altering substances and other means that only serve as a temporary release of tension and fatigue. Superficial at best, these efforts end up provoking more restlessness and lethargy, especially if they bring upon guilt and depression. It is known, for instance, that alcohol can be a depressant and impact our overall mood. Jesus offers us the gift of rest, and so the first step is to surrender to the kind of rest he offers, and accept his invitation, rather than taking on this burden ourselves. Second, his invitation is to go to an “out of the way” place, a deserted place. This is not an invitation to take a vacation to an exotic location, but rather a summons to enter into those places in our lives that we ignore, yet which have an impact on us.”

Blase J. Cupich (1949) Catholic bishop

"The gift of rest", from the online edition of The Catholic New World, the Chicago archdiocesan newspaper, in the Archbishop's Column (July 26 - August 8, 2015)

Alcohol, Way, Mood, Effort

“Tournament chess is not relaxing. It's stressful, even if you win.”

Jennifer Shahade (1980) chess player

ChessBase.com - The strongest native-born American woman" (3 August 2003) http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=1093

“The softness, and the glare, and the temptations, and the licence, and the lax examples about us, are more seducing and dangerous than the winter of penal laws. They hardened the manhood of Catholic parents. The summer sun relaxes many.”

Henry Edward Manning (1808–1892) English Roman Catholic archbishop and cardinal

Source: Towards Evening (1889), p. 144.

Law, Parent, Winter, Sun

“Power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely.
So just relax, Helen Boyle told me, and just enjoy the ride.
She said, "Even absolute corruption has its perks.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Lullaby

Source: Lullaby (2002), Chapter 9

“And history`s fingers never relax their grip, never leave us unmolested, can touch us even when we would never imagine their presence.”

Robert Fisk (1946) English writer and journalist

Source: The Great War for Civilization (2005), Chapter 11: 'Fifty Thousand Miles From Palestine' (page 464)

Imagination, History

“We flew to Crawford that night and were up at dawn the next morning for what Laura had termed "the afterlife." I was struck by the calm. There was no CIA briefing to attend and no blue sheet from the Situation Room. I felt like I had gone from a hundred miles an hour to about ten. I had to force myself to relax. I would read the news and instinctively think about how we would have to respond. Then I remembered that decision was on someone else's desk.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Source: 2010s, 2010, Decision Points (November 2010), p. 475

Thinking, Decision, Reading, Night

“Members of the generation that came of age after World War II-Korean War who join in a relaxation of social and sexual tensions, and who espouse anti-regimentation, mystic-disaffiliation, and material-simplicity values, supposedly as a result of cold-war disillusionment. Coined by Jack Kerouac.”

Jack Kerouac book Beat Generation

Definition of "Beat Generation" offered to Random House publishers in 1959, after being asked him if there was anything he'd like to add to the definition they were preparing for the American College Dictionary: "Certain members of the generation that came of age after World War II who affect detachment from moral and social forms and responsibilities, supposedly the result of disillusionment. Coined by Jack Kerouac." The Random House definition eventually published read: "members of the generation that came of age after World War II who, supposedly as a result of disillusionment stemming from the Cold War, espoused forms of mysticism and the relaxation of social and sexual inhibitions."

War, Age, World

“While the things I do kill me, they just tell me to relax”

Ryan Adams (1974) American alt-country/rock singer-songwriter

To Be the One
29 (2005)

“My left hand is my thinking hand. The right is only a motor hand. This holds the hammer. The left hand, the thinking hand, must be relaxed, sensitive. The rhythms of thought pass through the fingers and grip of this hand into the stone. It is also a listening hand. It listens for basic weaknesses or flaws in the stone; for the possibility or imminence of fractures.”

Barbara Hepworth (1903–1975) English sculptor

"Barbara Hepworth: A Pictorial Autobiography, Bath, 1971, (extended edition published 1978 and subsequently reprinted in 1985 and 1993) p. 79
1961 - 1975

Thinking

“I have noted, too, that when it comes to matters of security the laws are considerably relaxed.”

Roger Zelazny book Jack of Shadows

Source: Jack of Shadows (1971), Chapter 8 (p. 85)

Law

“I am obsessed with the idea of leaving. I must travel, for that would probably relax me.”

Eugène Boudin (1824–1898) French painter

Quote from Boudin's Journal, c. 1890; as cited in G. Jean-Aubry & Robert Schmit, Eugène Boudin, Greenwich: New York Graphic Society, 1968, p. 21
1880s - 1890s

Travel, Idea

“Culture is at once the expression and the reward of an effort, and any system of civilization which tends to relax effort will suffer a corresponding depreciation of culture.”

Georges Duhamel (1884–1966) French writer

Source: Défense des Lettres [In Defense of Letters] (1937), p. 22

Effort, Suffering

“Worpswede, I cannot get you out of my mind. There was such atmosphere there – right down to the tips of your toes. Your magnificent pine trees! I call them my men – thick, gnarled, powerful, and tall – and yet with the most delicate nerves and fibers in them. That is my image of the ideal artist. And your birch trees – delicate, slender young virgins who delight the eyes. With that relaxed and dreamy face, as if life had not really begun for them… But then there are some already masculine and bold, with strong and straight trunks. Those are my 'Modern women'. And you willows, with your knotty trunks… You are my old men with silver beards. I have company enough, indeed I do, and it's my own private company. We understand each other well and nod friendly answers back and forth. Life, life, life!”

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) German artist

a quote of her Journal, Worpswede 1897; as cited in Voicing our visions, – Writings by women artists; ed. Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York, 1991, p. 192
1897

Life, Women, Men, Understanding

“The heart, oddly enough, seems to be the essential organ concerned. When we are in a hurry or doing something we dislike, we clench the heart, exactly like clenching a fist, and nothing can get in. When we are filled with a sense of multiplicity and excitement we somehow 'open' the heart and allow reality to flow in. But in that state we only need to entertain the shadow of some unpleasant thought for it to close again. And human beings are so naturally prone to mistrust that it is hard to maintain the openness for very long. Children on the other hand find it easy to slip into states of wonder and delight when the heart finally opens so wide that the whole world seems magical. the 'trick' of the peak experience lies in this ability to relax out of our usual defensive posture and to 'open the heart.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: Beyond the Occult (1988), p. 360

Children, World, Nature, Reality

“Going to a sensational murder trial is the only way I can relax.”

John Waters (1946) American filmmaker, actor, comedian and writer

Books, Shock Value: A Tasteful Book About Bad Taste (1981)

Way

“We do too little feel each others' pain;
We do relax too much the social chain
That binds us to each other; slight the care
There is for grief in which we have no share.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Golden Violet - The Rose
The Golden Violet (1827)

Pain, Feeling

“There are many other evils in our country which are growing, whereas the practice of slavery is fast diminishing, and threaten to bring punishment on our land more immediately than the oppression of the blacks. That sacred regard to truth in which you and I were educated, and which is certainly taught and enjoined from on high, seems to be vanishing from among us. A general relaxation of education and government, a general debauchery as well as dissipation, produced by pestilential philosophical principles of Epicurus, infinitely more than by shows and theatrical entertainments; these are, in my opinion, more serious and threatening evils than even the slavery of the blacks, hateful as that is. I might even add that I have been informed that the condition of the common sort of white people in some of the Southern States, particularly Virginia, is more oppressed, degraded, and miserable, than that of the negroes. These vices and these miseries deserve the serious and compassionate consideration of friends, as well as the slave trade and the degraded state of the blacks. I wish you success in your benevolent endeavors to relieve the distresses of our fellow creatures, and shall always be ready to cooperate with you as far as my means and opportunities can reasonably be expected to extend.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

1800s, Letter to George Churchman and Jacob Lindley (1801)

Hate, People, Truth, Education

“The whole history of negotiation with the Soviet Union teaches us that if you do something they want without insisting on something in return, the Soviets do not regard it as a kindness to be reciprocated, but as a weakness to be exploited. There is a lot of fashionable nonsense talked about how we misunderstand Communism, misrepresent Communism, see Communists under every bed. An attempt is being made, it seems, to create an atmosphere where truth and commonsense on these matters is actively discouraged. I believe the people of this country understand better the truth of the matter than those who try to mislead them. We must work for a real relaxation of tension, but in our negotiations with the Eastern bloc we must not accept words or gestures as a substitute for genuine detente. No flood of words emanating from a summit conference will mean anything unless it is accompanied by some positive action by which the Soviet leaders show that their ingrained attitudes are really beginning to change.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Chelsea Conservative Association (26 July 1975) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102750 Leader of the Opposition

People, Truth, History, Communication

“Often the raw ideas like ‘Relax’ and ‘Rage Hard’ - are the best. ‘Rage Hard’ just happened. There was little conscious effort.”

Holly Johnson (1960) British artist

Frankie go bang! http://www.zttaat.com/article.php?title=989 by Paul Simper at zttaat.com, Accessed May 2014.

Idea, Effort, Rage

“The inner ego always identifies with its source-identity as a beloved, individualized portion of the universe. It is aware of the universal love that is its heritage. It is also aware of the infinite power and strength that composes the very fabric of its being. Through being made aware of these facts, the exterior ego can begin to feel a quicker sense of support and nourishment. The knowledge can let it relax, let go, so that it feels its life couched and safe, and knows itself to be indeed a beloved child of the universe, both ancient and young at once, with an identity far beyond the annals of time. It is of great value, then, that each person remember this universal affiliation.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The Way Toward Health (1997), p. 148

Love, Life, Feeling, Support

“My own experience of mescalin is described in the appendix of Beyond the Outsider. My 'trip' was pleasant enough, although I experienced none of the visual effects described by Huxley; I was plunged into an agreeable but sluggish dreaminess. In this torpid state, I became aware of the problem mentioned by Huxley: 'How was this cleansed perception to be reconciled with a proper concern with human relations…?' -- in my case, with my concern for my wife and three-year-old daughter? Although I personally felt nothing but a sense of relaxation and trustfulness, I was aware that, in practice, the world is full of dangers, and in this state, I was incapable of the necessary vigilance; it made me feel guilty. I was neglecting my job of looking after them. Moreover, my ability to think was impaired. Huxley remarks that he found his own ability to remember and 'think straight' to be little, if at all, reduced. I could 'think straight', but I could not think to any purpose. Even the feeling of universal love was not particularly pleasant; I compared it to having a large alsation dog who puts his paws on your shoulder and licks your face.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: Frankenstein's Castle (1980), p. 59-60

Love, World, Dogs, Feeling

“We may, indeed, indulge in sport and jest, but in the same way as we enjoy sleep or other relaxations, and only when we have satisfied the claims of our earnest, serious task.”
Ludo autem et ioco uti illo quidem licet, sed sicut somno et quietibus ceteris tum, cum gravibus seriisque rebus satis fecerimus.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Book I, section 103
De Officiis – On Duties (44 BC)

Way, Sport, Sleep

“All Muhammadans are fond of women, who are their principal relaxation and almost their only pleasure.”

Niccolao Manucci (1638–1717) Italian writer and historian

Manucci, II, 240; quoted from Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.
Storia do Mogor

Women, Pleasure

“Orthodoxy is a relaxation of the mind accompanied by a stiffening of the heart.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)

Heart

“Spare your heart, save your soul.
Don't drag your love across the coals.
Find your feet and your fortune can be told.
Release, relax, let go,
And hey now let's recover your soul.”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

Recover Your Soul
Song lyrics, The Big Picture (1997)

Love, Soul, Heart

“I would really like to do theatre in my native language because that would be like so relaxed after ER … English … those medical words!”

Goran Višnjić (1972) Croatian actor

“Inaudible melodies
Serve narrational strategies
Unobtrusive tones
Help to notice nothing but the zone
Of visual relevancy
Frame-lines tell me what to see
Chopping like an axe
Or maybe Eisenstein should just relax”

Jack Johnson (musician) (1975) American musician

Inaudible Melodies.
Song lyrics, Brushfire Fairytales (2001)

Help

“I am ready to concede that the rule of adherence to precedent, though it ought not to be abandoned, ought to be in some degree relaxed. I think that when a rule, after it has been duly tested by experience, has been found to be inconsistent with the sense of justice or with the social welfare, there should be less hesitation in frank avowal and full abandonment. … That court best serves the law which recognizes that the rules of law which grew up in a remote generation may, in the fullness of experience, be found to serve another generation badly, and which discards the old rule when it finds that another rule of law represents what should be according to the established and settled judgment of society.”

Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870–1938) United States federal judge

Pages 150-51
Other writings, The Nature of the Judicial Process (1921)

Justice, Law, Thinking, Sense

“If one understands that the only thing that remains timeless is the richness of one’s own buddha nature, one can relax even with regard to death.”

Lama Ole Nydahl (1941) Danish lama

Fearless Death: Buddhist Wisdom on the Art of Dying (2012)

Death, Understanding, Nature

“Hold the period of youth sacred to education, and the period of maturity, when the physical forces begin to flag, equally sacred to ease and agreeable relaxation.”

Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) American author and socialist

Source: Looking Backward, 2000-1887 http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext96/lkbak10.txt (1888), Ch. 6.

Youth, Education

“The long-range trend toward federal regulation, which found its beginnings in the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 and the Sherman Act of 1890, which was quickened by a large number of measures in the Progressive era, and which has found its consummation in our time, was thus at first the response of a predominantly individualistic public to the uncontrolled and starkly original collectivism of big business. In America the growth of the national state and its regulative power has never been accepted with complacency by any large part of the middle-class public, which has not relaxed its suspicion of authority, and which even now gives repeated evidence of its intense dislike of statism. In our time this growth has been possible only under the stress of great national emergencies, domestic or military, and even then only in the face of continuous resistance from a substantial part of the public. In the Progressive era it was possible only because of widespread and urgent fear of business consolidation and private business authority. Since it has become common in recent years for ideologists of the extreme right to portray the growth of statism as the result of a sinister conspiracy of collectivists inspired by foreign ideologies, it is perhaps worth emphasizing that the first important steps toward the modern organization of society were taken by arch-individualists — the tycoons of the Gilded Age — and that the primitive beginning of modern statism was largely the work of men who were trying to save what they could of the eminently native Yankee values of individualism and enterprise.”

Richard Hofstadter (1916–1970) American historian

Source: The Age of Reform: from Bryan to F.D.R. (1955), Chapter VI, part II, p. 233

Men, Age, Fear, Business

“[Talking about the royal family] 'Cause they got in at '52, and then immediately the Queen introduced the new … then in the '60s, the Queen decided to change the way that … and she encouraged people to … and in the '70s she completely redistributed … and realised she had too much wealth, so she decided to … then in the '80s, they set up a charity to do … and then they encouraged other people to … and in the '90s, they just totally relaxed, and they said, "Everyone, why don't you …" And then in the 2000s, they've set a great example by … stop me at any point. I think she's got 20 years left. She's in there, but she essentially does what she does on the stamps.”

Eddie Izzard (1962) British stand-up comedian, actor and writer

Stripped (2009)

People, Family, Way, Thinking

“Indoors or out, no one relaxes
In March, that month of wind and taxes,
The wind will presently disappear,
The taxes last us all the year.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

"Thar She Blows"
Versus (1949)

“The individual, by means of the discipline imposed on him by sport, not only plays and finds relaxation from the various compulsions to which he is subjected, but without knowing it trains himself for new compulsions. … Training in sports makes of the individual an efficient piece of apparatus which is henceforth unacquainted with anything but the harsh joys of exploiting his body and winning.”

Jacques Ellul book The Technological Society

Source: The Technological Society (1954), p. 383

Sport, Joy, Training

“Holden decided that he was okay with not feeling any remorse for them. The moral complexity of the situation had grown past his ability to process it, so he just relaxed in the warm glow of victory instead.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: Leviathan Wakes (2011), Chapter 41 (p. 412)

Feeling, Past, Victory

“It was hard to just sit and relax. Everyone he saw somehow looked suspicious, especially all those people who appeared perfectly innocuous: nobody who looked that innocuous could be anything but guilty, Spider thought.”

K. A. Bedford book Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait

Source: Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait (2008), Chapter 17 (p. 200)

People, Appearance

“We developed a shorthand language of our own which we fell into for the rest of our lives whenever we met, no holds barred — all a matter of past reference, a common language, but basically affection, along with humor, and appreciation of each other’s minds, and of Krazy Kat. Faced with England, and the New World, and Freud and all, we always managed to relax, and go back to the kidding, and bad punning, and drinking, to the end. It really was marvelous.”

Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) American novelist and poet

On his friendship with T. S. Eliot
The Paris Review interview (1963)

World, Drink, Past

“In reference to dealing with black issues and dealing with issues that plague those minority communities, Donald Trump doesn't have a racist bone in his body. I know what real racism is. And Donald Trump is so far from it. Talking to him and his wonderful wife and his children is like hanging out with some friends of mine that are black … He's just that kind of a person. He is not uneasy around you. He's very relaxed… When Donald Trump talks about 'the blacks' he's talking about the blacks, the group as a whole. He's talking about the groups… No, it doesn't bother me, because I know Donald Trump. I know who he is. I know he is not at all speaking in any derogatory sense at all. He's simply talking to that ethnic group, the blacks or the whites… Even with a sitting black President, the racial tension in this country is at an all-time high. And I believe it's led by the Democratic party and led by President Barack Obama, and obviously Secretary Clinton desires to continue that torch, which I believe will lead us more and more into economic destruction, especially for minorities in this country… I have not experienced racist tension from Donald Trump. I'm from the South. Literally right over the next county, there are active KKK groups that parade their rebel flag on a daily basis… This is in 2016. Right now, today, with a sitting black President. So I know what real racism looks like. And it is not Donald Trump… Does he want it (ex-KKK leaders endorsement)? He said, 'No, I don't want it, I don't accept it.' … He doesn't stand for any hate groups, whether it be a Christian hate group or an Islam hate group. He's already stated this. Mr. Trump has already stated that there was a technical issue in the earpiece. I'm in television; I own a TV studio. I do know how technical issues can cause you to miss out on what someone is saying.”

Mark Burns (televangelist) (1979) Christian pastor and founder of the NOW Television Network

Interview, New York Daily News, 15 May 2016 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/meet-female-muslim-mexican-american-trump-supporters-article-1.2637077

Hate, Children, Communication, Sense

“We are trying to celebrate in the new album -- 90 Miles [coming out in the summer of 2007] is the fact that after almost 50 years our homeland [Cuba] is not ours. We have amazing musicians on board preparing this album, and some continue to come on board. It's all new music we've wriiten - all new stuff... No relaxing for me... I've got the Connie Francis screenplay I'm working on, which we just finished. We have a producer... I've got to meet the director that I'm going to go hammer... I've been working on it since 2000 with Connie Francis, who is darling. Plus, I'm a mommy... I take her [12-year-old Emily] to games, take her to school, pick her up... We're women, we're used to”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

constantly juggling responsibilities
cbs4.com (February 9, 2007)
2007, 2008

Women, School, Music, Game

“I know many people who like watching commercials because they're so funny. They provide relaxation and diversion. People come home after a day's work, from which they derive little satisfaction, and feel the need for diversion and amusement. The word diversion itself is already very significant. When Pascal uses the word diversion he means that people who follow the path of God deviate from the path which leads them to God as a result of diversion and amusement. Instead of thinking of God, they amuse themselves. So, instead of thinking about the problems which have been created by technology and our work we want to amuse ourselves.”

Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) French sociologist, technology critic, and Christian anarchist

The Betrayal by Technology (1993 film)

God, People, Feeling, Home

“My pen and paper cause a chain reaction, to get your brain relaxing.”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Infinite"
1990s, Infinite (1996)

“So all they see of me is a façade. There are times when I am forced to sit with them and on such occasions I simply ignore their petty criticisms, not because I am particularly shy but because I consider it pointless. As a result, they now look upon me as a dullard.
"Well, we never expected this!" they all say. "No one liked her. They all said she was pretentious, awkward, difficult to approach, prickly, too fond of her tales, haughty, prone to versifying, disdainful, cantankerous and scornful; but when you meet her, she is strangely meek, a completely different person altogether!"
How embarrassing! Do they really look upon me as such a dull thing, I wonder? But I am what I am. Her Majesty has also remarked more than once that she had thought I was not the kind of person with whom she could ever relax, but that I have now become closer to her than any of the others. I am so perverse and standoffish. If only I can avoid putting off those for whom I have a genuine regard.”

Murasaki Shikibu book The Diary of Lady Murasaki

trans. Richard Bowring
The Diary of Lady Murasaki

Time, Personality

“If you are an intellectual, your best course is to relax and enjoy it.”

Robertson Davies book A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

“As it is generally seen, blank verse seems to be only a laborious and doubtful struggle to escape from the fangs of prose… if it ever ventures to relax into simple and natural phraseology, it instantly becomes tame and the prey of its pursuer.”

Charles Symmons (1749–1826) Welsh poet

Preface to the First Edition
The Æneis (1817)

Nature

“Music is a pastime, a relaxation from more serious occupations.”

Alexander Borodin (1833–1887) Russian composer, doctor and chemist

Letter to V A Krylov, 1867, in Borodin: Collected Letters.

Music

“But when it comes to a relaxing of the religious ban in the loosest sense of the word, in which the justification of restricted women from certain religious responsibilities and actions, were quite fitting and earn the highest respect – however, today, where woman is clearly present in public life and accomplishes practical tasks in cooperation with men, contact has become casual.”

Regina Jonas (1902–1944) rabbi

Can a Woman Be a Rabbi According to Halachic Sources?

Life, Women, Men, Sense

“But I do think that women who spend all their lives on a diet probably have a miserable sex life: if your body is the enemy, how can you relax and take pleasure? Everything is about control, rather than relaxing, about holding everything in.”

Nigella Lawson (1960) British food writer, journalist and broadcaster

As quoted in "The big issue" by Shane Watson in The Times http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/diet_and_fitness/article2941491.ece (2 December 2007)

Life, Women, Pleasure, Sex

“Marriage is not something that can be accomplished all at once; it has to be constantly reaccomplished. A couple must never indulge in idle tranquility with the remark: "The game is won; let's relax." The game is never won. The chances of life are such that anything is possible. Remember what the dangers are for both sexes in middle age. A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Marriage

Life, Marriage, Age, Sex

“These [RAF] airmen were my fellow countrymen, and I was proud to be of their race. I knew the essential decency which was the bedrock of their character, their humour, stubbornness, and self-reliance. I knew that if called upon they could adapt themselves to any kind of life, in the desert, in the jungle, in mountains or on the sea, and that in many respects no race in the world was their equal. But the things that interested them bored me. They belonged to an age of machines; they were fascinated by cars and aeroplanes, and found their relaxation in the cinema and the wireless. I knew that I stood apart from them and would never find contentment among them, whereas I could find it among the Bedu, although I should never be one of them.”

Wilfred Thesiger book Arabian Sands

Source: Arabian Sands (1959), p.168.

Life, Age, World, Cars

“Detente sounds a fine word. And, to the extent that there really has been a relaxation in international tension, it is a fine thing. But the fact remains that throughout this decade of detente, the armed forces of the Soviet Union have increased, are increasing, and show no signs of diminishing.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Chelsea Conservative Association (26 July 1975) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102750 Leader of the Opposition

“The possibility for compassionate concern for others, which is present in all humans, is usually mixed with the sense of ego and so becomes confused with the need to satisfy one's own cravings for recognition and self-evaluation. The spontaneous compassion that arises when one is not caught in the habitual patterns - when one is not perfoming volitional actions out of karmic cause and effect - is not done with a sense of need for feedback from its recipient. It is the anxiety about feedback - the response of the other - that causes us tension and inhibition in our action. When action is done withouth the business-deal mentality, there can be relaxation. This is called supreme (or transcendental) generosity.”

Francisco Varela (1946–2001) Chilean biologist

Source: The Embodied Mind (1991), p. 249

Business, Sense

“I eased him into his new bed [beneath the floorboards] … A week later, I wondered whether his body had changed at all or had started to decompose. I disinterred him and pulled the dirt-stained youth up onto the floor. His skin was very dirty. I stripped myself naked and carried him into the bathroom and washed the body. There was practically no discoloration and his skin was pale white. His limbs were more relaxed than when I had put him down there.”

Dennis Nilsen (1945–2018) British serial killer

As quoted by Brian Masters (2011), Killing for Company, Random House, p. 113, ISBN 1446428737

Youth, Change

“Relax, enjoy yourself. Have another drink. It’s patriotic to overconsume.”

Brian W. Aldiss book Greybeard

Source: Greybeard (1964), Chapter 4 (p. 121)

Drink

“The Prime Minister said…that where I failed, for all my brilliant gifts, was in the faculty of judging. I will gladly submit my judgement about foreign affairs and national defence during the last five years, in comparison with his own. … In February the Prime Minister said the tension in Europe had greatly relaxed. A few weeks later Nazi Germany seized Austria. I predicted that he would repeat this statement as soon as the shock of the rape of Austria passed away. He did so in the very same words at the end of July. By the middle of August Germany was mobilising…which…ended in the complete destruction and absorption of the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia. … in November…he told us that Europe was settling down to a more peaceful state. The words were hardly out of his mouth before the Nazi atrocities on the Jewish population resounded throughout the civilised world.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Chingford (9 December 1938), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 1025
The 1930s

World, Peace

“"You have loved enough, now let me be the lover." You could say that God is speaking to you or the cosmos, or your lover. It just means, like, Forget it. Lean back and be loved by all that is already loving you. It is your effort at love that is preventing you from experiencing it. It is like if you ever taught kids how to swim. The most difficult thing is Goddam to understand that they will float, if they relax, if they hold their breath and relax, they will actually float. For most kids it is difficult to swim. They feel they are going to sink like a stone to the bottom of the lake.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

On the lyrics to "You Have Loved Enough" in an interview released at the Ten New Songs site (2001)

Love, God, Feeling, Lovers

“We are weary and heavy laden, and our heavenly Father offers to carry us and our affairs in His own everlasting arms. And so far as the weariness is concerned, we consent; we consent to be carried and find rest to our souls. But " heavy laden," — no, we cannot part with the heavy load. This responsibility, this nervousness about the absent, this household worry, this mercantile venture, this literary experiment, this invalid friend, we cannot transfer to Him who says, "Cast thy burden on the Lord," but even our bleared and sleepy eyes we open from time to time to see that it is still there, and ("O fools and slow of heart!") when we can guard it no longer, the relaxing arms are still in attitude as if they enclasped it, all unconscious that it is now better cared for elsewhere.”

James Hamilton (1814–1867) Scottish minister and a prolific author of religious tracts

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 99.

Fools, Soul, Time, Heart

“Monogamy has a sentimental basis which is quite distinct from the political one of equal numbers of the sexes. Equal numbers in the sexes are quite compatible with a change of partners every day or every hour. Physically there is nothing to distinguish human society from the farm-yard except that children are more troublesome and costly than chickens and calves, and that men and women are not so completely enslaved as farm stock. Accordingly, the people whose conception of marriage is a farm-yard or slave-quarter conception are always more or less in a panic lest the slightest relaxation of the marriage laws should utterly demoralize society; whilst those to whom marriage is a matter of more highly evolved sentiments and needs (sometimes said to be distinctively human, though birds and animals in a state of freedom evince them quite as touchingly as we) are much more liberal, knowing as they do that monogamy will take care of itself provided the parties are free enough, and that promiscuity is a product of slavery and not of liberty.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Preface: "The Personal Sentimental Basis of Monogamy" http://www.enotalone.com/article/13714.html 1900s, Getting Married (1908)

Women, Men, Marriage, Children

“Young people are not yet biased in their mind. They are not completely taken by their expert opinions. Expert opinions have a difficulty to go beyond of what they know. When you start in a new field, from the point of view of a scientist, you certainly are 20 years younger, because in the new field you're not yet biased and you look at certain things a little bit more relaxed and a little bit more open.”

Heinrich Rohrer (1933–2013) Swiss physicist

Interview with Heinrich Rohrer at the Nobel Foundation, Stockholm, 9 April, 2008. The interviewer is Adam Smith, Editor-in-Chief of Nobelprize.org.

People

“I pay the entrance fee at the desk, no questions asked, and get a key to a locker. After changing into shorts and a T-shirt in he locker room, I do some stretching exercises. As my muscles relax so do I. I'm safe inside this container called me. With a little click, the outlines of this being - me - fit right inside and are locked nearly away. Just the way I like it. I'm where I belong.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002), Chapter Seven

Way, Exercises, Question, Change

“A conventional good read is usually a bad read, a relaxing bath in what we know already. A true good read is surely an act of innovative creation in which we, the readers, become conspirators.”

Malcolm Bradbury (1932–2000) English author and academic

The Sunday Times, November 29, 1987.

Reading

“Maybe because I had been out very late the night before and was not able to put up my usual resistance, but it seemed to me, sitting there with the sound of his voice dying in my ears, that I could fall in love with him.
And then, as unexpected as a hidden step, I felt myself actually stumble and fall. And there it was, I was in love with him! As simple as that.
He was the first real person I’d ever been in love with. I couldn’t get over it. What I was trying to figure out was why I had never been in love with him before. I mean I’d had plenty of chance to. I’d seen him almost daily that summer in Maine two years ago when we were both in a Summer Stock company. … He was always rather nice to me in his insolent way, but there was also, I now remembered with a passing pang, an utterly ravishing girl, a model, the absolute epitome of glamour, called Lila. She used to come up at week ends to see him.
Then I heard from someone that he’d quit college the next winter and gone abroad to become a genius. I’d met him again when I first landed in Paris. He’d been very nice, bought me a drink, taken down my telephone number and never called me.
You’re a dead duck now, I told myself, as I relaxed back into my coma. You’re gone. I looked at him, smiling idly. I tried to imagine what was going on in his mind.”

Elaine Dundy (1921–2008) American journalist, actress

Part One, One
The Dud Avocado (1958)

Love, Smile, Way, Imagination

“I'm the worst auditioner, really, really bad. I mean, you're being judged and I'm just so aware of it that it consumes me. I can't relax, I'm tied in knots, so the voice is very taut and tense. You're so aware that you're acting 'cause you're sitting across from this lady with a piece of paper who's going, I'm. Going. To. Shoot. You. If. You. Don't. Blah, blah, blah, in this emotionless voice. It's foul. I hate it.”

Heath Ledger (1979–2008) Australian actor

As quoted by EW.com (May 2001).

Hate

“In ordinary circumstances, contradictions among the people are not antagonistic. However, if they are not handled properly, or if we relax our vigilance and lower our guard, antagonism may arise. In a socialist country, a development of this kind is usually only a localized and temporary phenomenon. The reason is that the system of exploitation of man by man has been abolished and the interests of the people are the same.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People
Original: (zh-CN) 在一般情况下，人民内部的矛盾不是对抗性的。但是如果处理得不适当，或者失去警觉，麻痹大意，也可能发生对抗。这种情况，在社会主义国家通常只是局部的暂时的现象。这是因为社会主义国家消灭了人剥削人的制度，人民的利益在根本上是一致的。

People, Country

“I never joined the army because "at ease" never seemed that easy to me. It seemed rather uptight, still. I do not relax by putting my arms behind my back and parting my legs slightly, that does not equal ease to me. At ease is not being in the military. I'm eased bro, cause I'm not in the military.”

Mitch Hedberg (1968–2005) American stand-up comedian

Strategic Grill Locations

Parting

“And, looking very relaxed, Adolf Hitler on vibes. Nice!”

Vivian Stanshall (1943–1995) English musician, artist and author

The Intro and the Outro
Others

“Interviewer: You and Australia have had quite a relationship over the years. This will be your first trip there in eight years.
Singh: There are lots of memories, and they are all quite fresh. Good and bad. I will start with the good. Winning the Perth Test was probably the key point of my Test career, even though I didn’t play that match. But in the context of the series, we fought really hard and won a match in which Australia were favourites. And of course winning the CB series by beating Australia was very satisfying. It is like winning a mini World Cup. The bad memories include the Sydney spat, of course. It should have been handled better. It should have been stopped. Whatever happened there didn’t help anyone, neither Australian cricket nor us. We (Andrew Symonds & I) should have just sat like two mature people and spoken about it and sorted it.
Interviewer: This realisation that you should stop rushing through things has come about recently?
Singh: It’s not that I have just started doing this now. I have been told by a lot of my senior bowlers, “Take your time. Don’t rush.” Maybe I was not getting the idea sometimes. That was missing in between. Sometimes I was heeding to that advice, sometimes I was not. Then you make mistakes. Then you come back to the same thing, “Ok, take your time, boss. Relax.” It’s been there, but lately it’s come to the fore more because I have become calmer.
Interviewer: When you see guys like Virender Sehwag and Zaheer Khan, who came into international cricket after you, retire, what kind of effect does it have on you?
Singh: That was up to them. They know what’s going on with their body and mind. They need to plan their lives. Their decision should not put anyone else under pressure. Till I’m playing with my full energy, I will continue to play. Aisa toh nahi ho sakta bhai ki ek ka raasta doosre ke liye theek hai. I am enjoying what I’m doing.”

Harbhajan Singh (1980) Indian cricketer

Interview with Indian Express http://indianexpress.com/article/sports/cricket/i-always-say-i-am-the-best-harbhajan-singh/, January 25, 2016.

People, World, Guy, Idea

“As the great words of freedom and fulfillment are pronounced by campaigning leaders and politicians, on the screens and radios and stages, they turn into meaningless sounds which obtain meaning only in the context of propaganda, business, discipline, and relaxation. This assimilation of the ideal with reality testifies to the extent to which the ideal has been surpassed. It is brought down from the sublimated realm of the soul or the spirit or the inner man, and translated into operational terms and problems. Here are the progressive elements of mass culture. The perversion is indicative of the fact that advanced industrial society is confronted with the possibility of a materialization of ideals. The capabilities of this society are progressively reducing the sublimated realm in which the condition of man was represented, idealized, and indicted. Higher culture becomes part of the material culture. In this transformation, it loses the greater part of its truth.”

Herbert Marcuse book One-Dimensional Man

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), pp. 57-58

Truth, Soul, Business, Problem

“We had a Negro psychiatrist, Madison Presnell, working with us, and I had been trained to be a very liberal person about Negroes, which meant that you didn't have feelings. It was a phony kind of liberal thing. I went out of my way to be liberal. You know, that very self-conscious kind of equality. And Madison and I turned on together and I looked at Madison, and there we were, the same human beings. It was just that he was wearing that skin and I was wearing this skin. And it was no more or less than that. It was that shirt and this shirt and it had no more relevance than that. And I looked at that, and suddenly there we were, whereas before I had been so busy with my super-liberal reaction to color of skin, that I couldn't relax enough to share this unitive place.”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

Be Here Now (1971)

Color, Way, Feeling, Business

“I never had a strategy in my dealing with other humans! I've always been very passive socially. I went along with their agenda. I had none of my own! Left to my own devices I stayed in my room or wandered aimlessly in the streets, fantasizing about bizarre things I yearned to do to big ladies, or filled with self-pity and resentment. I was helpless in the presence of other people! My main concern was to make them like me by being as agreeable as possible, and secondly to impress them with my brilliance, my sharp wit, my originality, and my fundamental saintliness. Over time, and after years—decades—of diligent practice, I became very good at this cute little performance of mine. But this performance was improvised in the moment, catered to suit whoever I happened to be with. There was no strategy. It was always an effort. Only in solitude was I completely relaxed. Funny thing…”

Robert Crumb (1943) American cartoonist

From his sketchbook (16 February 1998), reproduced in The R. Crumb Handbook by Robert Crumb and Peter Poplaski (2005), p. 380

People, Solitude, Effort, Time

“Your hair may be brushed, but your mind's untidy,
You've had about seven hours' sleep since Friday,
No wonder you feel that lost sensation;
You're sunk from a riot of relaxation.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

"We'll All Feel Better By Wednesday"
Versus (1949)

Feeling, Sleep

“Having been informed of events by Vice-Chancellor von Papen, President Hindenburg summoned General Goering, in his capacity of Chief of Police, and myself to Neudeck. Our instructions are to consult with you on the measures to be taken to ensure internal peace. If a complete relaxation of tension does not immediately take place (and to this end we must avoid any ministerial crisis), martial law will be proclaimed.”

Werner von Blomberg (1878–1946) German field marshal

Quoted in "Hitler and I" - Page 186 - by Otto Strasser, Gwenda David, Eric Mosbacher - Germany - 1940

Peace, Law

“He is cunning, he is mighty, he never rests, he is ever plotting the downfall of the child of God; and if the child of God relaxes in prayer the Devil will succeed in ensnaring him.”

R. A. Torrey (1856–1928) American writer

Power and Peace in Prayer (1924)

God

“But people in Croatia are more relaxed, they work less, they have less money, but they enjoy life more because they are not so busy.”

Goran Višnjić (1972) Croatian actor

Radio Times April 2007

Life, Money, People, Business

“He is an extremely messy person, the messiest on earth. But he loves to cook and absolutely loves making pasta at home. We never discussed cricket at home and always made sure there was life away from the sport at home. Conversations revolved around kids and made sure there was life beyond the sport. Kumar is a very relaxed, open sort of person. He has never demanded much. (But) He will have to get used to our routine now. He will of course still play some cricket for a year or two.”

Kumar Sangakkara (1977) Sri Lankan cricketer

Kumar's wife, Yehali Sangakkara, quoted on sports.ndtv, "Kumar Sangakkara is Extremely Messy, Would Love to Have Him at Home Now: Yehali Sangakkara" http://sports.ndtv.com/sri-lanka-vs-india-2015/news/247313-kumar-sangakkara-is-extremely-messy-would-love-to-have-him-at-home-now-yehali-sangakkara, August 21, 2015. About

Love, Life, Home, Sport

“That is my problem with life, I just rush through it, like I'm being chased. Even things whose whole point is slowness, like drinking relaxing tea. When I drink relaxing tea I suck it down like I'm in a contest for who can drink relaxing tea the quickest.”

Miranda July (1974) American performance artist, musician and writer

"The Man on the Stairs" in Fence (Spring/Summer 2004)

Life, Drink, Problem, Tea

Quotes about relaxation page 2

Quotes about relaxation
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