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."
Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 332
Preface
The Importance of Living (1937)
Context: This is a personal testimony, a testimony of my own experience of thought and life. It is not intended to be objective and makes no claim to establish eternal truths. In fact I rather despise claims to objectivity in philosophy; the point of view is the thing. I should have liked to call it "A Lyrical Philosophy," using the word "lyrical" in the sense of being a highly personal and individual outlook...
Source: As quoted in Pearls of Wisdom: A Harvest of Quotations From All Ages (1987) by Jerome Agel and Walter D. Glanze, p. 46. From The Importance of Living: "besides the noble art of getting things done, there is a nobler art of leaving things undone" (p. 162), "the wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials" (p. 10).
“Anyone who reads a book with a sense of obligation does not understand the art of reading.”
Source: The Importance of Living
“Those who are wise won't be busy, and those who are too busy can't be wise.”
Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 150
“There is something in the nature of tea that leads us into a world of quiet contemplation of life.”
Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 224
Source: The Importance of Living
Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 13
Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 2
Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 20
“The Chinese do not draw any distinction between food and medicine.”
Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. IX : The Enjoyment of Living, p. 249
Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 155
Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 36
“A man may own a thousand acres of land, and yet he still sleeps upon a bed of five feet.”
Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 38 (Chinese saying)
Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 162
Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 8
Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. IV : On Having A Stomach, p. 46
