This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Allan Bloom, fully Allan David Bloom
Any notion of the serious life of leisure, as well as men's taste and capacity to live it, has disappeared. Leisure (has become) entertainment.
Capacity | Entertainment | Leisure | Life | Life | Men | Taste |
Arnold J. Toynbee, fully Arnold Joseph Toynbee
To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization.
Civilization | Leisure |
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.
Civilization | Leisure | People | Present |
The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation... A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.
Good | Happy | Hell | Leisure | Occupation |
Leisure, though the propertied classes give its name to their own idleness, is not idleness. It is not even a luxury: it is a necessity, and a necessity of the first importance. Some of the most valuable work done in the world has been done at leisure, and never paid for in cash or kind. Leisure any be described as free activity, labor as compulsory activity. Leisure does what it likes: labor does what it must, the compulsion being that of Nature, which in these latitudes leaves men no choice between labor and starvation.
Choice | Idleness | Labor | Leisure | Luxury | Men | Nature | Necessity | Work | World |
Nobody can live in society without conventions. The reason why sensible people are as conventional as they can bear to be is that conventionality saves so much time and thought and trouble and social friction of one sort or another that it leaves them much more leisure for freedom than unconventionality does.
Freedom | Leisure | People | Reason | Society | Thought | Time | Society | Trouble | Thought |
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
He enjoys true leisure who has time to improve his soul's estate.
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
What is leisure but opportunity for more complete and entire action?
Action | Leisure | Opportunity |
The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are the more leisure we have.
Leisure |
It has occurred to me that the thing you have, that all men have enough of, is perhaps the thing that you care for the best, and that is your leisure - the leisure you have to think; the leisure you have to be let alone; the leisure you have to throw the plummet into your mind, and sound the depth and dive for things below.
Kenneth Eble, fully Kenneth Eugene Eble
Whether [teaching] contexts come from richness of experience, a restless curiosity, opportunities for leisure and study, or from an education aimed at breadth, they are necessities for affecting the learning of diverse students.
Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe
The divine purpose of the present information revolution, for instance, which gives an individual unprecedented power and opportunity, is to allow us to share knowledge—spiritual knowledge—with each other, empowering and unifying individuals everywere. We need to use today’s interactive technology not just for business or leisure but to interlink as people – to create a welcome environment for the interaction of our souls, our hearts, our visions.
Business | Individual | Leisure | Need | People | Power | Present | Purpose | Purpose | Technology | Business |
Mother Jones, referring to Mary Harris Jones
In spite of oppressors, in spite of false leaders, in spite of labor's own lack of understanding of its needs, the cause of the worker continues onward. Slowly his hours are shortened, giving him leisure to read and to think. Slowly his standard of living rises to include some of the good and beautiful things of the world. Slowly the cause of his children becomes the cause of all. His boy is taken from the breaker, his girl from the mill. Slowly those who create the wealth of the world are permitted to share it. The future is in labor's strong, rough hands.
Cause | Children | Future | Giving | Good | Leisure | Understanding | Wealth | World |