Tom Hodgkinson quotes - page 3

If we are to make life into a pleasure rather than a struggle, then I would suggest that we have to start with our own mental attitudes. (Tom Hodgkinson)

Once you explore life outside of work, it becomes addictive. The less you work, the less you want to work. At first, the odd afternoon off seems like a fantastic luxury. Before long, you are opting for a four-day week. Then a four-day week becomes an intolerable demand on your time, so you find a way of moving to a three-day week.

Tom Hodgkinson

Of all the depressing abuses of language in business, there is none that gets me so incensed as the rampant overuse of the word 'passionate' in company slogans, marketing blurbs, mission statements and on the sides of vans.

Tom Hodgkinson

If you can find a way to make a living doing something you enjoy, or a range of things that you enjoy, then it can scarcely be called work.

Tom Hodgkinson

The phrase 'work/life balance' encapsulates a depressing outlook.

Tom Hodgkinson

For a really relaxing time, you want to go to a place where the work ethic hasn't taken hold, where the culture hasn't been taken over by the western values of constant striving.

Tom Hodgkinson

When the going gets tough, the tough take a nap.

Tom Hodgkinson

Faffing is good. It is an important part of life. Faffing is when we disconnect from the matrix and idle for a while, like a car. Our body and spirit know deep down that human beings were not made for constant toil so subconsciously creates space through the mechanism of faffing.

Tom Hodgkinson

It's pretty obvious that Western lifestyles which rely on gigantic amounts of electricity use up far more resources than a subsistence-based life. A little more poverty would be a good thing.

Tom Hodgkinson

If your work is done on the phone, then surely you can set up some kind of wireless system. If your work involves reading or writing reports, then this too could be done outside.

Tom Hodgkinson

I seethe at the humiliation of airport security checks. (Tom Hodgkinson)

Management gurus in general are, I think, best avoided. All too often they reduce your working life to a list of rules to be followed. Targets are aimed at. Goals kicked at. You then break the rules or forget them and, hey presto, you start beating yourself up.

Tom Hodgkinson

Am I the only person in the world who is shocked and amazed at the ongoing flattery of uebergeek Mark Zuckerberg?

Tom Hodgkinson

Both on an individual and a national scale, debt imprisons.

Tom Hodgkinson

I love the 19th-century idea of the flaneur, the poet wandering through the streets.

Tom Hodgkinson

When we are busy at work and busy at home, an hour's walking every day becomes a real luxury. If done alone, the walk injects a period of meditation into the day, and if done in company, it allows space for some really good conversation.

Tom Hodgkinson

Poetry, being supremely useless, by its very existence represents a protest against the so-called 'real world' of busy-ness and moneymaking, so we must embrace, salute and support our poets.

Tom Hodgkinson

Faffing, of course, does not fit the programme. We are supposed to be busy, productive citizens.

Tom Hodgkinson

Alongside my 'no email' policy, I resolve to make better use of the wonderful Royal Mail, and send letters and postcards to people. There is a huge pleasure in writing a letter, putting it in an envelope and sticking the stamp on it. And huge pleasure in receiving real letters, too.

Tom Hodgkinson

What seems extraordinary is that the richest countries in the world, in terms of economic output, are the ones where we work hardest.

Tom Hodgkinson

You can become very serious as a parent. That's got to be fought against. (Tom Hodgkinson)

Travelling fills me with dread.

Tom Hodgkinson

We no longer sing and dance. We don't know how to. Instead, we watch other people sing and dance on the television screen. Christmas, which was once a festival of active enjoyment, has turned into a binge of purely passive pleasures.

Tom Hodgkinson

I've often said that far more sensible than a 'make poverty history' campaign would be a 'make wealth history' campaign. It is, after all, the wealthy people who do all the damage. The less money you earn, the fewer resources you use up.

Tom Hodgkinson

Embrace the faff. Stare out of the window. Bend paperclips. Stand in the middle of the room trying to remember what you came downstairs for. Pace. Drum your fingertips. Move papers around. Hum. Look at the garden.

Tom Hodgkinson

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