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

Tom Hodgkinson

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Tom Hodgkinson
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: January 1
Bookseller
Essayist
Journalist
Writer
Newcastle
Going
Naps
Librarian
Gym
Chocolate
Tough
Gets
Senility
Sleep
Mercenary
Take
Catchy

More quotes by Tom Hodgkinson

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We bore ourselves in order to earn money that we'll later spend on trying to de-bore ourselves
Tom Hodgkinson
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We have an idea that if something we're doing isn't actually earning money, or spending it, then it's completely worthless. But if you start to work less, you can actually start to give more to society, but on a local level.
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The world's richest half billion people - that's about seven per cent of the global population - are responsible for fifty per cent of the world's emissions.
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There is nothing so perfect as pinball and a pint at 11 a.m.
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What I've found in working less is you start to get a bit more involved in the more real politics, which is local politics that affect what's going on in your own community.
Tom Hodgkinson
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A conclusion I’ve come to at the Idler is that it starts with retreating from work but it’s really about making work into something that isn’t drudgery and slavery, and then work and life can become one thing.
Tom Hodgkinson
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Guilt is also a way for us to express to others that we are a person of good conscience.
Tom Hodgkinson
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I suddenly realised, hey, I'm not a lazy idiot, I'm an idler! It's something to aspire to, it's part of the creative process! That's fantastic!
Tom Hodgkinson
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Paradoxically, to be truly idle, you also have to be efficient.
Tom Hodgkinson
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I would like to propose slow cycling. Commute by bike. At a stroke, you remove the need for and absurd cost of public transport. Cycling is almost completely free. There is no longer any need for the gym as you get fit by cycling. And you can go at your own pace.
Tom Hodgkinson
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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
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Deleting 200 spams a day is a drag. And I was checking my email constantly, rather than getting on with my real work, which is reading and writing. Email was becoming a distraction, a burden rather than a liberation.
Tom Hodgkinson
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Pain will never leave us. Instead of putting energy into destroying pain, we need to put energy into creating pleasure.
Tom Hodgkinson
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It takes a while to master the art of hammock-lounging. At first I could only manage five minutes or so before I thought I ought to get out and go and help a child learn how to swim or something. But after observing the Mexicans' capability for staring into space for hours on end, I decided to put in some proper practice.
Tom Hodgkinson
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I've never understood activity holidays since we seem to have far too much activity in our daily lives as it is. Find a culture where loafing is the order of the day and where they don't understand our need to be constantly doing things. Find somewhere you can have a hammock holiday.
Tom Hodgkinson
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One of the least arduous but most productive of gardening jobs, the magic of deadheading never fails to delight me. It was a revelation when the principle was explained to me: that flowers are the attempt by the plant to reproduce itself. So if you cut the heads off before the flower turns into seeds, the plant will continue to flower.
Tom Hodgkinson
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Life is about recapturing lost freedoms.
Tom Hodgkinson
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Being lazy does not mean that you do not create. In fact, lying around doing nothing is an important, nay crucial, part of the creative process. It is meaningless bustle that actually gets in the way of productivity. All we are really saying is, give peace a chance.
Tom Hodgkinson
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We have become so obsessed by numbers and by bottom lines that beauty and truth has been knocked aside.
Tom Hodgkinson
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Idleness allows you to turn a situation from boredom to pleasure.
Tom Hodgkinson