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The idea of a government is to create an ordered, willing work force where there's no trouble. I think idlers are generally seen as potentially dangerous because they're asking questions.

Tom Hodgkinson

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Tom Hodgkinson
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: January 1
Bookseller
Essayist
Journalist
Writer
Newcastle
Ideas
Dangerous
Work
Willing
Think
Trouble
Idlers
Thinking
Create
Potentially
Seen
Ordered
Idea
Generally
Force
Questions
Government
Asking

More quotes by 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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Bosses should sanction the nap rather than expect workers to power on all day without repose. They might even find that workers' happiness - or what management types refer to as employee satisfaction results - might improve.
Tom Hodgkinson
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Am I the only person in the world who is shocked and amazed at the ongoing flattery of uebergeek Mark Zuckerberg?
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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Truly, the bench is a boon to idlers. Whoever first came up with the idea is a genius: free public resting places where you can take time out from the bustle and brouhaha of the city, and simply sit and watch and reflect.
Tom Hodgkinson
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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.
Tom Hodgkinson
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The best thing that can happen to anybody is to be sacked or made redundant because often that's when you think, I don't want to become one of the living dead. I haven't got anything to lose, now I can start to follow my own dreams.
Tom Hodgkinson
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It will soon be difficult to put up a shelf without a degree in shelf putting up.
Tom Hodgkinson
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There is nothing so perfect as pinball and a pint at 11 a.m.
Tom Hodgkinson
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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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When walking you see things that you miss in a motor car or on the train. You give your mind space to ponder.
Tom Hodgkinson
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Part of this individualism is you feel this pressure that you alone have to conquer the world, and if you don't work all the hours God gives then you start feeling really guilty. If you can stop feeling guilty, then I think it's easier to start doing what you want to do.
Tom Hodgkinson
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Faffing of course does not fit the programme. We are supposed to be busy, productive citizens.
Tom Hodgkinson
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Paradoxically, to be truly idle, you also have to be efficient.
Tom Hodgkinson
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The way to stop feeling guilty is to read stuff - I'm not saying my book, but works by Bertrand Russell or Oscar Wilde, people who weren't losers but who didn't believe in the work ethic, and argued this thing about guilt or wrote philosophy about idleness.
Tom Hodgkinson
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Benjamin Franklin and the whole idea of a new attitude to money: Time is money. He invented that idea. Before that, time wasn't money in the same way in the medieval age it was regarded as sinful for money to be the object of your life.
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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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
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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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There's nothing new about anti-work philosophy. History is dotted with individuals and groups who decided that laziness was next to godliness and work was a waste of time.
Tom Hodgkinson