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Life is about recapturing lost freedoms.

Tom Hodgkinson

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Tom Hodgkinson
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: January 1
Bookseller
Essayist
Journalist
Writer
Newcastle
Lost
Life
Freedoms

More quotes by Tom Hodgkinson

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When the going gets tough, the tough take a nap.
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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If you look at the literature of the 19th century, you get things like Kafka and Dostoevsky, who basically write about feeling bored and alienated. That's because we lost contact with the important things in life like work that you enjoy, or the garden, nature, your family and friends.
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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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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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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Laziness works. And the simple way to incorporate its health benefits into your life is simply to take a nap.
Tom Hodgkinson
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Sensible people advise against drinking on an empty stomach, but to my mind it is the best sort of drinking.
Tom Hodgkinson
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One aspect of fast London life I have never understood, for example, is the custom of the gym. Why do people go to gyms?
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 is nothing so perfect as pinball and a pint at 11 a.m.
Tom Hodgkinson
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Labour-saving devices just make us try to cram more pointless activities into each day, rather than doing the important thing, which is to enjoy our life.
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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Doing something you enjoy at times of your own choosing and making a living from it: now tell me, is that work?
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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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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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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Although I played a lot of computer games in my 20s, now I have children of my own I hate them with a passion.
Tom Hodgkinson
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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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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