CLAWS Quotes: Page Two

"Nobody talks more of free enterprise and competition and of the best man winning
than the man who inherited his father's store or farm."

- C. Wright Mills

"It is not wise to rush about.
Controlling the breath causes strain.
If too much energy is used, exhaustion follows.
This is not the way of the Tao.
Whatever is contrary to the Tao will not last long."

- Lao Tzu, 6th Century B.C.

"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important."

- Bertrand Russell

"The work of the master reeks not of the sweat of the brow - suggests no effort and is finished from the beginning."

- James McNeill Whistler

A martial arts student went to his teacher and said earnestly, "I am devoted to studying your martial system. How long will it take me to master it?"
The teacher's reply was casual, "Ten years."
Impatiently, the student answered,
"But I want to master it faster than that. I will work very hard. I will practice everyday, ten or more hours a day if I have to. How long will it take then?"
The teacher thought for a moment, "20 years."

- Zen Story

"There is no more fatal blunder than
he who consumes the greater part of his life
getting his living."

- Henry David Thoreau

"The wisdom of a learned man cometh by opportunity of leisure:
and he that hath little business shall become wise."

- Ecclesiasticus ch. 38 v. 24

"Work is clearly not healthy for individuals and the products it produces are no longer
healthy for the planet. Yet governments everywhere pursue policies aimed at
encouraging more jobs...Despite the dysfuntion of the work ethic it continues to be
promoted and praised, accepted and acquiesced to. It is one of the
least challenged aspects of industrial culture."

- Sharon Beder,
Selling the Work Ethic: From Puritan Pulpit to Corporate PR

"Leisure is essential to civilisation."

- Bertrand Russell, 1932

"Increased means and increased leisure
are the two civilisers of man."

- Benjamin Disraeli

"All intellectual improvement arises from leisure."

- Samuel Johnson

"I am the laziest man in the world.
I invented all those things to save myself from toil."

- Benjamin Franklin

"...for more than five years I maintained myself thus
solely by the labour of my hands
and I found that by working about six weeks in a year,
I could meet all the expenses of living."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Practise non-action.
Work without doing."

- Lao Tzu, 6th Century B.C.

"Men of lofty genius are most active
when they are doing the least work."

- Leonardo da Vinci

"Only the idle can be at the complete disposal of chance."

- surrealist Andre Breton

"What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare."

- W. H. Davies

"It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly
unless one has plenty of work to do."

- Jerome K. Jerome

"Personally, I have nothing against work,
particularly when performed, quietly and unobtrusively,
by someone else. I just don't happen to think it's an appropriate subject for an 'ethic.'"

- Barabara Ehrenreich

"Our primary work ... is to love and forgive ...
The meaning of work, whatever its form,
is that it be used to heal the world."

- Marianne Williamson

"Jehovah the bearded and angry god,
gave his worshippers the supreme example of ideal laziness; after six days of work, he rests for
all eternity."

- The Right to be Lazy, Paul LaFargue, 1893

"Life was never meant to be a struggle;
just a gentle progression from one point to another,
much like walking through a valley on a sunny day."

- Stuart Wilde

"Tao abides in non-action.
Yet nothing is left undone."

- Lao Tzu

Go to Page Three of CLAWS quotes...