Home > Work > An Apology for Idlers
1 " There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. "
― Robert Louis Stevenson , An Apology for Idlers
2 " An intelligent person, looking out of his eyes and hearkening in his ears, with a smile on his face all the time, will get more true education than many another in a life of heroic vigils". "
3 " It is a sore thing to have laboured along and scaled the arduous hilltops, and when all is done, find humanity indifferent to your achievement. Hence physicists condemn the unphysical; financiers have only a superficial toleration for those who know little of stocks; literary persons despise the unlettered; and people of all pursuits combine to disparage those who have none.But though this is one difficulty of the subject, it is not the greatest. You could not be put in prison for speaking against industry, but you can be sent to Coventry for speaking like a fool. The greatest difficulty with most subjects is to do them well; therefore, please to remember this is an apology. It is certain that much may be judiciously argued in favour of diligence; only there is something to be said against it, and that is what, on the present occasion, I have to say. "
4 " A happy man or woman is a better thing to find than a five-pound note. He or she is a radiating focus of goodwill; and their entrance into a room is as though another candle had been lighted. "
5 " Idleness so called, which does not consist in doing nothing, but in doing a great deal not recognized in the dogmatic formularies of the ruling class, has as good a right to state its position as industry itself. "
6 " En estos tiempos en que todo el mundo está obligado, so pena de ser condenado en ausencia por un delito de lesa respetabilidad, a emprender alguna profesión lucrativa y a esforzarse en ella con bríos cercanos al entusiasmo, la defensa de la opinión opuesta por parte de los que se contentan con tener lo suficiente, y prefieren mantenerse al margen y disfrutar, tiene algo de bravata y fanfarronería. "
7 " Non esiste alcun dovere tanto sottovalutato quanto l'essere felici. Quando siamo felici, disseminiamo il mondo di buone azioni involontarie, che rimangono sconosciute persino a noi stessi, o, quando vengono scoperte, soprendono per primo il benefattore. "
