Along with voting, jury duty, and paying taxes, goofing off is one of the central obligations of American citizenship.
Among the idle rich, boredom is one of the most common causes of unhappiness. People who have difficulty in earning their living may suffer greatly, but they are not bored. Wealthy men and women become bored when they depend upon the theater for their enjoyment instead of making their own lives interesting.
It is very wonderful to see persons of the best sense passing hours together in shuffling and dividing a pack of cards with no conversation but what is made up of a few game-phrases, and no other ideas but those of black or red spots arranged together in different figures. Would not a man laugh to hear any one of his species complaining that life is short?
You see. . . it's really quite strenuous doing nothing all day, so once a week we take a holiday and go nowhere, which was just where we were going when you came along. Would you care to join us?
Take away leisure and Cupid's bow is broken
Stuffing birds or playing stringed instruments is an elegant pastime, and a resource to the idle, but it is not education.
It's my favorite thing to do: luxurious nothing.
Reading and sauntering and lounging and dosing, which I call thinking, is my supreme Happiness.
When leisure is a selfish luxury, its very activity, when it stirs, is apt to be only a kind of indolence taking exercise, that it may the better digest its selfishness.
