Recreation Quotes

“Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless.”
― Bill Watterson

“The peculiar predicament of the present-day self surely came to pass as a consequence of the disappointment of the high expectations of the self as it entered the age of science and technology. Dazzled by the overwhelming credentials of science, the beauty and elegance of the scientific method, the triumph of modern medicine over physical ailments, and the technological transformation of the very world itself, the self finds itself in the end disappointed by the failure of science and technique in those very sectors of life which had been its main source of ordinary satisfaction in past ages.

As John Cheever said, the main emotion of the adult Northeastern American who has had all the advantages of wealth, education, and culture is disappointment.

Work is disappointing. In spite of all the talk about making work more creative and self-fulfilling, most people hate their jobs, and with good reason. Most work in modern technological societies is intolerably dull and repetitive.

Marriage and family life are disappointing. Even among defenders of traditional family values, e.g., Christians and Jews, a certain dreariness must be inferred, if only from the average time of TV viewing. Dreary as TV is, it is evidently not as dreary as Mom talking to Dad or the kids talking to either.

School is disappointing. If science is exciting and art is exhilarating, the schools and universities have achieved the not inconsiderable feat of rendering both dull. As every scientist and poet knows, one discovers both vocations in spite of, not because of, school. It takes years to recover from the stupor of being taught Shakespeare in English Lit and Wheatstone's bridge in Physics.

Politics is disappointing. Most young people turn their backs on politics, not because of the lack of excitement of politics as it is practiced, but because of the shallowness, venality, and image-making as these are perceived through the media--one of the technology's greatest achievements.

The churches are disappointing, even for most believers. If Christ brings us new life, it is all the more remarkable that the church, the bearer of this good news, should be among the most dispirited institutions of the age. The alternatives to the institutional churches are even more grossly disappointing, from TV evangelists with their blown-dry hairdos to California cults led by prosperous gurus ignored in India but embraced in La Jolla.

Social life is disappointing. The very franticness of attempts to reestablish community and festival, by partying, by groups, by club, by touristy Mardi Gras, is the best evidence of the loss of true community and festival and of the loneliness of self, stranded as it is as an unspeakable consciousness in a world from which it perceives itself as somehow estranged, stranded even within its own body, with which it sees no clear connection.

But there remains the one unquestioned benefit of science: the longer and healthier life made possible by modern medicine, the shorter work-hours made possible by technology, hence what is perceived as the one certain reward of dreary life of home and the marketplace: recreation.

Recreation and good physical health appear to be the only ambivalent benefits of the technological revolution.”
― Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book

“Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an ever smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose”
― Winston S. Churchill

“Eight hours work, eight hours sleep, and eight hours recreation - Brigham Young”
― Susa Young Gates, The Life Story Of Brigham Young

“The job of feets is walking, but their hobby is dancing.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“We do not learn for the benefit of anyone, we learn to unlearn ignorance.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between her work and her play; her labor and her leisure; her mind and her body; her education and her recreation. She hardly knows which is which. She simply pursues her vision of excellence through whatever she is doing, and leaves others to determine if she is working or playing. To herself, she always appears to be doing both.”
― Francois Rene De Chateaubriand

“Love is a violent recreational sport. Proceed at your own risk. Helmets, armor, and steel-toe boots are required by law.”
― H.C.Paye

“Entertainment is temporary happiness, but the real happiness is permanent entertainment.”
― Amit Kalantri

“White people love rock climbing almost more than they love camping. This is
because the activity affords them the opportunity to be outside, to use a carabiner for something other than their keys, and to purchase a whole new set of expensive activity-specific clothing and accessories.”
― Christian Lander, Stuff White People Like: A Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions

“...I'm not compromised by the ravages of adult recreation...”
― Ron Currie Jr., Everything Matters!

“The first stage of camping always involves a trip to an outdoor equipment store like REI. These stores are well known for their abundance of white customers and their extensive inventory of things for white people to buy and only use once.”
― Christian Lander, Whiter Shades of Pale: The Stuff White People Like, Coast to Coast, from Seattle's Sweaters to Maine's Microbrews

“While leisure and recreation are necessary to get closer to life, you need alertness and effort to face it.”
― Tapan Ghosh

“We gather wisdom through every experience in this body, we expand our consciousness, and we continuously recreate ourselves.”
― Premlatha Rajkumar, Everyday Empowerment

“Golf is a day spent in a round of strenuous idleness.”
― William Wordsworth

“When all else fails, go hiking.”
― T.J. Burr

“Happiness, therefore, does not lie in amusement; it would, indeed, be strange if the end were amusement, and one were to take trouble and suffer hardship all one's life in order to amuse oneself. For, in a word, everything that we choose we choose for the sake of something else, except happiness, which is an end. Now to exert oneself and work for the sake of amusement seems silly and utterly childish. But to amuse oneself in order that one may exert oneself, as Anacharsis puts it, seems right; for amusement is a sort of relaxation, and we need relaxation because we cannot work continuously. Relaxation, then, is not an end; for it is taken for the sake of activity.”
― Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

“Nothing's more comforting than the sound of rain when you're not in it.”
― Erika Krouse, Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation

“There are a million-and-one ways to enjoy a day’s angling. Catching fish is but one of them.”
― Fennel Hudson, Traditional Angling: Fennel's Journal No. 6

“It is the goings-on between bites that excites the traditional angler as much as when the float goes under.”
― Fennel Hudson, Traditional Angling: Fennel's Journal No. 6

“Remake yourself into a character of power. Working on yourself like clay should be one your greatest and most pleasurable life tasks. It makes you in essence an artist - an artist creating yourself.”
― Robert Greene, The Concise 48 Laws of Power

“There had been a time when humans on Earth climbed rocks just like this. Like the fabled drive in the countryside, it had been a form of recreation. I smiled behind my face mask. Those people had some peculiar ideas about what was fun.”
― Sean Danker, Admiral

“The acreage of our federal public lands is equivalent to the entire country of Germany seven times over. These lands provide space for hunting, fishing, and leisure activities; wildlife habitats; clean-water protection; sustainable industry; and much more. All for the public. It's about as profoundly American an idea as you can find: the democratization of land and resources and food and recreation and wildlife and scenery and space and solitude.”
― Mark Kenyon, That Wild Country: An Epic Journey through the Past, Present, and Future of America's Public Lands

“For every creation, there is an equal and opposite recreation;
For every proposition, there is a similar and identical opposition”
― P.S. Jagadeesh Kumar

“I said a picnic,' said Quin sternly. 'In Britain a picnic means sitting on the ground and being uncomfortable, preferably in the rain.”
― Eva Ibbotson, The Morning Gift

“the process of recreating ancient artifacts step by step can shed light on the lives and habits of the original craftworkers that no amount of armchair theorizing can give.”
― Elizabeth Wayland Barber, Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times

“Of course, being perishable, the textiles themselves are not easy to learn about -- just like most of the rest of women's products (such as food and the recipes for preparing it). Therefore, to recover the reality of women's history, we must develop excellent techniques ... using not just the obvious data but learning to ferret out every helpful detail. Practical experiments like reweaving some of the surviving ancient cloths are a case in point. Among the thousands of archaeologists who have written about pottery or architecture, how many have actually tried to to make a pot or build a building? Precious few; but with so much data available for study in these fields, scholars felt flooded with information already, and such radical steps hardly seemed necessary. Our case is different; we must use every discoverable clue.”
― Elizabeth Wayland Barber, Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times

“The point is," Ziller said, "that having carefully constructed their paradise from first principles to remove all credible motives for conflict amongst themselves and all natural threats—" He paused and glanced sourly at the sunlight flaring off the gilt border of his seat. "—Well, almost all natural threats, these people then find their lives are so hollow they have to recreate false versions of just the sort of terrors untold generations of their ancestors spent their existences attempting to conquer."

"I think that is a little like criticizing somebody for owning both an umbrella and a shower," Kabe said. "It is the choice that is important." [...] "These people control their terrors. They can choose to sample them, repeat them or avoid them. That is not the same as living beneath a volcano when you've just invented the wheel, or wondering whether your levee will break and drown your entire village. Again, this applies to all societies which have matured beyond the age of barbarism. There is no great mystery here."

[...]

"I think it is only natural, a sign that one has succeeded as a species, that what used to have to be suffered as a necessity becomes enjoyed as sport. Even fear can be recreational.”
― Iain M. Banks, Look to Windward

“Rest is the best cure for busy man and work is the best cure for lazy man.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“Hiking is good for your body, mind, and soul.”
― T.J. Burr