Robert Wringham Quotes

With today’s technology, social attitudes and appetite for self-actualisation, we’d ideally look upon our work with a sense of pride, involvement and accomplishment. But we’re rarely given the chance. Instead, we pretend to love our jobs with an almost idiotic zeal, while being secretly exhausted and insulted by them.

All we do is work to maximise our consumption privileges and to be able to tell people at parties that we’re a lawyer, an artist or a police officer.

Reading is important. It’s not primarily escapism (though it can be, and there’s nothing wrong with some of that in good measure) and it’s not primarily a way of passing the time. Reading is important to the good life because it stokes the furnaces of our intellect, allows us to expand our understanding of the universe, both inner and outer, for practical gain and simple pleasure. It can induce awe, inspire respect, excite, piss off, and intrigue. These are things that make life worth living.

Comfort and security are all well and good, but not at the cost of liberty, love and lustiness. The Bohemian knows that money, property and status have little to do with the content of one’s character, and that professional success and widespread celebration have little to do with talent. Of value to the Bohemian is spiritual integrity and creative freedom. The Bohemian would sooner live in poverty than submit to an undesirable job.