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I spent a busy day today, but got little done. This is because I am at last becoming perfect in the art of seeming busy, even when very little is going on in my head or under my hands. This is an art which every man learns, if he does not intend to work himself to death.

— Robertson Davies The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks (1949)

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More quotes by Robertson Davies

Aristocrats need not be rich, but they must be free, and in the modern world freedom grows rarer the more we prate about it.

Osbert Sitwell (1945)

Sometimes there was a serious article on a hot topic, and I especially remember one by a bishop headed "Is Nudity Salacious?"

A Rake at Reading (1980)

One might think, to hear some people talk, that this had been a particularly fine summer. From their point of view, I suppose, it has.

To be apt in quotation is a splendid and dangerous gift. Splendid, because it ornaments a man's speech with other men's jewels; dangerous, for the same reason.

Robertson Davies Dangerous Jewels (1960)

The pleasures of love are for those who are hopelessly addicted to another living creature. The reasons for such addiction are so many that I suspect they are never the same in any two cases.

The Pleasures of Love (1961)

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All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

James Howell English Proverbs (1659)

When we see a great man desiring power instead of his real goal we soon recognize that he is sick, or more precisely that his attitude to his work is sick.

Martin Buber What is Man? (1938)

The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.

Robert Frost A Boy's Will (1913)

In a society such as ours, it is almost impossible for a person to be responsible.

Jacques Ellul The Betrayal by Technology (1993)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Robertson Davies (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.