Skip to content

The true goal of the bourgeois life, in other words, is not self-enactment, but diversion. Most people need the organised distraction of work (if they can find it). Idleness - the life of the playboy who doesn't answer the phone - is simply too demanding.

Another quote →

More quotes by John Gray

In the life of the academic mind, the owl of Minerva seldom flies as early as the dusk.

Gray's Anatomy: Selected Writings (2009)

The evil of totalitarianism is not only that it fails to protect specific liberties but that it extinguishes the very possibility of freedom.

Gray's Anatomy: Selected Writings (2009)

It is rare that individuals value their freedom more than the comfort that comes with servility.

If you want to understand the beliefs that are shaping global politics, read the Book of Revelation.

The result of toppling tyranny in divided countries is usually civil war and ethnic cleansing.

All John Gray quotes →

Attribution

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