"Man invented civilization, and was inordinately proud of it. But in no way did civilization change life more than by sharpening the line between work and play, and at last that division came to be more important than the old one between sleeping and waking. Sleep came to be thought a kind of relaxation, and “sleeping on the job” a heinous sin. The turning out of the light and the ringing of the alarm clock were not so much the symbols of man’s dual life as were the punching of the time clock and the blowing of the whistle. Men marched on picket lines and threw bricks and exploded dynamite to shift an hour from one classification to the other, and other men fought equally hard to prevent them. And always work became more laborious and odious, and play grew more artificial and febrile."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Science fiction authors from the United StatesNovelists from the United StatesAcademics from the United StatesHistorians from the United StatesPeople from Pittsburgh
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Part 2, Chapter 3 (p. 193)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_R._Stewart
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
George R. Stewart
George R. Stewart (May 31, 1895 – August 22, 1980) was an American historian, toponymist, novelist, and a professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley.
25 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by George R. Stewart →
Related Quotes
"What you were preparing against—that never happened! All the best-laid plans could not prevent the disaster against w…"
"“It has never happened!” cannot be construed to mean, “It can never happen!”—as well say, “Because I have never broke…"
"People certainly tended to overestimate the intelligence of dogs!"
"A dead cat, it seemed, lay on the counter, but as he looked, it stirred to life and he realized that it had merely be…"
"Yes, he realized, if a man began to think of himself as divinely appointed, he was close to thinking of himself as Go…"
"There had been many definitions of Man; he would make another: “The noise-producing animal.”"
"“There are no atheists in foxholes,” he remembered, but the whole world now was nothing but a huge foxhole! But certa…"
"Firearms were as likely to create as to solve difficulties."
"To think of that as something bad was merely to think in terms of what had once been and no longer existed."
"In any basic struggle for power, the intellectual man went under."