Tussen de bedrijven door was dr. Johnson niet te beroerd om ook zijn licht te laten schijnen op het arbeidsvraagstuk:
“There is no kind of idleness, by which we are so easily seduced, as that which dignifies itself by the appearance of business and by making the loiterer imagine that he has something to do which must not be neglected, keeps him in perpetual agitation and hurries him rapidly from place to place . . . To do nothing, every man is ashamed and to do much, almost every man is unwilling or afraid. Innumerable expedients have therefore been invented to produce motion without labour, and employment without solicitude.”
Uit: Dr. Samuel Johnson, 'Essay No. 48', The Idler, 17 maart 1759.Het prentje: een minder gekend portret, uit 1769, van de hand van Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792). Johnson zonder pruik.
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten