The great task of industrial civilization was to create leisure, and the great task of post-industrial civilization is to occupy it.
Apr 212023
Working
Business is more agreeable than pleasure; it interests the whole mind more continuously, and more deeply.
—Bagehot
Apr 192023
Proper service demands the extinction of personality, the entire subjugation of oneself to another’s needs and desires. In America, where this runs counter to the national religion, it cannot be had at any price.
Mar 152023
The complacent success begins as a resentful failure.
Feb 172023
If you’re not too good at your job, you’re not too good for your job.
Feb 062023
The management consultant, equal parts lawyer, courtier, and scapegoat, unites in himself the fees, and opprobrium, that accrue to each.
Dec 142022
You start to think there’s nothing to acting, and then you watch models try to do it.
Dec 092022
The Luddites smashed the looms, as we will smash the robots, less to keep their jobs than to protest the idea that they were mere machines, and mere machines could replace them.
Dec 082022
Policy has most of the force of law and none of the inconvenience. Once assured that it is a policy, people will put up with nearly anything.
Nov 022022
Tenure, like many privileges, is granted on the implied condition that it never be exercised.
Oct 172022
“Mind-work” is generally more mindless than “hand-work”, and the conceit of the clerks only underlines the fact.