There is a sort of dead-alive, hackneyed people about, who are scarcely conscious of living except in the exercise of some conventional occupation. They have no curiosity; they can not give themselves over to random provocations; they do not take pleasure in the exercise of their faculties for its own sake; and unless Necessity lays about them with a stick, they will even stand still. It is no good speaking to such folk: they can not be idle, their nature is not generous enough; and they pass those hours in a sort of coma, which are not dedicated to furious moiling in the goldmill.
— Robert Louis Stevenson, “An Apology for Idlers” (via
heartbeatcity)
