The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow
1886
Before the world discovered Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome wrote this mischievous collection of essays about the art of doing absolutely nothing. Presented as the musings of a self-confessed idler, the book is a sly rebellion against Victorian productivity culture, arguing (with impeccable logic and zero conviction) that idleness is, in fact, a fine art. Jerome reflects on the peculiar guilt of doing nothing, the terror of enforced leisure during illness, and the peculiar way work makes us appreciate the休息we pretend to despise. Yet beneath the playfulness lies something sharper: a gentle satire of respectable society's obsession with usefulness, and a quiet plea to simply exist without apology. These are essays to savor on a lazy afternoon, preferably while doing precisely nothing yourself.
Editions
X-Ray
“Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.””
— Jerome K. Jerome
“It is so pleasant to come across people more stupid than ourselves. We love them at once for being so.””
— Jerome K. Jerome
“It is in our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that we touch one another and find sympathy. We differ widely enough in our nobler qualities. It is in our follies that we are at one.””
— Jerome K. Jerome
“What readers ask nowadays in a book is that it should improve, instruct and elevate. This book wouldn't elevate a cow. I cannot conscientiously recommend it for any useful purposes whatever. All I can suggest is that when you get tired of reading "the best hundred books," you may take this for half an hour. It will be a change.””
— Jerome K. Jerome
“If there is one person I do despise more than another, it is the man who does not think exactly the same on all topics as I do...””
— Jerome K. Jerome
“I like idling when I ought not to be idling; not when it is the only thing I have to do. Thatis my pig-headed nature. The time when I like best to stand with my back to the fire, calculating how much I owe, is when my desk is heaped highest with letters that must be answered by the next post. When I like to dawdle longest over my dinner is when I have a heavy evening's work before me. And if, for some urgent reason, I ought to be up particularly early in the morning, it is then, more than at any other time, that I love to lie an extra half-hour in bed.Ah! how delicious it is to turn over and go to sleep again: "just forfive minutes." Is there any human being, I wonder, besides the hero ofa Sunday-school "tale for boys," who ever gets up willingly?””
— Jerome K. Jerome
“Being poor is a mere trifle. It is being known to be poor that is the sting.””
— Jerome K. Jerome
“Idling has always been my strong point.””
— Jerome K. Jerome
“To be misunderstood is the shy man's fate on every occasion; and whatever impression he endeavors to create, he is sure to convey its opposite.””
— Jerome K. Jerome
