Theodore Zeldin

understand borderline different people conversation

“I particularly value conversations which are meetings on the borderline of what I understand and what I don't, with people who are different from myself.”

― Theodore Zeldin

brain ideas sense recognize lazy bureaucrat create art

“The brain is full of lonely ideas, begging you to make some sense of them, to recognize them as interesting. The lazy brain just files them away in old pigeonholes, like a bureaucrat who wants an easy life. The lively brain picks and chooses and creates new works of art out of ideas.”

― Theodore Zeldin

life different meeting silence humanity routine

“life could have been different if the meetings which have decided its course had been less silent, superficial or routine, if more thoughts had been exchanged, if humanity had been more able to show itself in them”

― Theodore Zeldin

breakthrough technology humanity

"When will we make the same breakthroughs in the way we treat each other as we have made in technology?"

― Theodore Zeldin

abolish work leisure worker lousy job

"We should abolish 'work.' By that I mean abolishing the distinction between work and leisure, one of the greatest mistakes of the last century, one that enables employers to keep workers in lousy jobs by granting them some leisure time."

― Theodore Zeldin

dream people love life painful

"A dream is what makes people love life even when it is painful."

― Theodore Zeldin

invention progress idea link meet

"All invention and progress comes from finding a link between two ideas that have never met."

― Theodore Zeldin