24 Hours Day Brot

Wisdom from the book "How to live on 24 hours a day" by Arnold Bennett - Quotes by the hour - Awesome photos by Matt Lamers and Keenan Constance on Unsplash.

[24 Hours Day Brot @24Brot]

But if I take the case of a Londoner who works in an office, whose office hours are from ten to six, and who spends fifty minutes morning and night in travelling between his house door and his office door, I shall have got as near to the average as facts permit.

[24 Hours Day Brot @24Brot]

I can only deal with one case, and that case cannot be the average case, because there is no such case as the average case, just as there is no such man as the average man. Every man and every man's case is special.

[24 Hours Day Brot @24Brot]

In order to come to grips at once with the question of time-expenditure in all its actuality, I must choose an individual case for examination.

[24 Hours Day Brot @24Brot]

THE CAUSE OF THE TROUBLES

[24 Hours Day Brot @24Brot]

You actually spend in earning your livelihood—how much? Seven hours, on the average? And in actual sleep, seven? I will add two hours, and be generous. And I will defy you to account to me on the spur of the moment for the other eight hours.

[24 Hours Day Brot @24Brot]

You say your day is already full to overflowing. How?

[24 Hours Day Brot @24Brot]

So let us begin to examine the budget of the day's time.

[24 Hours Day Brot @24Brot]

I will not agree that, in this business at any rate, a glorious failure is better than a petty success. I am all for the petty success. A glorious failure leads to nothing; a petty success may lead to a success that is not petty.

[24 Hours Day Brot @24Brot]

Therefore, in setting out on the immense enterprise of living fully and comfortably within the narrow limits of twenty-four hours a day, let us avoid at any cost the risk of an early failure.

[24 Hours Day Brot @24Brot]

Most people who are ruined are ruined by attempting too much.

[24 Hours Day Brot @24Brot]

But just as nothing succeeds like success, so nothing fails like failure.

[24 Hours Day Brot @24Brot]

A failure or so, in itself, would not matter, if it did not incur a loss of self-esteem and of self-confidence.

[24 Hours Day Brot @24Brot]

Beware of undertaking too much at the start. Be content with quite a little. Allow for accidents. Allow for human nature, especially your own.

[24 Hours Day Brot @24Brot]

It isn't content till it perspires. And then, too often, when it feels the perspiration on its brow, it wearies all of a sudden and dies, without even putting itself to the trouble of saying, "I've had enough of this."

[24 Hours Day Brot @24Brot]

It cries out loudly for employment; you can't satisfy it at first; it wants more and more; it is eager to move mountains and divert the course of rivers.

[24 Hours Day Brot @24Brot]

Let me principally warn you against your own ardour. Ardour in well-doing is a misleading and a treacherous thing.

[24 Hours Day Brot @24Brot]

But before you begin, let me murmur a few words of warning in your private ear.

[24 Hours Day Brot @24Brot]

Which fact is very gratifying and reassuring. You can turn over a new leaf every hour if you choose. Therefore no object is served in waiting till next week, or even until to-morrow. You may fancy that the water will be warmer next week. It won't. It will be colder.

[24 Hours Day Brot @24Brot]

The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you, as perfect, as unspoilt, as if you had never wasted or misapplied a single moment in all your career.