The Lost Art of Doing Nothing Quotes

“It’s a paradox: Life is beautiful, dying less so, yet it’s death that makes life more beautiful, or at least special.”
― Maartje Willems, The Lost Art of Doing Nothing: How the Dutch Unwind with Niksen

“In the piece Capit highlights the advantages of a filthy house: no more visitors or, as she puts it, no more “inspections.” She writes, “If I want to be rid of guests altogether, all I have to do is show them the cabinet under the sink where an old sponge sits with a bunch of ancient cleaning rags, which have become a funky-smelling basket.” It may be a mess inside the Capit family home, but she relishes her time for doing nothing. Niksen is a feminist act of resistance.”
― Maartje Willems, The Lost Art of Doing Nothing: How the Dutch Unwind with Niksen

“In the Middle Ages people dreamed about doing”
― Maartje Willems, The Lost Art of Doing Nothing: How the Dutch Unwind with Niksen

“gym.” That’s a lot—and enough to make your head spin. To make matters worse, many women want to have it all, and do it all. Maas says, “That’s a deadly quality. Men are much better at parking stress. They obviously have a lot to do, too, but they’re more likely to say: let’s call it a day. Women often keep going, both in their work and in their heads. Worry is a big part of perfectionism. You keep going over your to-”
― Maartje Willems, The Lost Art of Doing Nothing: How the Dutch Unwind with Niksen

“After all, Awee said, it was a Frenchman, Paul Lafargue—Karl Marx’s son-in-law—who wrote The Right to Be Lazy, in which he challenges his father-in-law by arguing for a shorter working day. You would never have heard this argument from someone Dutch.”
― Maartje Willems, The Lost Art of Doing Nothing: How the Dutch Unwind with Niksen

“So much leisure time, but what to do with it? Don’t spend it staring into space—that’s when uncomfortable thoughts surface and the void beckons.”
― Maartje Willems, The Lost Art of Doing Nothing: How the Dutch Unwind with Niksen

“It turns out that all these years, amid this jumble of goals, the Dutch have been sitting on the solution: niksen, the art of doing nothing. It made the news around the world, which in turn made the headlines in the Netherlands.”
― Maartje Willems, The Lost Art of Doing Nothing: How the Dutch Unwind with Niksen

“The phenomenon of burnout has given rise to a multimillion-dollar industry of self-help to counter its negative effects. Vinkers takes a more skeptical view and believes that simple life lessons like “Spend more time doing nothing” are not very effective. He and the philosopher Jeroen de Ridder wrote that “[self-help] tips, however well-intentioned, are useless: You wouldn’t tell a soldier suffering from PTSD to eat more healthily or a single mother in a poor neighborhood to find a hobby.” We are all different, living different lives, and we have different responses to stressful problems. There is no ready-made solution. That’s why we’re drowning in self-help books.”
― Maartje Willems, The Lost Art of Doing Nothing: How the Dutch Unwind with Niksen