Quote Atlassourced quotes & context
Source identified
the main pleasure of life is the exercise of energy in the development of our special capacities.
Read & copy the quotation
“the main pleasure of life is the exercise of energy in the development of our special capacities.”

William Morris

Download image (JPG)

Source
Signs of Change
Date
1888
Meaning

Meaning of “the main pleasure of life is the exercise…”

The line makes development itself a source of satisfaction: people flourish, in Morris’s account, when their abilities are actively exercised instead of left unused.

Source context

Where does it come from?

Signs of Change, lecture “Dawn of a New Epoch”; Project Gutenberg #3053. The sentence occurs inside Morris’s proposed organization of socially useful labor.

Primary / edition source ↗

Customize your imageTen designs · Square or portrait · Preview and share
Themes

Ideas connected with this quotation

EffortGrowthInspirational Quotes About Hope, Courage & PossibilityLifeMeaning of Life Quotes About What Makes Life MatterMindsetMotivation For LifeMotivational Quotes for Action, Effort & PersistencePersonal GrowthPurpose Quotes About Direction, Duty & Meaningful WorkSelf ImprovementPleasure
Related quotations

Continue through nearby ideas

Source identified
The only thing that stands in our power to achieve, is to make the most advantageous use possible of the personal qualities we possess
Read & copy

“The only thing that stands in our power to achieve, is to make the most advantageous use possible of the personal qualities we possess”

Arthur Schopenhauer · The Wisdom of Life · 1851
Meaning & context

Within his restrictive view of personality, Schopenhauer still assigns agency to choosing pursuits that use and develop one’s actual capacities rather than leaving them idle or mismatched.

Source details

The Wisdom of Life, T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10741. The following clause recommends pursuits suited to the development of one’s capacities.

↓ Download image (JPG)

Source identified
education ought to do more for a boy
Read & copy

“education ought to do more for a boy”

Booker T. Washington · Working With the Hands · 1904
Meaning & context

Washington rejects an overly narrow definition of schooling and asks whether education can improve the practical conditions and responsibilities of life.

Source details

Working With the Hands, Chapter I; Project Gutenberg #64504. This short excerpt precedes Washington’s discussion of poverty, family responsibility and practical education.

↓ Download image (JPG)

Source identified
The purpose of life is unquestionably unfoldment, growth, advancement
Read & copy

“The purpose of life is unquestionably unfoldment, growth, advancement”

Ralph Waldo Trine · The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit · 1918
Meaning & context

Trine states his view of purpose directly: life should continue to develop rather than settle into mental or moral stagnation.

Source details

The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit; Project Gutenberg #28163. The surrounding text describes evolution from “lower” to “higher” in spiritual terms; this is Trine’s philosophical-religious position, not a scientific law of human development.

↓ Download image (JPG)

Source identified
worthy work carries with it the hope of pleasure in rest, the hope of the pleasure in our using what it makes, and the hope of pleasure in our daily creative skill.
Read & copy

“worthy work carries with it the hope of pleasure in rest, the hope of the pleasure in our using what it makes, and the hope of pleasure in our daily creative skill.”

William Morris · Signs of Change · 1888
Meaning & context

Morris evaluates work by whether it leaves room for rest, produces something worth using and gives the worker some creative satisfaction during the process itself.

Source details

Signs of Change, lecture “Useful Work versus Useless Toil,” beginning on printed page 141, Project Gutenberg #3053. Morris defines the hope that makes work worth doing as hope of rest, useful product and pleasure in the work itself, then summarizes those three elements in the retained sentence. It remains socialist moral and economic argument about labor, not a universal workplace-satisfaction metric.

↓ Download image (JPG)

Source identified
the freedom for every man to do what he can do best, joined to the knowledge of what productions of labour we really wanted. I must admit that this knowledge we reached slowly and painfully.
Read & copy

“the freedom for every man to do what he can do best, joined to the knowledge of what productions of labour we really wanted. I must admit that this knowledge we reached slowly and painfully.”

William Morris · News from Nowhere; Or, An Epoch of Rest · 1890
Voice: Fictional character · Old Hammond
Meaning & context

Old Hammond connects useful work with discovering strengths and social needs, while explicitly describing that knowledge as something learned gradually through difficulty.

Source details

News from Nowhere, Chapter XV, ‘On the Lack of Incentive to Labour in a Communist Society,’ Project Gutenberg #3261. Old Hammond says the society gained happiness through the absence of artificial coercion, ‘the freedom for every man to do what he can do best,’ and slowly learned knowledge of what labour was wanted. It is fictional utopian dialogue and historical-social argument, not Morris autobiography or settled economic science.

↓ Download image (JPG)

Source identified
All that a man can do is to form such resolves as from time to time accord with the circumstances in which he is placed, in the hope of thus managing to advance a step nearer towards the final goal.
Read & copy

“All that a man can do is to form such resolves as from time to time accord with the circumstances in which he is placed, in the hope of thus managing to advance a step nearer towards the final goal.”

Arthur Schopenhauer · Counsels and Maxims · 1851
Meaning & context

Instead of treating a life plan as fixed in every detail, Schopenhauer describes progress as a series of resolutions adjusted to changing circumstances while preserving a larger direction.

Source details

Counsels and Maxims, T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10715. The following geometric analogy describes life as the resultant of circumstances and aims.

↓ Download image (JPG)