My first book, ‘In Praise of Slowness,’ examines how the world got stuck in fast-forward and chronicles a global trend towards putting on the brakes. That trend is called the Slow movement. ‘Slow’ in this context does not mean doing everything at a snail’s pace. It means doing everything at the right speed. Carl Honore Read Quote
Slow travel now rivals the fly-to-Barcelona-for-lunch culture. Advocates savour the journey, travelling by train or boat or bicycle, or even on foot, rather than crammed into an airplane. They take time to plug into the local culture instead of racing through a list of tourist traps. Carl Honore Read Quote
I’ve teamed up with one of the headmasters at Eton College, and we’re spearheading a kind of ‘slow education movement in Britain’. It’s based on this idea of moving away from the fast-food approach to learning and going to something deeper, more woolly, harder to measure. Carl Honore Read Quote
The journey that ‘In Praise of Slowness’ has made since publication shows how far this message resonates. The book has been translated into more than 30 languages. It appears on reading lists from business schools to yoga retreats. Rabbis, priests and imams have quoted from it in their sermons. Carl Honore Read Quote
We’re so marinated in the culture of speed that we almost fail to notice the toll it takes on every aspect of our lives – on our health, our diet, our work, our relationships, the environment and our community. Carl Honore Read Quote
To me, Slow parenting is about bringing balance into the home. Children need to strive and struggle and stretch themselves, but that does not mean childhood should be a race. Slow parents give their children plenty of time and space to explore the world on their own terms. Carl Honore Read Quote
We used to dial; now we speed dial. We used to read; now we speed read. We used to walk; now we speed walk. And of course, we used to date, and now we speed date. And even things that are by their very nature slow – we try and speed them up, too. Carl Honore Read Quote
Research has shown that time pressure leads to tunnel vision and that people think more creatively when they are calm, unhurried and free from stress and distractions. We all know this from experience. Carl Honore Read Quote
To help staff recharge and think better, companies are setting aside quiet places to relax, practise yoga or even take a nap. With hi-tech giants such as Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft underlining the pitfalls of being ‘always on,’ firms are imposing speed limits on the information superhighway. Carl Honore Read Quote
We live in a culture that’s been hijacked by the management consultant ethos. We want everything boiled down to a Power Point slide. We want metrics and ‘show me the numbers.’ That runs counter to the immensely complex nature of so many social, economic and political problems. You cannot devise an algorithm to fix them. Carl Honore Read Quote