I always get back to the question, is it really necessary that men should consume so much of their bodily and mental energies in the machinery of civilized life? The world seems to me to do much of its toil for that which is not in any sense bread.
Source: A Diary, ch. 6, 1864 entry (ed. by H. Allingham and D. Radford, 1907).
-- William Allingham, (Mar 19 1824-1889), Irish poet, editor; He was editor of Fraser, 1874-79; his volumes of verse include The Fairies, 1883.