Idle Quotes - Page 13

• The world of books: romantic, idle, shiftless world so beautiful, so cheap compared with living.

  Nancy Spain

  Beautiful, Book, World

  Nancy Spain (1964). “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way”

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• I think we owe it to children to let them dig their knowledge, of whatever subject, for themselves out of the "fit" book; and this for two reasons: What a child digs for is his own possession; what is poured into his ear, like the idle song of a pleasant singer, floats out as lightly as it came in, and is rarely assimilated. I do not mean to say that the lecture and the oral lesson are without their uses; but these uses are, to give impulse and to order knowledge; and not to convey knowledge.

  Charlotte Mason

  Song, Children, Book

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• Idle hands are the devil's playthings.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Hands, Devil, Idle Hands

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• Nature, being a wise and provident lady, governs her parts very wisely, methodically, and orderly: Also, she is very industrious and hates to be idle, which makes her employ her time as a good housewife doth.

  Margaret Cavendish

  Wise, Nature, Hate

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• You will find the Americans much as the Greeks found the Romans: great, big, vulgar, bustling people more vigorous than we are and also more idle, with more unspoiled virtues but also more corrupt.

  Harold MacMillan

  People, Greek, Virtue

  "Will Trump's presidency finally kill the myth of the special relationship?" by Geoffrey Wheatcroft, www.theguardian.com. February 14, 2017.

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• Sick I am of idle words, past all reconciling, Words that weary and perplex and pander and conceal, Wake the sounds that cannot lie, for all their sweet beguiling; The language one need fathom not, but only hear and feel.

  George du Maurier

  Sweet, Lying, Past

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• My attempts at a lawn. Twice have we had the ground carefully dug up, and prepared; twice it has been sown with the best English seed... at considerable expense; ...and the end of all the trouble has been that a strong nor'wester has blown away both seed and soil, leaving only the hard, un-dug ground. ...there are the croquet things, lying idle in the verandah... they are likely to remain unused for ever.

  Bee Dawson

  Strong, Lying, Leaving

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• In work consists the true pride of life; grounded in active employment, though early ardor may abate, it never degenerates into indifference, and age lives in perennial youth. Life is a weariness only to the idle, or where the soul is empty.

  Leopold Hartley Grindon

  Work, Pride, Soul

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• The keeping of an idle woman is a badge of superior social status.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  Social, Badges, Superiors

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• Can you suggest any suitable aspersions to spread abroad about Mrs. Thatcher? It is idle to suggest she has unnatural relations with Mrs. Barbara Castle; what is needed is something socially lower: that she eats asparagus with knife and fork, or serves instant mash potatoes.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Knives, Gossip, Potatoes

  Sylvia Townsend Warner, William Maxwell (1982). “Letters”

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• Fancy brings us as many vain hopes as idle fears.

  Wilhelm von Humboldt

  Fancy, Vain

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• The mere reality of life would be inconceivably poor without the charm of fancy, which brings in its bosom, no doubt, as many vain fears as idle hopes, but lends much oftener to the illusions it calls up a gay flattering hue than one which inspires terror.

  Wilhelm von Humboldt

  Gay, Reality, Inspire

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• One man by delay restored the state, for he preferred the public safety to idle report.
  [Lat., Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem,
  Non ponebat enim rumores ante salutem.]

  Quintus Ennius

  Men, Safety, Delay

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• I am an idle devil. But at least I work at it.

  Helen Cresswell

  Devil, Idleness

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• Is there no God, then, but at best an absentee God, sitting idle, ever since the first Sabbath, at the outside of his Universe?

  Thomas Carlyle

  God, Sitting, Firsts

  Thomas Carlyle (1871). “The Collected Works of Thomas Carlyle”, p.99

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• Heat lingers
  As days are still long;
  Early mornings are cool
  While autumn is still young.
  Dew on the lotus
  Scatters pure perfume;
  Wind on the bamboos
  Gives off a gentle tinkling.
  I am idle and lonely,
  Lying down all day,
  Sick and decayed;
  No one asks for me;
  Thin dusk before my gates,
  Cassia blossoms inch deep.

  Bai Juyi

  Lonely, Morning, Lying

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• I always considered an idle Life, as a real evil, but, a life of such hurry, such constant hurry, leaves us scarcely a moment for reflection or for the discharge of any other then the most immediate and pressing concerns.

  Edward Rutledge

  Real, Reflection, Evil

  "John and Edward Rutledge of South Carolina". Book by James Haw, p. 233, 1997.

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• Today we may face some boring task or idle conversation that feels like a complete waste of time. Perhaps next week or next year we'll understand that nothing is wasted, that in the economy of our universe even a weed is simply a flower whose use has yet to be discovered.

  Mort Crim

  Weed, Flower, Next Week

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• People who truly have control over time always have some in their pocket to give to someone in need. A sense of priorities drives their use of time and it can shift away from the ordinary work that’s easy to justify, in favor of the more ethereal, deeper things that are harder to justify. They protect their time from trivia and idiocy; these people are time rich. They provide themselves with a surplus of time. They might seem to idle, or relax more often than the rest, but that just might be a sign of their mastery, not their incompetence.

  Scott Berkun

  People, Giving, Priorities

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• Whatever work you undertake to do in your lifetime, it is very important that first you have a passion for it - you know, get excited about it - and second, that you have fun with it. That's important. Otherwise, you see, your work becomes nothing but an idle chore. Then, you hate the life you live.

  Julius Sumner Miller

  Fun, Hate, Passion

  Australian ABC Television show "Why Is It So?", (episode 1), 1963.

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• EVERY intention which does not assert itself by deeds is a vain intention, and the speech which expresses it is idle speech. It is action which proves life and establishes will

  Eliphas Levi

  Doe, Deeds, Speech

  Eliphas Levi (2013). “The Ritual of Transcendental Magic”, p.16, Jazzybee Verlag

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• For Hell and the foul fiend that rules
  God's everlasting fiery jails
  (Devised by rogues, dreaded by fools),
  With his grim, grisly dog that keeps the door,
  Are senseless stories, idle tales,
  Dreams, whimseys, and no more.

  John Wilmot

  Dream, Dog, Doors

  John Wilmot, John Adlard (2002). “The Debt to Pleasure: John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, in the Eyes of His Contemporaries and in His Own Poetry and Prose”, p.126, Taylor & Francis

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• Edwidge Danticat's prose has a Chekhovian simplicity--an ability to state the most urgent truths in a measured and patiently plain style that gathers a luminous energy as it moves inexorably forward. In this book she makes a strong case that art, for immigrants from countries where human rights and even survival are often in jeopardy, must be a vocation to witness if it is not to be an idle luxury.

  Madison Smartt Bell

  Country, Art, Strong

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• Not to be lost in idle admiration is the only sure means of making and preserving happiness.

  Horace

  Mean, Admiration, Lost

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• Today, I am an inquisitor. I shall not sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.

  Barbara Jordan

  Democracy, Today, Constitution

  Barbara Jordan, Shelby Hearon (1979). “Barbara Jordan, a self-portrait”, Doubleday Books

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