Idle Quotes - Page 9

• Although even when I am being idle I have plenty of food for thought both early and late - thoughts both about and not about art.

  Gustav Klimt

  Art, Late, Plenty

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• If you love an addle egg as well as you love an idle head, you would eat chickens i' th' shell.

  William Shakespeare

  Eggs, Shells, Eating

  William Shakespeare (2015). “Troilus and Cressida: Third Series, Revised Edition”, p.170, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• O, my lord, You said that idle weeds are fast in growth: The prince my brother hath outgrown me far.

  William Shakespeare

  Weed, Brother, Growth

  William Shakespeare (2013). “Histories of Shakespeare in Plain and Simple English (a Modern Translation and the Original Version)”, p.447, BookCaps Study Guides

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• The castle-building habit, the day-dreaming habit - how it grows! what a luxury it becomes; how we fly to its enchantments at every idle moment, how we revel in them, steep our souls in them, intoxicate ourselves with their beguiling fantasies - oh, yes, and how soon and how easily our dream-life and our material life become so intermingled and so fused together that we can't quite tell which is which, anymore.

  Mark Twain

  Dream, Luxury, Soul

  Mark Twain (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Mark Twain (Illustrated)”, p.3191, Delphi Classics

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• The bees can abide no drones amongst them; but as soon as they begin to be idle, they kill them.

  Plato

  Drones, Bees, Idleness

  Socrates, Plato, Aristotle (1967). “Wit and Wisdom of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle: Being a Treasury of Thousands of Glorious, Inspiring and Imperishable Thoughts, Views and Observations of the Three Great Greek Philosophers, Classified Under about Four Hundred Subjects for Comparative Study”

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• Each class preaches the importance of those virtues it need not exercise. The rich harp on the value of thrift, the idle grow eloquent over the dignity of labor.

  Oscar Wilde

  Exercise, Class, Needs

  Quoted in Hesketh Pearson, Oscar Wilde, His Life and Wit (1946)

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• Never idle a moment, but thrifty and thoughtful of others.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Work, Thoughtful, Moments

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1859). “The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: A New Complete Edition, Including Miles Standish and Other Poems”, p.620

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• Self-indulgence takes many forms. A man may be self-indulgent in speech, in touch, in sight. From self-indulgence a man comes to idle speech and worldly talk, to buffoonery and cracking indecent jokes. There is self-indulgence in touching without necessity, making mocking signs with the hands, pushing for a place, snatching up something for oneself, approaching someone else shamelessly. All these things come from not having the fear of God in the soul and from these a man comes little by little to perfect contempt.

  Dorotheus of Gaza

  Christian, Men, Self

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• The public is so in awe of its own opinion that it never dares to form any, but catches up the first idle rumour, lest it should be behindhand in its judgment, and echoes it till it is deafened with the sound of its own voice.

  William Hazlitt

  Voice, Echoes, Firsts

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1118, Delphi Classics

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• It is easy for a man who sits idle at home, and has nobody to please but himself, to ridicule or censure the common practices of mankind.

  Samuel Johnson

  Home, Men, Practice

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”

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• Very idle is all curiosity concerning other people's estimate of us, and all fear of remaining unknown is not less so.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  People, Curiosity, Importance

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.159, Penguin

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• The regular course of studies, the years of academical and professional education, have not yielded me better facts than some idle books under the bench at the Latin School.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Latin, Book, School

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Nature and Other Essays”, p.82, Courier Corporation

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• I am capable of being idle.

  Alexander McCall Smith

  Capable

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• To understand the works of celebrated authors, to comprehend their systems, and retain their reasonings, is a task more than equal to common intellects; and he is by no means to be accounted useless or idle, who has stored his mind with acquired knowledge, and can detail it occasionally to others who have less leisure or weaker abilities.

  Samuel Johnson

  Knowledge, Mean, Mind

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “The works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An essay on his life and genius”, p.199

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• It is the ignorant and childish part of mankind that is the fighting part. Idle and vacant minds want excitement

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Fighting, Ignorant, Mind

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2972, Delphi Classics

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• For it is an absurdity to call a country civilized in which a decent and industrious man, laboriously mastering a trade which is valuble and necessary to the common weal, has no assurance that it will sustain him while he stands ready to practice it, or keep him out of the poorhouse when illness or age makes him idle.

  H. L. Mencken

  Country, Men, Practice

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• Idleness is the grand Pacific Ocean of life, and in that stagnant abyss the most salutary things produce no good, the most noxious no evil. Vice, indeed, abstractedly considered, may be, and often is engendered in idleness; but the moment it becomes efficiently vice, it must quit its cradle and cease to be idle.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Ocean, Often Is, Evil

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.312

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• Provide yourself with such work for your hands as can be done, if possible, both during the day and at night, so that you are not a burden to anyone, and indeed can give to others, as St. Paul the Apostle advises (cf. I Thess. 2:9; Eph. 4:28). In this manner you will overcome the demon of listlessness and drive away all the desires suggested by the enemy; for the demon of listlessness takes advantage of idleness. 'Every idle man is full of desires' (Prov. 13:4 LXX).

  Evagrius Ponticus

  Christian, Night, Men

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• Gossip and slander are not victimless crimes. Words do not just dissipate into midair. . . . Words can injure and damage, maim and destroy - forcefully, painfully, lastingly. . . . Plans have been disrupted, deals have been lost, companies have fallen, because of idle gossip or malicious slander. Reputations have been sullied, careers have been ruined, lives have been devastated, because of cruel lies or vicious rumors. . . . Your words have such power to do good or evil that they must be chosen carefully, wisely, and well.

  Wayne D. Dosick

  Life, Lying, Careers

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• If you are idle, you are on the road to ruin; and there are few stopping-places upon it. It is rather a precipice than a road

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Stopping, Laziness, Ruins

  Henry Ward Beecher (1850). “Industry and idleness: with causes of dishonesty : to which are appended six warnings”, p.33

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• Love is the business of the idle, but the idleness of the busy.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Love, Busy, Indolence

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• Gloomy calm of idle vacancy.

  Samuel Johnson

  Vacancy, Calm, Gloomy

  Samuel Johnson (2014). “The Letters of Samuel Johnson, Volume I: 1731-1772”, p.238, Princeton University Press

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• Plough not the seas, sow not the sands,Leave off your idle pain;Seek other mistress for your minds,Love's service is in vain.

  Robert Southwell

  Pain, Mind Love, Sea

  Robert Southwell (1856). “The poetical works of the rev. Robert Southwell, now first completely ed. by W. B. Turnbull”, p.65

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• Take us generally as a people, we are neither lazy nor idle; and considering how little we have to excite or stimulate us, I am almost astonished that there are so many industrious and ambitious ones to be found - although I acknowledge, with extreme sorrow, that there are some who never were and never will be serviceable to society. And have you not a similar class among yourselves?

  Maria W. Stewart

  Class, Racism, People

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• You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of complicated state of mind. The meaning doesn't matter if it's only idle chatter of a transcendental kind.

  W. S. Gilbert

  Lying, Mind, Phrases

  'Patience' (1881) act 1

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