Idleness Quotes - Page 6

• It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Done, Laziness, May

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.86, Rowman & Littlefield

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• Idleness is emptiness; the tree in which the sap is stagnant, remains fruitless.

  Hosea Ballou

  Tree, Sap, Laziness

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations". Book by Kate Louise Roberts, 1922.

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• Toil is man's allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief that's more than either, the grief and sin of idleness.

  Herman Melville

  Work, Grief, Men

  Herman Melville (2012). “Mardi: And A Voyage Thither (Annotated Complete Edition)”, p.153, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Sometimes I think that idlers seem to be a special class for whom nothing can be planned, plead as one will with them - their only contribution to the human family is to warm a seat at the common table.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Thinking, Class, Special

  F. Scott Fitzgerald (2015). “The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Articles, Letters, Plays & Screenplays: From the author of The Great Gatsby, The Side of Paradise, Tender Is the Night, The Beautiful and Damned, The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and many other notable works”, p.3225, e-artnow

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• Life does not agree with philosophy: There is no happiness that is not idleness, and only what is useless is pleasurable.

  Anton Chekhov

  Philosophy, Doe, Useless

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• Idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand than kings and governments.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Kings, 4th Of July, Pride

  Mark Skousen, Benjamin Franklin (2005). “The Compleated Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin”, p.37, Regnery Publishing

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• Idleness is not doing nothing. Idleness is being free to do anything.

  Floyd Dell

  Being Free, Laziness, Doing Nothing

  Floyd Dell (1921). “Were You Ever a Child?”

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• He that rises late must trot all day.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Time, Laziness, Kick Ass

  Benjamin Franklin (2008). “The Way to Wealth and Poor Richard's Almanac”, p.2, Nayika Publishing

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• Idleness is the sepulchre of a living man.

  J. G. Holland

  Men

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• A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor.

  Victor Hugo

  Education, Business, Men

  Victor Hugo, Charles Edwin Wilbour (1862). “Cosette”, p.134

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• But labor of the hands, even when pursued to the verge of drudgery, is perhaps never the worst form of idleness. It has a constantand imperishable moral, and to the scholar it yields a classic result.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Yield, Hands, Moral

  Henry David Thoreau (2004). “Walden: 150th Anniversary Illustrated Edition of the American Classic”, p.153, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Idleness for me is not a giving up on life but a spirited grabbing hold of it.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Giving Up, Spirited, Grabbing

  "Rethinking Work: An Interview With Tom Hodgkinson". 800-CEO-READ Interview, inthebooks.800ceoread.com. January 22, 2008.

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• A Dandy does nothing.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Doe, Dandy

  Charles Baudelaire, Christopher Isherwood, W. H. Auden (2006). “Intimate Journals”, p.74, Courier Corporation

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• Keep always busy so that the devil will find you always engaged.

  St. Jerome

  Devil, Busy, Engaged

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• Idleness, indifference and irresponsibility are healthy responses to absurd work.

  Frederick Herzberg

  Healthy, Indifference, Absurd

  "Punished by Rewards: Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes". Book by Alfie Kohn, p. 205, 1999.

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• For his part, Blind Seer had no difficulty accepting idleness. A wolf proverb stated: “Hunt when hungry, sleep when not, for hunger always returns.

  Jane Lindskold

  Sleep, Return, Hunger

  Jane Lindskold (2002). “Through Wolf's Eyes”, p.227, Macmillan

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• Wasting time is negative, but there is something positive about idleness.

  Russell Lynes

  Negative, Wasting Time

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• Idleness breeds our better virtues.

  William Faulkner

  Virtue

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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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• Idleness among children, as among men, is the root of all evil, and leads to no other evil more certain than ill temper.

  Hannah More

  Children, Men, Roots

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• Love is born of idleness and, once born, by idleness is fostered.

  Ovid

  Love Is, Born

  Ovid (1932). “The Love Books of Ovid”, p.203, Biblo & Tannen Publishers

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• The way to stop feeling guilty is to read stuff - I'm not saying my book, but works by Bertrand Russell or Oscar Wilde, people who weren't losers but who didn't believe in the work ethic, and argued this thing about guilt or wrote philosophy about idleness.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Philosophy, Believe, Book

  "How To Be Idle: An Interview with Tom Hodgkinson". Interview with Katie Renz, www.motherjones.com. June 8, 2005.

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• There is nothing I fear so much as idleness, the want of occupation, inactivity, the lethargy of the faculties; when the body is idle, the spirit suffers painfully.

  Charlotte Bronte

  Suffering, Body, Occupation

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• I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Suicide, Looks, Look Up

  Lord Chesterfield (2008). “The Modern Chesterfield”, p.233, Wildside Press LLC

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• Idleness or boredom has no place in the life of a Christian.

  Pope Paul VI

  Christian, Boredom

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