Idle Quotes - Page 16

• Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talks of the sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile.

  William Lyon Mackenzie King

  Responsibility, Government, Issues

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• What is the meaning of 'gossip?' Doesn't it originate with sympathy, an interest in one's neighbor, degenerating into idle curiosity and love of tattling? Which is worse, this habit, or keeping one's self so absorbed intellectually as to forget the sufferings and cares of others, to lose sympathy through having too much to think about?

  Lucy Larcom

  Thinking, Self, Gossip

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• The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Mind, Action, Reason

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook K 27, 1799.

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• When the desire of wealth is taking hold of the heart, let us look round and see how it operates upon than whose industry or fortune has obtained it. When we find them oppressed with their own abundance, luxurious without pleasure, idle without ease, impatient and querulous in themselves, and despised or hated by the rest of mankind, we shall soon be convinced that if the real wants of our condition are satisfied, there remains little to be sought with solicitude or desired with eagerness.

  Samuel Johnson

  Real, Heart, Desire

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• Yes, take a little time to play And look at life the other way. God rested when the world was made: Rest now, old friend; be not afraid. But think not that your work is over, That you are now a foot-free rover, A rambler upon idle ways, Whittling away the golden days. For in the road climb to the goal There's no long furlough for a soul. There's no long pause: on every height Another summit swims in sight. The long road rises, scene by scene, With little restings in between.

  Edwin Markham

  Thinking, Sight, Golden Days

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• True, I talk of dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasy, Which is as thin of substance as the air, And more inconstant than the wind, who woos Even now the frozen bosom of the north, And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence, Turning his side to the dew-dropping south.

  William Shakespeare

  Dream, Children, Air

  William Shakespeare, George Steevens (1828). “The dramatic works of William Shakespeare”, p.392

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• People say: idle curiosity. The one thing that curiosity cannot be is idle.

  Leo Rosten

  People, Curiosity, One Thing

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• Manly natural religion - it is not joining the Church; it is not to believe in a creed, Hebrew, Protestant, Catholic, Trinitarian, Unitarian, Nothingarian. It is not to keep Sunday idle; to attend meetings; to be wet with water; to read the Bible; to offer prayers in words; to take bread and wine in the meeting house; love a scape-goat Jesus, or any other theological clap-trap.

  Theodore Parker

  Jesus, Prayer, Believe

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• Custom is custom: it is built of brass, boiler-iron, granite; facts, reasonings, arguments have no more effect upon it than the idle winds have upon Gibraltar.

  Mark Twain

  Wind, Iron, Atheism

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.74, Courier Corporation

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• Man preys on man; and you mourn for the idle tapestry that decorated a gothic pillar, and the dronish bell that summoned the fat priest to prayer. You mourn for the empty pageant of a name, when slavery flaps her wing, ... Why is our fancy to be appalled by terrific perspectives of a hell beyond the grave? - Hell stalks abroad; - the lash resounds on the slave's naked sides; and the sick wretch, who can no longer earn the sour bread of unremitting labour, steals to a ditch to bid the world a long good night.

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Good Night, Prayer, Men

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• The truth does not reveal itself to idle spectators.

  Matthew Crawford

  Doe, Spectators

  Matthew B. Crawford (2009). “Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work”, p.71, Penguin

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• Our lives show the accumulation of all of our varied wishes. Wanting something with all your heart will begin to slough away all of your untrue and idle wishes. Success comes from an undivided heart.

  Chuck Spezzano

  Heart, Wish, Accumulation

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• To be rich, to be famous? do these profit a year hence, when other names sound louder than yours, when you lie hidden away under ground, along with the idle titles engraven on your coffin? But only true love lives after you, follows your memory with secret blessings or pervades you, and intercedes for you. Non omnis moriar, if, dying, I yet live in a tender heart or two; nor am lost and hopeless, living, if a sainted departed soul still loves and prays for me.

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Memories, Lying, Heart

  William Makepeace Thackeray (1925). “The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., Colonel in the Service of Her Majesty Queen Anne: Written by Himself”

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• Love is the occupation of the idle man, the amusement of a busy one, and the shipwreck of a sovereign.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Love, Men, Occupation

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• Among the idle rich, boredom is one of the most common causes of unhappiness. People who have difficulty in earning their living may suffer greatly, but they are not bored. Wealthy men and women become bored when they depend upon the theater for their enjoyment instead of making their own lives interesting.

  Andre Maurois

  Men, Boredom, People

  "The Art of Happiness". Book by Andre Maurois, 1971.

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• I spend a good deal of time wondering how we will seem to the people who come after us. This is not an idle interest, but a deliberate attempt to strengthen the power of that "other eye," which we can use to judge ourselves.

  Doris Lessing

  Eye, People, Judging

  Doris Lessing (2013). “Prisons We Choose to Live Inside”, p.6, Harper Collins

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• The poverty of the incapable, the distresses that come upon the imprudent, the starvation of the idle, and those shoulderings aside of the weak by the strong, which leave so many "in shallows and in miseries," are the decrees of a large, far-seeing benevolence.

  Herbert Spencer

  Strong, Poverty, Misery

  Herbert Spencer (2016). “The Man versus the State: Great Essays”, p.73, VM eBooks

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• There are very few things in the mind which eat up as much energy as worry. It is one of the most difficult things not to worry about anything. Worry is experienced when things go wrong, but in relation to past happenings it is idle merely to wish that they might have been otherwise. The frozen past is what it is, and no amount of worrying is going to make it other than what it has been. But the limited ego-mind identifies itself with its past, gets entangled with it and keeps alive the pangs of frustrated desires.

  Meher Baba

  Past, Worry, Ego

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• Permanent mass unemployment destroys the moral foundations of the social order. The young people, who, having finished their training for work, are forced to remain idle, are the ferment out of which the most radical political movements are formed. In their ranks the soldiers of the coming revolutions are recruited.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Order, People, Political

  Ludwig von Mises (2016). “Socialism - An Economic and Sociological Analysis: The Economist”, p.444, VM eBooks

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• We do not rest satisfied with the present.... So imprudent we are that we wander in the times which are not ours and do not thinkof the only one which belongs to us; and so idle are we that we dream of those times which are no more and thoughtlessly overlook that which alone exists. For the present is generally painful to us.

  Blaise Pascal

  Dream, Hope, Painful

  Blaise Pascal (2010). “Thoughts, Letters & Minor Works”, p.64, Cosimo, Inc.

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• In times like ours, where the growing complexity of life leaves us barely the time to read the newspapers, where the map of Europehas endured profound rearrangements and is perhaps on the brink of enduring yet others, where so many threatening and new problems appear everywhere, you will admit it may be demanded of a writer that he be more than a fine wit who makes us forget in idle and byzantine discussions on the merits of pure form.

  Marcel Proust

  Art, Profound, Byzantine

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• Therefore with idle hands and head I sit
  In late December before the fire's daze
  Punished by crimes of which I would be quit.

  Allen Tate

  Christmas, Hands, Fire

  Allen Tate (2014). “Collected Poems, 1919-1976”, p.103, Macmillan

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• The theater is a baffling business, and a shockingly wasteful one when you consider that people who have proven their worth, who have appeared in or been responsible for successful plays, who have given outstanding performances, can still, in the full tide of their energy, be forced, through lack of opportunity, to sit idle season after season, their enthusiasm, their morale, their very talent dwindling to slow gray death. Of finances we will not even speak; it is too sad a tale.

  Ilka Chase

  Successful, Opportunity, Play

  Ilka Chase (1945). “Past Imperfect”, Pocket Books of Canada

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• Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
  So I make an idle boast;
  Jesus of the twice-turned cheek
  Lamb of God, although I speak
  With my mouth thus, in my heart
  Do I play a double part.

  Countee Cullen

  Jesus, Father, Heart

  Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.66, Library of America

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• It is idle to dispute with old men. Their opinions, like their cranial sutures, are ossified.

  Santiago Ramon y Cajal

  Men, Opinion, Disputes

  Charlas de Cafe

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