Idle Quotes - Page 19

• 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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  35 Copy quote

• 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

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  47 Copy quote

• 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”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  17 Copy quote

• An idle reason lessens the weight of the good ones you gave before.

  Jonathan Swift

  Weight, Reason

  Jonathan Swift (1735). “The Works of J.S., D.D., D.S.P.D.”, p.303

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you suppress the exorbitant love of pleasure and money, idle curiosity, iniquitous pursuits and wanton mirth, what a stillness would there be in the greatest cities.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Cities, Curiosity, Mirth

  4 Copy quote

• Instead of yielding to idle conversation it might profit one to cultivate silence and contemplation.

  Clarence Darrow

  Silence, Might, Contemplation

  Clarence Darrow (2015). “The Story of My Life”, p.110, Lulu.com

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Curiosity is idle only to those who fail to realize that it may be a very rare and indispensable thing.

  James Harvey Robinson

  Curiosity, May, Realizing

  James Harvey Robinson (1939). “The Mind in the Making”

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• An idle head is a boxe for the winde.

  George Herbert

  George Herbert, Christopher Harvey, George Gilfillan (1857). “The poetical works of George Herbert”, p.312

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Rather do what is nothing to the purpose than be idle; that the devil may find thee doing. The bird that sits is easily shot, when fliers scape the fowler. Idleness is the Dead Sea that swallows all the virtues, and the self-made sepulchre of a living man.

  Francis Quarles

  Men, Self, Sea

  Francis Quarles (1844). “Enchiridion Institutions, Essays and Maxims, political, moral & divine. Divided into four centuries. By Francis Quarles”, p.85

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Even when someone battles hard, there is an equal portion for one who lingers behind, and in the same honor are held both the coward and the brave man; the idle man and he who has done much meet death alike.

  Homer

  Men, Brave, Honor

  6 Copy quote

• Letterwriting is the natural outlet of the "odds." The busy-bodies, the idle, the perverted, the cranks, the feel-it-my-duties ... Also the plain depraved. They all write letters. It's their safe outlet, you see. They can be as interfering, as long-winded, as obscene, as pompous, as one-idea'd, as they like on paper, and no one can kick them for it. So they write. My God, how they write!

  Josephine Tey

  Writing, Odds, Ideas

  4 Copy quote

• The idle man stands outside of God's plan, outside of the ordained scheme of things; and the truest self-respect, the noblest independence, and the most genuine dignity, are not to be found there.

  J. G. Holland

  Men, Self, Independence

  J. G. HOLLAND (1866). “PLAIN TALKS ON FAMILIAR SUBJECTS”, p.111

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is really nothing left to a genuine idle man, who possesses any considerable degree of vital power, but sin.

  J. G. Holland

  Men, Degrees, Sin

  7 Copy quote

• Poor dusky children of slavery, men and women of my own race-the transition from slavery to freedom was too sudden for you! The bright dreams were too rudely dispelled; you were not prepared for the new life that opened before you, and the great masses of the North learned to look upon your helplessness with indifference-learned to speak of you as an idle, dependent race. Reason should have prompted kinder thoughts. Charity is ever kind.

  Elizabeth Keckley

  Dream, Children, Men

  Elizabeth Keckley (2016). “Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House”, p.52, Enhanced Media Publishing

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• In my opinion what distinguishes the Bible from the other books is its sense of time. Its first concern is to establish a calendar. Then it traces a genealogy. It imposes rhythms, it orders, it operates, it does not abandon the earth where its destiny must be fulfilled and whose own destiny must be fulfilled by it. Its history will be that of men and not of idle gods. The whole spirit must become incarnate and explore the possible.

  Adrienne Monnier

  Bible, Book, Destiny

  Adrienne Monnier (1976). “The Very Rich Hours of Adrienne Monnier”, p.376, U of Nebraska Press

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• This gave me occasion to observe, that when Men are employ'd they are best contented. For on the Days they work'd they were good-natur'd and chearful; and with the consciousness of having done a good Days work they spent the Evenings jollily; but on the idle Days they were mutinous and quarrelsome, finding fault with their Pork, the Bread, and in continual ill-humour. (Autobiography, 1771)

  Benjamin Franklin

  Good Day, Men, Pork

  Benjamin Franklin (1986). “The Autobiography and Other Writings”, p.170, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• If we are to reach real peace in this world and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with children; and if they will grow up in their natural innocence, we won't have to struggle; we won't have to pass fruitless idle resolutions, but we shall go from love to love and peace to peace, until at last all the corners of the world are covered with that peace and love for which consciously or unconsciously the whole world is hungering.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Love, Peace, Growing Up

  Mahatma Gandhi, Mohandas Gandhi, Homer A. Jack (2005). “The Wit and Wisdom of Gandhi”, p.120, Courier Corporation

  74 Copy quote

  Show source

• A moment of happiness, you and I sitting on the verandah, apparently two, but one in soul, you and I. We feel the flowing water of life here, you and I, with the garden's beauty and the birds singing. The stars will be watching us, and we will show them what it is to be a thin crescent moon. You and I unselfed, will be together, indifferent to idle speculation, you and I. The parrots of heaven will be cracking sugar as we laugh together, you and I. In one form upon this earth, and in another form in a timeless sweet land.

  Rumi

  Love, Sweet, Stars

  Rumi (2014). “'Another city'. a selectionf of poems from the Persian”, p.19, Lulu.com

  116 Copy quote

  Show source

• Will you not covet such power as this, and seek such throne as this, and be no more housewives, but queens? There is no putting by that crown; queens you must always be; queens to your lovers; queens to your husbands and sons; queens of higher mystery to the world beyond. . . . But alas! you are too often idle and careless queens, grasping at majesty in the least things, while you abdicate it in the greatest.

  John Ruskin

  Queens, Husband, Son

  6 Copy quote

• How these curiosities would be quite forgott, did not such idle fellowes as I am putt them downe!

  John Aubrey

  Curiosity, Would Be

  Thomas Hearne, John Aubrey (1813). “Letters Written by Eminent Persons in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: to which are Added, Hearne's Journeys to Reading, and to Whaddon Hall, the Seat of Browne Willis, Esq., and Lives of Eminent Men, by John Aubrey, Esq: The Whole Now First Published from the Originals in the Bodleian Library and Ashmolean Museum, with Biographical and Literary Illustrations ...”, p.333

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Radicalism usually prospers in the gap between rising expectations and declining opportunities. This is especially true where the population is young, idle, and bored; where the art is impoverished; where entertainment—movies, theater, music—is policed or absent altogether; and where young men are set apart from the consoling and socializing presence of women.

  Lawrence Wright

  Art, Opportunity, Men

  Lawrence Wright (2006). “The Looming Tower”, p.107, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Game, noun: Any unserious occupation designed for the relaxation of busy people and the distraction of idle ones. It's used to take people to whom we have nothing to say off our hands, and sometimes even ourselves.

  Etienne Bonnot de Condillac

  Games, Hands, People

  7 Copy quote