Idle Quotes - Page 22

• The Buddha also counseled the monks and nuns to avoid wasting any precious time by engaging in idle conversation, oversleeping, pursuing fame and recognition, chasing after desires, spending time with people of poor character, and being satisfied with only a shallow understanding of the teaching.

  Nhat Hanh

  Teaching, Character, People

  "Old Path White Clouds". Book by Thich Nhat Hanh, 1987.

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• Talking things over has its place in an organization [but] so-called conferences are being grossly overdone. One executive stops at the desk of another to tell him, perhaps, about the wonderful score he made at golf on Saturday afternoon. This chin-chin immediately becomes a conference, and neither the office boy nor the telephone operator must disturb either gentleman. More idle gossip is indulged in at many business conferences these days than an old wives' sewing circle would be guilty of.

  B. C. Forbes

  Golf, Boys, Talking

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• After visiting several of America's most fashionable playgrounds, I have reached the conclusion that men who work hard enjoy life most. The men at such places can be divided into two classes, first, busy men of affairs ... and, second, rich loafers. I was impressed by the obvious enjoyment corporation heads and other important executives were deriving from their vacation activities.... The idle rich fellows, on the other hand, although indulging in exactly the same activities, palpably were bored.

  B. C. Forbes

  Hard Work, Men, Vacation

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• Queens you must always be: queens to your lovers; queens to your husbands and your 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.

  Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

  Queens, Husband, Women

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• I do deeply deplore, of the sake of the cause, the prevalent notion, that the clergy must be had, either by persuasion or by bribery. They will not need persuasion or bribery, if their hearts are with us; if they are not, we are better without them. It is idle to suppose that the kingdom of heaven cannot come on earth, without their cooperation.

  Sarah Moore Grimke

  Heart, Heaven, Feminism

  "Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Woman" by Sarah Moore Grimke, Letter 15 (October 20, 1837), 1837.

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• Is it not clear that to give to such women as desire it and can devote themselves to literary and scientific pursuits all the advantages enjoyed by men of the same class will lessen essentially the number of thoughtless, idle, vain and frivolous women and thus secure the [sic] society the services of those who now hang as dead weight?

  Sarah Moore Grimke

  Men, Class, Numbers

  Gerda Lerner, Sarah Moore Grimké (1998). “The Feminist Thought of Sarah Grimké”, p.89, Oxford University Press, USA

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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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• Men are not really born either hopelessly idle, or preternaturally industrious. They may move in one direction or the other as will or circumstances dictate, but it is open to any man to work.

  Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook

  Moving, Men, One Direction

  "Success". Book by Baron Max Aitken Beaverbrook, 1921.

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• The idle man is the devil's cushion.

  Joseph Hall

  Men, Devil, Laziness

  Joseph Hall, Josiah Pratt (1808). “Works: Devotional works”, p.60

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• The love of solitude, when cultivated in the morn of life, elevates the mind to a noble independence, but to acquire the advantages which solitude is capable of affording, the mind must not be impelled to it by melancholy and discontent, but by a real distaste to the idle pleasures of the world, a rational contempt for the deceitful joys of life, and just apprehensions of being corrupted and seduced by its insinuating and destructive gayeties.

  Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann

  Real, Joy, Solitude

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• Have you not budged an inch, then? Such is the daily news. Its facts appear to float in the atmosphere.... We should wash ourselves clean of such news. Of what consequence, though our planet explode, if there is no character involved in the explosion? In health we have not the least curiosity about such events. We do not live for idle amusement. I would not run round a corner to see the world blow up.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Running, Character, Blow

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• For a few brief days the orchards are white with blossoms. They soon turn to fruit, or else float away, useless and wasted, upon the idle breeze. So will it be with present feelings. They must be deepened into decision, or be entirely dissipated by delay.

  Theodore L. Cuyler

  White, Decision, Feelings

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, (p. 186), 1895.

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• There are no idle thoughts. All thinking produces form at some level.

  Helen Schucman

  Thinking, Levels, Form

  Helen Schucman (2009). “A Course in Miracles”, p.49, Course in Miracles Society

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• There is no doubt that human survival will continue to depend more and more on human intellect and technology. It is idle to argue whether this is good or bad. The point of no return was passed long ago, before anyone knew it was happening.

  Theodosius Dobzhansky

  Technology, Long Ago, Doubt

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• How long shall we sit in our porticoes practising idle and musty virtues, which any work would make impertinent? As if one were tobegin the day with long-suffering, and hire a man to hoe his potatoes; and in the afternoon go forth to practise Christian meekness and charity with goodness aforethought!

  Henry David Thoreau

  Christian, Men, Long

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.516, Delphi Classics

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• Be careful how you suggest things to me. For there is in me a madness which goes beyond martyrdom, the madness of an utterly idle man.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Madness, Be Careful

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• I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing.

  Emily Bronte

  Gothic, Heathcliff, Destruction

  Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte (2009). “The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.597, Penguin

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• If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumbered here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend: If you pardon, we will mend: And, as I am an honest Puck, If we have unearned luck Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue, We will make amends ere long; Else the Puck a liar call; So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends.

  William Shakespeare

  Good Night, Dream, Liars

  'A Midsummer Night's Dream' (1595-6) act 5, sc. 2, l. 54

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• What's worse: to be idle while someone dies, or to be exiled and empty-handed?

  Veronica Roth

  Empty, Dies

  Veronica Roth (2013). “Divergent Series (Books 1-3) Plus Free Four, The Transfer and World of Divergent”, p.67, HarperCollins UK

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• I think the most joyous thing in life is to loaf around and watch another bloke do a job of work. Look how popular are the men who dig up London with electric drills. Duke's son, cook's son, son of a hundred kings, people will stand there for hours on end, ear drums splitting. Why? Simply for the pleasure of being idle while watching other people work.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  Kings, Jobs, Son

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• A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition.

  Henry Miller

  Inspirational, Lying, Book

  Henry Miller (1969). “Mémoires, Plaidoiries Et Documents”, p.23, New Directions Publishing

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• Ahimsa is nothing if not a well-balanced, exquisite consideration for one's neighbour, and an idle man is wanting in that elementary consideration.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Men, Consideration, Mankind

  Mahatma Gandhi (1959). “India of My Dreams”, p.60, Rajpal & Sons

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• What I mean by Socialism is a condition of society in which there should be neither rich nor poor, neither master nor master's man, neither idle nor overworked, neither brain­slack brain workers, nor heart­sick hand workers, in a word, in which all men would be living in equality of condition, and would manage their affairs unwastefully, and with the full consciousness that harm to one would mean harm to all - the realisation at last of the meaning of the word 'commonwealth.'

  William Morris

  Mean, Heart, Men

  "How I Became a Socialist". Justice newspaper, www.marxists.org. June 16, 1894.

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• An idle man has a constant tendency to torpidity. He has adopted the Indian maxim that it is better to walk than to run, and better to stand than to walk, and better to sit than to stand, and better to lie than to sit. He hugs himself into the notion, that God calls him to be quiet.

  Richard Cecil

  Running, Lying, Men

  Richard Cecil, Josiah PRATT (the Elder.) (1854). “Remains of the Rev. Richard Cecil ... With a view of his character, by the Rev. Josiah Pratt ... To which is prefixed a memoir of his life signed: J. Cecil . Tenth edition”, p.177

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• Go on, fair Science; soon to thee
  Shall Nature yield her idle boast;
  Her vulgar lingers formed a tree,
  But thou hast trained it to a post.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

  Nature, Science, Yield

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