Idle Quotes - Page 8

• Perhaps man is the only being that can properly be called idle.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Laziness, Idleness

  Samuel Johnson (1826). “The Rambler (1750-'52) a. the Idler (1758-'60)”

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• An idle man's brain is the devil's workshop.

  John Bunyan

  Men, Brain, Devil

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• Raking over the past and sifting its dust is an occupation for the idle or the elderly retired.

  Armand Hammer

  Work, Past, Elderly

  Armand Hammer, Neil Lyndon (1988). “Hammer”, Perigee

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• Astronomy was born of superstition; eloquence of ambition, hatred, falsehood, and flattery; geometry of avarice; physics of an idle curiosity; and even moral philosophy of human pride. Thus the arts and sciences owe their birth to our vices.

  Jean-Baptiste Rousseau

  Art, Philosophy, Ambition

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• Of the two smartest creatures on the earth, man and the dolphin, each thought they were smarter than the other. Man thought he was smarter because he built many things and did much work, while the dolphins just played all day. The dolphins thought they were smarter for the same reason.

  Gershon Legman

  Men, Two, Dolphins

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• It would be idle to say that we were not, from time to time, aware that a volcano slumbered fitfully beneath us. There were dark sides to the Slavery Question, for master, as for slave.

  Mary Virginia Terhune

  Dark, Volcanoes, Would Be

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• Whatever work you undertake to do in your lifetime, it is very important that first you have a passion for it - you know, get excited about it - and second, that you have fun with it. That's important. Otherwise, you see, your work becomes nothing but an idle chore. Then, you hate the life you live.

  Julius Sumner Miller

  Fun, Hate, Passion

  Australian ABC Television show "Why Is It So?", (episode 1), 1963.

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• EVERY intention which does not assert itself by deeds is a vain intention, and the speech which expresses it is idle speech. It is action which proves life and establishes will

  Eliphas Levi

  Doe, Deeds, Speech

  Eliphas Levi (2013). “The Ritual of Transcendental Magic”, p.16, Jazzybee Verlag

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• For Hell and the foul fiend that rules
  God's everlasting fiery jails
  (Devised by rogues, dreaded by fools),
  With his grim, grisly dog that keeps the door,
  Are senseless stories, idle tales,
  Dreams, whimseys, and no more.

  John Wilmot

  Dream, Dog, Doors

  John Wilmot, John Adlard (2002). “The Debt to Pleasure: John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, in the Eyes of His Contemporaries and in His Own Poetry and Prose”, p.126, Taylor & Francis

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• Edwidge Danticat's prose has a Chekhovian simplicity--an ability to state the most urgent truths in a measured and patiently plain style that gathers a luminous energy as it moves inexorably forward. In this book she makes a strong case that art, for immigrants from countries where human rights and even survival are often in jeopardy, must be a vocation to witness if it is not to be an idle luxury.

  Madison Smartt Bell

  Country, Art, Strong

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• Not to be lost in idle admiration is the only sure means of making and preserving happiness.

  Horace

  Mean, Admiration, Lost

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• It may be true that people who are merely mathematicians have certain specific shortcomings; however that is not the fault of mathematics, but is true of every exclusive occupation. Likewise a mere linguist, a mere jurist, a mere soldier, a mere merchant, and so forth. One could add such idle chatter that when a certain exclusive occupation is often connected with certain specific shortcomings, it is on the other hand always free of certain other shortcomings.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Science, Hands, People

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• Dreaming is a form of action. Idleness is a form of action. The idle man stares at the sky and sees what constitutes our eternal ceiling. The sky is one of the things that constructs us, one of our constants. But it is not what people believe. I should like to close this circle by turning over in my bed and scrutinizing the stars.

  Philippe Starck

  Dream, Stars, Believe

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• Heat lingers
  As days are still long;
  Early mornings are cool
  While autumn is still young.
  Dew on the lotus
  Scatters pure perfume;
  Wind on the bamboos
  Gives off a gentle tinkling.
  I am idle and lonely,
  Lying down all day,
  Sick and decayed;
  No one asks for me;
  Thin dusk before my gates,
  Cassia blossoms inch deep.

  Bai Juyi

  Lonely, Morning, Lying

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• Hunger is an altogether fit companion for the idle man.

  Hesiod

  Work, Men, Hunger

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• There are three sorts of pleasures which are advantageous, and three which are injurious. Finding pleasure in the discriminating study of ceremonies and music, finding pleasure in discussing the good points in the conduct of others, and finding pleasure in having many wise friends, these are advantageous. But finding pleasure in profligate enjoyments, finding pleasure in idle gadding about, and finding pleasure in feasting, these are injurious.

  Confucius

  Friendship, Wise, Three

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• The vigorous man industriously striving for the improvement of his condition acts neither more nor less than the lethargic man who sluggishly takes things as they come. For to do nothing and to be idle are also action, they too determine the course of events.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Men, Events, Libertarian

  Ludwig Von Mises (1963). “Human action: a treatise on economics”

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• Purge your mind of all aimless and idle thoughts, especially those that pry into the affairs of others or wish them ill.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Mind, Wish, Affair

  Marcus Aurelius, C. Scot Hicks, David Hicks (2002). “The Emperor's Handbook: A New Translation of The Meditations”, p.34, Simon and Schuster

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• To carry the spirit of peace into war is a weak and cruel policy. When an extreme case calls for that remedy which is in its own nature most violent, and which, in such cases, is a remedy only because it is violent, it is idle to think of mitigating and diluting. Languid war can do nothing which negotiation or submission will do better: and to act on any other principle is, not to save blood and money, but to squander them.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Peace, War, Thinking

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• I want to know which idea you're going to kill yourself trying to make successful, not which ideas have crossed your idle mind.

  Guy Kawasaki

  Successful, Ideas, Mind

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• Idle hands make fretful minds.

  Shelley Shepard Gray

  Hands, Mind, Idle Hands

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• All of our days are numbered. We cannot afford to be idle. To act on a bad idea is better than to not act at all, because the worth of an idea never becomes apparent until you do it.

  Nick Cave

  Ideas, Bad Ideas

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• Why should not we, who have renounced the king's authority, have our national preserves, where no villages need be destroyed, in which the bear and panther, and some even of the hunter race, may still exist, and not be "civilized off the face of the earth," - our forests, not to hold the king's game merely, but to hold and preserve the king himself also, the lord of creation, - not for idle sport or food, but for inspiration and our own true re-creation?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Sports, Kings, Inspiration

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “The Maine Woods - The Writings of Henry David Thoreau”, p.102, Read Books Ltd

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• This is the perpetual and pitiful tragedy of the practical man in practical affairs. He always begins with a flourish of contempt for what he calls theorizing and what people who can do it call thinking. He will not wait for logic-that is, in the most exact sense, he will not listen to reason. It will therefore appear to him an idle and ineffectual proceeding to say that there is a reason for his present failure. Nevertheless, it may be well to say it, and to try and make it clear even to him.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Wisdom, Men, Thinking

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• There is no substitute under the heavens for productive labor. It is the process by which dreams become realities. It is the process by which idle visions become dynamic achievements.

  Gordon B. Hinckley

  Dream, Reality, Achievement

  Gordon B. Hinckley (2009). “Standing for Something: 10 Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes”, p.94, Harmony

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