Idleness Quotes - Page 10

• Bourgeois society ought long ago to have gone to the dogs through sheer idleness; for those of its members who work, acquire nothing, and those who acquire anything, do not work.

  Karl Marx

  Dog, Long Ago, Gone

  Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Philip Gasper (2005). “The Communist Manifesto: A Road Map to History's Most Important Political Document”, p.63, Haymarket Books

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Love labour: for if thou dost not want it for food, thou mayest for physique. It is wholesome for the body, and good for the mind. It prevents the fruits of idleness, which many times come of nothing to do, and leads many to do what is worse than nothing.

  William Penn

  Mind, Body, Want

  7 Copy quote

• There is no kind of idleness by which we are so easily seduced as that which dignifies itself by the appearance of business.

  Samuel Johnson

  Business, Sloth, Laziness

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy, Francis Pearson Walesby (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D..: The Adventurer and Idler”, p.291

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I understood that all the material of a literary work was in my past life, I understood that I had acquired it in the midst of frivolous amusements, in idleness, in tenderness and in pain, stored up by me without my divining its destination or even its survival, as the seed has in reserve all the ingredients which will nourish the plant.

  Marcel Proust

  Pain, Past, Survival

  Marcel Proust (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Marcel Proust (Illustrated)”, p.4860, Delphi Classics

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• As astronomy is the daughter of idleness, geometry is the daughter of property.

  Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

  Daughter, Science, Astronomy

  5 Copy quote

• Trace Science, then, with Modesty thy guide,
  First strip off all her equipage of Pride,
  Deduct what is but Vanity or Dress,
  Or Learning's Luxury or idleness,
  Or tricks, to show the stretch of the human brain
  Mere curious pleasure or ingenious pain.

  Alexander Pope

  Pain, Learning, Pride

  Alexander Pope (1873). “The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope Edited with Notes and Introductory Memoir by Adolphus William Ward”, p.202

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• War begets quiet, quiet idleness, idleness disorder, disorder ruin; likewise ruin order, order virtue, virtue glory, and good fortune.

  Walter Raleigh

  War, Order, Ruins

  Walter Raleigh (1829). “The Works of Sir Walter Ralegh”, p.122

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• No country can sustain, in idleness, more than a small percentage of its numbers. The great majority must labor at something productive.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Country, Work, Numbers

  Abraham Lincoln, Terence Ball (2013). “Lincoln: Political Writings and Speeches”, p.238, Cambridge University Press

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Upon this subject, the habits of our whole species fall into three great classes--useful labour, useless labour and idleness. Of these the first only is meritorious; and to it all the products of labour rightfully belong; but the two latter, while they exist, are heavy pensioners upon the first, robbing it of a large portion of it's just rights. The only remedy for this is to, as far as possible, drive useless labour and idleness out of existence.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Work, Fall, Class

  Abraham Lincoln (2008). “The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln”, p.412, Wildside Press LLC

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Through faith we are restored to paradise and created anew. We have no need of works in order to be righteous; however, in order to avoid idleness and so that the body might be cared for an disciplined, works are done freely to please God.

  Martin Luther

  Order, Needs, Done

  Martin Luther (2012). “Martin Luther's Basic Theological Writings”, p.864, Fortress Press

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is no idleness, by which we are so easily seduced, as that which dignifies itself by the appearance of business, and by making the loiterer imagine that he has something to do which must not be neglected, keeps him in perpetual agitation, and hurries him rapidly from place to place.

  Samuel Johnson

  Agitation, Imagine, Appearance

  Samuel Johnson (1801). “Idler”, p.191

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Gossip, like ennui, is born of idleness.

  Ninon de L'Enclos

  Gossip, Born, Ennui

  22 Copy quote

• We are more heavily taxed by our idleness, pride and folly than we are taxed by government.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Pride, Government, Folly

  12 Copy quote

• Of the time that is allotted to man here on the earth there is none to lose or waste. After suitable rest and relaxation there is not a day, hour or minute that we should spend in idleness, but every minute of every day of our lives we should strive to improve our minds and to increase the faith of the holy Gospel, in charity, patience, and good works, that we may grow in the knowledge of the truth as it is spoken and prophesied of and written about.

  Brigham Young

  Men, Mind, Relaxation

  4 Copy quote

• Times are changed with him who marries; there are no more by-path meadows, where you may innocently linger, but the road lies long and straight and dusty to the grave. Idleness, which is often becoming and even wise in the bachelor, begins to wear a different aspect when you have a wife to support.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Wise, Lying, Wife

  1881 Virginibus Puerisque,'Virginibus Puerisque', pt.2.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Give me a flagon of red wine, a book of verses, a loaf of bread, and a little idleness. If with such store I might sit by thy dear side in some lonely place, I should deem myself happier than a king in his kingdom.

  Omar Khayyam

  Lonely, Kings, Book

  Omar Khayyam (1898). “Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám”

  581 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our youth must be steadfast and take advantage of the benefits of modern civilization. Do not fall prey to idleness for it shall be a curse to you and to succeeding generations. You must set yourselves us as examples of determination and hard work. Plan your time and use both your physical and mental powers purposefully and productively.

  Haile Selassie

  Determination, Fall, Hard Work

  986 Copy quote

• Four Seasons fill the measure of the year; There are four seasons in the mind of man: He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear Takes in all beauty with an easy span: He has his Summer, when luxuriously Spring's honey'd cud of youthful thought he loves To ruminate, and by such dreaming high Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings He furleth close; contented so to look On mists in idleness—to let fair things Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook. He has his Winter too of pale misfeature, Or else he would forego his mortal nature.

  John Keats

  Summer, Dream, Spring

  John Keats (1847). “The Poetical Works of John Keats”, p.244

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• The cloud is driven by statistics, and even in the worst individual cases of personal ignorance, dullness, idleness, or irrelevance, every person is constantly feeding data into the cloud these days. The value of such information could be treated as genuine, but it is not. Instead, the blindness of our standards of accounting to all that value is gradually breaking capitalism.

  Jaron Lanier

  Ignorance, Irrelevance, Clouds

  Jaron Lanier (2014). “Who Owns the Future?”, p.11, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Give me to live with Love alone And let the world go dine and dress; For Love hath lowly haunts... If life's a flower, I choose my own 'T is "love in Idleness".

  Samuel Laman Blanchard

  Flower, Giving, Dresses

  4 Copy quote

• We are overdone with banking institutions, which have banished the precious metals, and substituted a more fluctuating and unsafe medium... These have withdrawn capital from useful improvements and employments to nourish idleness... These are evils more easily to be deplored than remedied.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wisdom, Evil, Employment

  Thomas Jefferson (1853). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, cont”, p.516

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Love is an alchemist that can transmute poison into food--and a spaniel, that prefers even punishment from one hand to caresses from another. But it is in love as in war, we are often more indebted for our success to the weakness of the defence than to the energy of the attack; for mere idleness has ruined more women than passion; vanity more than idleness, and credulity more than either.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Love, War, Passion

  7 Copy quote

• Give me the boy who rouses when he is praised, who profits when he is encouraged and who cries when he is defeated. Such a boy will be fired by ambition; he will be stung by reproach, and animated by preference; never shall I apprehend any bad consequences from idleness in such a boy.

  Quintilian

  Ambition, Boys, Giving

  Quintilian (1805). “Quinctilian's Institutes of Eloquence: Or, The Art of Speaking in Public, in Every Character and Capacity”, p.26

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• In travelling I shape myself betimes to idleness And take fools' pleasure

  George Eliot

  Travel, Shapes, Fool

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.4069, Delphi Classics

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Love is the business of the idle, but the idleness of the busy.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Love, Busy, Indolence

  8 Copy quote