Idleness Quotes - Page 12

• The philosophers of antiquity taught contempt for work, that degradation of the free man, the poets sang of idleness, that gift from the Gods.

  Paul Lafargue

  Work, Men, Degradation

  Paul Lafargue (2016). “The Right to be Lazy and Other Studies”, p.4, Library of Alexandria

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• The archiepiscopal throne of Macedonius, which had been polluted with so much Christian blood, was successively filled by Eudoxus and Damophilus. Their diocese enjoyed a free importation of vice and error from every province of the empire; the eager pursuit of religious controversy afforded a new occupation to the busy idleness of the metropolis: and we may credit the assertion of an intelligent observer, who describes, with some pleasantry, the effects of their loquacious zeal.

  Edward Gibbon

  Christian, Religious, Intelligent

  Edward Gibbon (2000). “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume II: A.D. 395 to A.D. 1185 (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.21, Modern Library

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• The magical descriptions of Italy and hilarious observations about love, travel, natives and foreigners in Love in Idleness are but a few of its many pleasures. Amanda Craig has created a hot shimmery climate in which a cast of old friends, quirky family members and naughty children who make love potions come to know themselves and their hearts. A delightful brew.

  Jane Hamilton

  Children, Heart, Naughty

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• 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

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• 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

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• We are here lounging our time away, doing nothing, and having nothing to do. It gives me great regret to be passing my time so uselessly when it could have been so importantly employed at home.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Regret, Home, Giving

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• Why, man of idleness, labor has rocked you in the cradle, and nourished your pampered life; without it, the woven silk and the wool upon your bank would be in the shepherd's fold. For the meanest thing that ministers to human want, save the air of heaven, man is indebted to toil; and even the air, in God's wise ordination, is breathed with labor.

  Edwin Hubbel Chapin

  Wise, Men, Air

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• 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

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

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Love, Busy, Indolence

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• The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth The freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover, Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank, Conceives by idleness, and nothing teems But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burrs, Losing both beauty and utility.

  William Shakespeare

  Weed, Green, Docks

  'Henry V' (1599) act 5, sc. 2, l. 44

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• Idleness and fear keeps us in the path of duty, but our virtue often gets the praise.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Path, Praise, Virtue

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• 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”

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• 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

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• 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

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• Now the code of life of the High Middle Ages said something entirely opposite to this: that it was precisely lack of leisure, an inability to be at leisure, that went together with idleness; that the restlessness of work-for-work's sake arose from nothing other than idleness. There is a curious connection in the fact that the restlessness of a self-destructive work-fanatacism should take its rise from the absence of a will to accomplish something.

  Josef Pieper

  Self, Opposites, Age

  "Leisure, the Basis of Culture" by Josef Pieper, translated by Gerald Malsbary, South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine's Press, (p. 27), 1998.

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• Gossip, like ennui, is born of idleness.

  Ninon de L'Enclos

  Gossip, Born, Ennui

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

  Benjamin Franklin

  Pride, Government, Folly

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• Prefer diligence before idleness, unless you esteem rust above brightness.

  Plato

  Rust, Brightness, Diligence

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• Locke, whom there is no reason to suspect of being a favorer of idleness or libertinism, has advanced that whoever hopes to employ any part of his time with efficacy and vigor must allow some of it to pass with trifles.

  Samuel Johnson

  Vigor, Reason, Efficacy

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• A bed or a chair will trick you if you stay still on them long at a time. They will draw out your strength and leave you weak as water.

  Julia Peterkin

  Strength, Time, Long

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