Idleness Quotes - Page 15

• 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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• Ay! idleness! the rich folks never fail
  To find some reason why the poor deserve
  Their miseries.

  Robert Southey

  Poverty, Reason Why, Misery

  Robert Southey (1854). “Ballads, metrical tales and other poems”, p.141

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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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• 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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• 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

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• A thought falls like a ripe fruit from the tree of idleness.

  Natalie Clifford Barney

  Fall, Tree, Fruit

  Natalie Clifford Barney, Anna Livia (1992). “A Perilous Advantage: The Best of Natalie Clifford Barney”, p.119, New Victoria Publishers

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• In civilized places idleness, once the prerequisite for abstract thought, poetry, religion, philosophy, and falling in love, has become a character flaw. In America we've managed to stamp it out almost completely, and few people under forty can remember a single moment of it, even in earliest childhood. The phrase 'spare time' has vanished from the land.

  Barbara Holland

  Falling In Love, Philosophy, Single Mom

  Barbara Holland (1999). “Wasn't the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories”, Harcourt

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• Till I see money spent on the betterment of man instead of on his idleness and destruction, I shall not believe in any perfect form of government.

  Margot Asquith

  Believe, Men, Perfect

  Margot Asquith (1933). “More Memories”

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• The idea of passing one's whole life in moral idleness, and having one's hardest work and duty done by another-whether God or man-is most revolting to us, as it is most degrading to human dignity.

  H. P. Blavatsky

  Men, Ideas, Done

  H. P. Blavatsky (2016). “The Key to Theosophy”, p.78, BookRix

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• Boredom is a certain sign that we are allowing our faculties to rust in idleness.

  William Ralph Inge

  Book, Reading, Boredom

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• Mistakes are good, successes are great, and idleness is a sin.

  Mike Michalowicz

  Mistake, Sin, Good Success

  Mike Michalowicz (2008). “The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur: The Tell-it-like-it-is Guide to Cleaning Up in Business, Even If You are at the End of Your Roll”, p.112, Toilet Paper Entrepreneur

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• The reason of idleness and of crime is the deferring of our hopes.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hope, Reason, Crime

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays: First and Second Series”, p.13, Library of America

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• The day of my departure at length arrived. Clerval spent the last evening with us. He had endeavoured to persuade his father to permit him to accompany me and to become my fellow student, but in vain. His father was a narrow-minded trader, and saw idleness and ruin in the aspirations and ambition of his son. Henry deeply felt the misfortune of being debarred from a liberal education. He said little, but when he spoke I read in his kindling eye and in his animated glance a restrained but firm resolve not to be chained to the miserable details of commerce.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

  Father, Eye, Ambition

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (2005). “Frankenstein”, p.36, Prestwick House Inc

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• There is no curse equal to the curse of idleness. It destroys the man, the group, the people, or the nation who suffer under it.

  J. Reuben Clark

  Work, Men, People

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• Untilled soil, however fertile it may be, will bear thistles and thorns; so it is with man's mind.

  Teresa of Avila

  Men, Mind, May

  Saint Teresa (of Avila) (1957). “The Complete Works of Saint Teresa of Jesus: Book of the foundations. Minor prose works. Poems. Documents. Indices”

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• The outlook for our country lies in the quality of its idleness.

  Irwin Edman

  Country, Lying, Quality

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• I think periods of browsing during which no occupation is imposed from without are important in youth because they give time for the formation of these apparently fugitive but really vital impressions.

  Bertrand Russell

  Thinking, Giving, Important

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.15, Routledge

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• Idleness leads to relaxation, sooner or later bringing about ideological and material corruption, accompanied by lack of discipline, anarchy chaos and defeat.

  Samora Machel

  Discipline, Relaxation, Laziness

  Samora Machel (1975). “The Tasks Ahead: Selected Speeches of Samora Moises Machel”

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• If you write, good ideas must come welling up into you so that you have something to write. If good ideas do not come at once, or for a long time, do not be troubled at all. Wait for them. Put down little ideas no matter how insignificant they are. But do not feel, any more, guilty about idleness and solitude.

  Brenda Ueland

  Writing, Ideas, Long

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