Idleness Quotes - Page 7

• Reading, solitude, idleness, a soft and sedentary life, intercourse with women and young people, these are perilous paths for a young man, and these lead him constantly into danger.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Reading, Men, People

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau (2013). “Emile”, p.340, Courier Corporation

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• Idleness is the enemy of the soul.

  Anselm of Canterbury

  Soul, Enemy, Manual Labor

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• It is a mistake to imagine, that the violent passions only, such as ambition and love, can triumph over the rest. Idleness, languid as it is, often masters them all; she influences all our designs and actions, and insensibly consumes and destroys both passions and virtues.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Mistake, Passion, Ambition

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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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• Rather do what is nothing to the purpose than be idle; that the devil may find thee doing. The bird that sits is easily shot, when fliers scape the fowler. Idleness is the Dead Sea that swallows all the virtues, and the self-made sepulchre of a living man.

  Francis Quarles

  Men, Self, Sea

  Francis Quarles (1844). “Enchiridion Institutions, Essays and Maxims, political, moral & divine. Divided into four centuries. By Francis Quarles”, p.85

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• The frivolous work of polished idleness.

  James Mackintosh

  Work, Polished, Frivolous

  James Mackintosh (1872). “On the Progress of Ethical Philosophy: Chiefly During the XVIIth and XVIIIth Centuries”, p.232

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• Idleness does drive me crazy, but I'd rather read or write than do anything just to work. A kind of respect has been instilled in me for acting: I love it too much to ever have a bad relationship with it.

  Karen Allen

  Crazy, Writing, Bad Relationship

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• His Labor is a Chant - His Idleness -a Tune - Oh, for a Bee's experience Of Clovers, and of Noon!

  Emily Dickinson

  Experience, Tunes, Noon

  Emily Dickinson, “Like Trains Of Cars On Tracks Of Plush”

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• We cannot afford idleness, waste or inefficiency.

  Eamon de Valera

  Waste, Inefficiency

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  Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all.

  Sam Ewing

  Motivational, Success, Attitude

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• Inactivity and deprivation of all accustomed stimulus is not rest; it is a preparation for the tomb

  Robertson Davies

  Preparation, Deprivation, Stimulus

  Robertson Davies (2008). “Selected works on the art of writing”, Penguin Group Canada

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• They change their sky, not their mind, who cross the sea. A busy idleness possesses us: we seek a happy life, with ships and carriages: the object of our search is present with us.

  Horace

  Travel, Happy Life, Sea

  "Epistles", I. 11. 27, as quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations, p. 809-11, 1922.

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• Labor is life! 'Tis the still water faileth;
  Idleness ever despaireth, bewaileth;
  Keep the watch wound, for the dark rust assaileth.

  Frances Sargent Osgood

  Dark, Water, Watches

  Frances Sargent OSGOOD, Felix Octavius Carr DARLEY (1850). “Poems ... Illustrated by ... Darley, etc”, p.44

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• The vices of idleness are only to be shaken off by active employment.

  Seneca the Younger

  Vices, Employment, Active

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• I know of nothing that is so degenerating and so dangerous as idleness, for the brain will seek out mischief.

  Francis M. Lyman

  Work, Brain, Dangerous

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• It seems to me that all of the evil in life comes from idleness, boredom, and psychic emptiness, but all of that is inevitable when you become accustomed to living at others' expense.

  Anton Chekhov

  Psychics, Boredom, Evil

  "My Life". Book by Anton Chekhov, 1896.

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• Idleness is righteous if it is comfortable. Uncomfortable idleness is sin & sinful waste.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Leisure, Waste, Sin

  Sylvia Townsend Warner, Claire Harman (1994). “The diaries of Sylvia Townsend Warner”, Virago Pr

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• Idleness, ennui, noise, mischief, riot, and a nameless train of mistaken notions of pleasure, are often classed, in a young man's mind, under the general head of liberty.

  Maria Edgeworth

  Men, Mind, Liberty

  Maria Edgeworth, Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1825). “Works”, p.198

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• It has been calculated by the ablest politicians that no State, without being soon exhausted, can maintain above the hundredth part of its members in arms and idleness.

  Edward Gibbon

  Arms, Exhausted, Politician

  Edward Gibbon (1831). “The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire”, p.61

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• There are in France some fifty thousand young men of good birth and fairly well off who are encouraged to live a life of complete idleness. They must either cease to exist or must come to see that there can be no happiness, no health even, without regular daily labor of some sort... The need of work is in me.

  Guy de Maupassant

  Men, Needs, Fifty

  "Contemporary Portraits". Book by Frank Harris, 1920.

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• The haggardness of poverty is everywhere seen contrasted with the sleekness of wealth, the exhorted labour of some compensating for the idleness of others, wretched hovels by the side of stately colonnades, the rags of indigence blended with the ensigns of opulence; in a word, the most useless profusion in the midst of the most urgent wants.

  Jean-Baptiste Say

  Rags, Useless, Want

  "A Treatise On Political Economy". Book by Jean-Baptiste Say, p. I, 1932.

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• Idleness is the beginning of all psychology. What? Could it be that psychology is ? a vice?

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Psychology, Vices

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• Idleness is the Dead Sea that swallows all virtues. Be active in business, that temptation may miss her aim; the bird that sits is easily shot.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Sea, Bird, Missing

  Benjamin Franklin (2004). “Poor Richard's Almanack”, p.275, Barnes & Noble Publishing

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• There is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, in work. Were he never so benighted, forgetful of his high calling, there is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works: in idleness alone there is perpetual despair.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Work, Men, Despair

  Thomas Carlyle (1872). “Past and Present”, p.168

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• I am suggesting that we spend a little less time in idleness, in the fruitless pursuit of watching inane and empty television programs. Time so utilized can be put to better advantage, and the consequences will be wonderful.

  Gordon B. Hinckley

  Television, Littles, Wonderful

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