Idleness Quotes - Page 9

• To have the external pressure of a job removed is very astonishing. Your own will is now your only motor and it has no horse-power. Sometimes I think that perhaps the most competent business men, and lawyers and doctors, who must be at the office at nine o'clock every morning, do not realize this and take more credit for initiative and industry than they deserve. And it is why all the bright women of the world, who if more were expected of them, might do important work, but who instead have a chronic feeling of ineffectiveness and sloth.

  Brenda Ueland

  Morning, Horse, Jobs

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• The moral qualities are more apt to grow when a human being is useful, and they increase in the woman who helps to support the family rather than in the one who gives herself to idleness and fashionable frivolities.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Giving, Support, Quality

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan Brownell Anthony, Ida Husted Harper, Matilda Joslyn Gage (1902). “History of Woman Suffrage ...: 1883-1900”

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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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• I was never comfortable with the risk of climbing in the Himalayas, or the amount of time in idleness that is involved in the Everest expedition.

  Steve Fossett

  Climbing, Risk, Himalayas

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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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• Surely nothing is more reproachful to a being endowed with reason, than to resign its powers to the influence of the air, and live in dependence on the weather and the wind, for the only blessings which nature has put into our power, tranquillity and benevolence. To look up to the sky for the nutriment of our bodies, is the condition of nature; to call upon the sun for peace and gaiety, or deprecate the clouds lest sorrow should overwhelm us, is the cowardice of idleness, and the idolatry of folly.

  Samuel Johnson

  Blessing, Clouds, Air

  Samuel Johnson, Peter Martin (2009). “Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings”, p.73, Harvard University Press

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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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• Taxes are indeed very heavy -
  We are taxed twice as much by our Idleness.
  Three times as much by our Pride.
  And four times as much by our Folly.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Pride, Three, Taxation

  Benjamin Franklin, William-Temple Franklin (1818). “Memoirs of the Life and Writings of (the Same), Continued to the Time of His Death by William Temple Franklin. - London, H. Colburn 1818”, p.248

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• To blame the poor for subsisting on welfare has no justice unless we are also willing to judge every rich member of society by how productive he or she is. Taken individual by individual, it is likely that there's more idleness and abuse of government favors among the economically privileged than among the ranks of the disadvantaged.

  Norman Mailer

  Taken, Government, Judging

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• When I look back at the past and think of all the time I squandered in error and idleness,... then my heart bleeds. Life is a gift... every minute could have been an eternity of happiness! If only youth knew! Now my life will change; now I will be reborn.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Heart, Past, Thinking

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• I am deeply moved when I write. I get turned on by it. I've never used any drugs for stimulation. I don't use words loosely. When I'm working and the right word comes, there is an answering resonance within me. There is also a hardness of intention that goes with it. There is no idleness in it.

  Saul Bellow

  Writing, Drug, Use

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• In the matter of piety, poverty serves us better than wealth, and work better than idleness, especially since wealth becomes an obstacle even for those who do not devote themselves to it.

  Saint John Chrysostom

  Matter, Poverty, Obstacles

  Saint John Chrysostom, Paul William Harkins (1963). “Baptismal Instructions”, p.184, Paulist Press

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• It is hard to rescue a man from the slough of luxury and idleness combined. If anything can do it, it is a cradle filled annually.

  Anthony Trollope

  Men, Luxury, Cradle

  Anthony Trollope (2016). “Ayala's Angel”, p.523, Jester House Publishing

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• Mrs. Jo did not mean the measles, but that more serious malady called love, which is apt to ravage communities, spring and autumn, when winter gayety and summer idleness produce whole bouquets of engagements, and set young people to pairing off like the birds.

  Louisa May Alcott

  Summer, Spring, Mean

  Louisa May Alcott (2016). “The 'Little Women' Trilogy (Illustrated)”, p.674, ShandonPress

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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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• 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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• This was sheer idleness to my fellow-townsmen, no doubt; but if the birds and flowers had tried me by their standard, I should not have been found wanting. A man must find his occasions in himself, it is true. The natural day is very calm, and will hardly reprove his indolence.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Flower, Men, Bird

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “Walden; Or, Life in the Woods”, p.73, Courier Corporation

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• Idleness is often covered by turbulence and hurry. He that neglects his known duty and real employment naturally endeavours to crowd his mind with something that may bar out the remembrance of his own folly, and does any thing but what he ought to do with eager diligence, that he may keep himself in his own favour.

  Samuel Johnson

  Happiness, Real, Remembrance

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”

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• The day, like the previous days, dragged sluggishly by in a kind of insipid idleness, devoid even of that dreamy expectancy which can make idleness so enchanting.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Bored, Kind, Enchanting

  Vladimir Nabokov (1970). “Mary: A Novel”, Vintage Books

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• ... to work, to work hard, to see work steadily, and see it whole, was the way to be reputable. I think I always respected a goodblacksmith more than a lady of leisure.

  Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward

  Work, Thinking, Way

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• Indolent people, whatever taste they may have for society, seek eagerly for pleasure, and find nothing. They have an empty head and seared hearts.

  Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann

  Heart, People, May

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• My days were not days of the week, bearing the stamp of any heathen deity, nor were they minced into hours and fretted by the ticking of a clock; for I lived like the Puri Indians, of whom it is said that "for yesterday, today, and tomorrow they have only one word, and they express the variety of meaning by pointing backward for yesterday forward for tomorrow, and overhead for the passing day." This was sheer idleness to my fellow-townsmen, no doubt; but if the birds and flowers had tried me by their standard, I should not have been found wanting.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Flower, Yesterday, Bird

  Henry David Thoreau (2004). “Walden: 150th Anniversary Illustrated Edition of the American Classic”, p.109, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Idleness makes hours pass slowly and years swiftly. Activity makes the hours short and the years long.

  Cesare Pavese

  Time, Years, Long

  Cesare Pavese, Alma Elizabeth Murch (1961). “This Business of Living”, p.126, Transaction Publishers

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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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• Let us be grateful to Adam: he cut us out of the blessing of idleness and won for us the curse of labor.

  Mark Twain

  Work, Grateful, Cutting

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.3, Courier Corporation

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