Idleness Quotes - Page 9

• 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

  49 Copy quote

• 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

  58 Copy quote

• 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

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  10 Copy quote

• Idleness is a great enemy to mankind. There is no friend like energy, for, if you cultivate that, it will never fail.

  Bhartrhari

  Enemy, No Friends, Energy

  15 Copy quote

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

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Psychology, Vices

  9 Copy quote

• So long as idleness is quite shut out from our lives, all the sins of wantonness, softness, and effeminacy are prevented; and there is but little room for temptation.

  Jeremy Taylor

  Long, Temptation, Littles

  Jeremy Taylor, Charles Page Eden, Reginald Heber, Alexander Taylor (1856). “The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor ...: The rule and exercises of holy living and dying”, p.10

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The reason of idleness and of crime is the deferring of our hopes. Whilst we are waiting, we beguile the time with jokes, with sleep, with eating, and with crimes.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Sleep, Waiting, Eating

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.540, Рипол Классик

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• ... Oceanic malaise. I never saw anyone reading anything more demanding than a comic book. I never heard any youth express an interest in science or art. No one even talked politics. It was all idleness, and whenever I asked someone a question, no matter how simple, no matter how well the person spoke English, there was always a long pause before I got a reply, and I found these Pacific pauses maddening. And there was giggling but no humor - no wit. It was just foolery.

  Paul Theroux

  Art, Book, Reading

  6 Copy quote

• Pride, anger, gluttony, and idleness are sometimes conquered, but the conversion of a malicious and envious mind is a kind of miracle.

  Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont

  Pride, Miracle, Mind

  Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont “Beauty and the Beast—La Belle et la Bête English-French Parallel Text Edition”, Lulu.com

  48 Copy quote

  Show source

• I feel the terror of idleness, like a red thirst. Death isn't just an idea.

  Mary Oliver

  Ideas, Red, Terror

  Mary Oliver (2012). “House of Light”, p.29, Beacon Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Reading in bed is a self-centered act, immobile, free from ordinary social conventions, invisible to the world, and one that, because it takes place between the sheets, in the realm of lust and sinful idleness, has something of the thrill of things forbidden.

  Alberto Manguel

  Reading, Self, Lust

  14 Copy quote

• Instead of idleness, vanity, or an intellect formed by the spoon-feeding of others, my girls have acquired energy, industry, and independence.

  Geraldine Brooks

  Girl, Vanity, Independence

  Geraldine Brooks (2006). “March”, p.85, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• But then the pastors and men of God can only be human,--cannot altogether be men of God; and so they have oppressed us, and burned us, and tortured us, and hence come to love palaces, and fine linen, and purple, and, alas, sometimes, mere luxury and idleness.

  Anthony Trollope

  Men, Purple, Luxury

  Anthony Trollope (2016). “Phineas Redux: Trollope's Works”, p.242, 谷月社

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

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

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Path, Praise, Virtue

  10 Copy quote

• In the practice of art... it is necessary to keep a watchful and jealous eye over ourselves; idleness, assuming the specious disguise of industry... may be employed to evade and shuffle off real labor - the real labor of thinking.

  Joshua Reynolds

  Art, Real, Jealous

  Sir Joshua Reynolds (1853). “The Life and Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds”, p.209

  5 Copy quote

  Show source