Idlers Quotes - Page 2

• In the spiritual life it is not necessary to have a complete map of the path in order to begin traveling. On the contrary, having such complete knowledge may actually hinder rather than help the onward march. The deeper secrets of spiritual life are unraveled to those who take risks and who make bold experiments with it. They are not meant for the idler who seeks guarantees at every step. Those who speculate from the shore about the ocean shall know only its surface, but those who would know the depths of the ocean must be willing to plunge into it.

  Meher Baba

  Spiritual, Ocean, Order

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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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• Too often in the past, we have thought of the artist as an idler and dilettante and of the lover of arts as somehow sissy and effete. We have done both an injustice. The life of the artist is, in relation to his work, stern and lonely. He has labored hard, often amid deprivation, to perfect his skill. He has turned aside from quick success in order to strip his vision of everything secondary or cheapening. His working life is marked by intense application and intense discipline.

  John F. Kennedy

  Lonely, Art, Past

  John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Magnum Photos, inc, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (U.S.) (1962). “Creative America”

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• The laboring people should unite and should protect themselves against all idlers. You can divide mankind into two classes: the laborers and the idlers, the supporters and the supported, the honest and the dishonest. Every man is dishonest who lives upon the unpaid labor of others, no matter if he occupies a throne. All laborers should be brothers.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Brother, Men, Class

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.236, Library of Alexandria

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• Idlers do not make history: they suffer it!

  Peter Kropotkin

  Suffering

  Peter Kropotkin (2012). “Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings”, p.129, Courier Corporation

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• No man is so methodical as a complete idler, and none so scrupulous in measuring out his time as he whose time is worth nothing.

  Washington Irving

  Men, Sloth, Laziness

  Washington Irving (2015). “The Complete Short Stories of Washington Irving: The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Bracebridge Hall, Tales of a Traveler, The Alhambra, Woolfert’s Roost & The Crayon Papers Collections (Illustrated): The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Rip Van Winkle, Old Christmas, The Voyage, Roscoe, The Widow’s Retinue, An Old Soldier, Mountjoy, Don Juan, Woolfert’s Roost, Tales of The Alhambra and many more”, p.1110, e-artnow

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• Most of us have no sympathy with the rich idler who spends his life in pleasure without ever doing any work. But even he fulfills a function in the life of the social organism. He sets an example of luxury that awakens in the multitude a consciousness of new needs and gives industry the incentive to fulfill them.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Luxury, Giving, Example

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• Nothing will make me change my principles. Even with the knife at my neck I shall still declare, up to this day, the poor have done everything; it is time for the rich to take their turn... The selfish people, the young idlers, must be made useful, whether they like it or not, and some respite be procured for the useful and respectable worker.

  Jean-Paul Marat

  Selfish, Knives, People

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• When I pretended to be precocious, people started the rumor that I was precocious. When I acted like an idler, rumor had it I was an idler. When I pretended I couldn't write a novel, people said I couldn't write. When I acted like a liar, they called me a liar. When I acted like a rich man, they started the rumor I was rich. When I feigned indifference, they classed me as the indifferent type. But when I inadvertently groaned because I was really in pain, they started the rumor that I was faking suffering. The world is out of joint.

  Osamu Dazai

  Pain, Liars, Writing

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• The faster you go, the idler you get.

  Ferreira Gullar

  Faster

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• There is probably no greater idler than myself. And I would consider myself a lazy-bones if I did not write so many volumes, and if I did not admire my diligence once I begin writing.

  Henryk Sienkiewicz

  Writing, Lazy, Bones

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• The people no longer seek consolation in art. But the refined people, the rich, the idlers seek the new, the extraordinary, the extravagant, the scandalous.

  Pablo Picasso

  Art, People, Rich

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• The idea of a government is to create an ordered, willing work force where there's no trouble. I think idlers are generally seen as potentially dangerous because they're asking questions.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Thinking, Asking Questions, Government

  "How To Be Idle: An Interview with Tom Hodgkinson". Interview with Katie Renz, www.motherjones.com. June 8, 2005.

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• Writing a book is a brilliant thing because once you've finished it, you've done it, and there's the potential for it to go on earning you a living without you doing any more work on it. It's absolutely ideal for an idler.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Book, Writing, Done

  "How To Be Idle: An Interview with Tom Hodgkinson". Interview with Katie Renz, www.motherjones.com. June 8, 2005.

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• If I were to imagine myself as an idler wheel inside some big mix of gears, then I would be connected to everything. It's not like there's just me and then nothing.

  Fiona Apple

  Would Be, Gears, Wheels

  Interview with Matt Diehl, www.interviewmagazine.com. June 4, 2012.

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• I like the idea of the idler wheel - it just sits in between things, but it makes such a big difference in the way that the machine is working. That concept has always been something that has interested me, but I didn't really know why.

  Fiona Apple

  Ideas, Differences, Machines

  Interview with Matt Diehl, www.interviewmagazine.com. June 4, 2012.

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• Tomorrow is the day when idlers work, and fools reform and mortal men lay hold on heaven.

  Edward Young

  Procrastination, Men, Heaven

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• All poets are idlers, even if all idlers are not poets.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Poet, Ifs

  "A lack of elegy" by Tom Hodgkinson, www.theguardian.com. November 7, 2006.

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• Work is as much a necessity to man as eating and sleeping. Even those who do nothing that can be called work still imagine they are doing something. The world has not a man who is an idler in his own eyes.

  Wilhelm von Humboldt

  Inspirational, Sleep, Eye

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• I suddenly realised, hey, I'm not a lazy idiot, I'm an idler! It's something to aspire to, it's part of the creative process! That's fantastic!

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Creative, Lazy, Hey

  "How To Be Idle". Interview with Katie Renz, www.motherjones.com. June 8, 2005.

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• As for the Republicans -- how can one regard seriously a frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers who shut their eyes to history and science, [and] steel their emotions against decent human sympathy.

  H. P. Lovecraft

  Eye, Lucky, Steel

  Letter to C.L. Moore (August 1936), quoted in "H.P. Lovecraft, a Life" by S.T. Joshi, p. 574,

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• In my mind nothing is more abhorrent than a life of ease. None of us has any right to ease. There is no place in civilization for the idler.

  Henry Ford

  Civilization, Mind, Abhorrent

  Henry Ford (2015). “My Life and Work: Top Biography”, p.10, 谷月社

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• In both word and deed, one of the greatest idlers of all time was John Lennon. In his songs we see repeated defences of simply lying around doing nothing.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Song, Lying, Deeds

  "Idle thoughts" by Tom Hodgkinson, www.theguardian.com. August 18, 2006.

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• Democracy does not contain any force which will check the constant tendency to put more and more on the public payroll. The state is like a hive of bees in which the drones display, multiply and starve the workers so the idlers will consume the food and the workers will perish.

  Plato

  Democracy, Bees, Drones

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• Truly, the bench is a boon to idlers. Whoever first came up with the idea is a genius: free public resting places where you can take time out from the bustle and brouhaha of the city, and simply sit and watch and reflect.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Cities, Ideas, Watches

  "Idle thoughts" by Tom Hodgkinson, www.theguardian.com. February 3, 2006.

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