Of all our faults, the one that we excuse most easily is idleness.
We are lazier in our minds than in our bodies.
We do not lack strength so much as the will to use it; and very often our imagining that things are impossible is nothing but an excuse of our own contriving, to reconcile ourselves to our own idleness.
It is a mighty error to suppose that none but violent and strong passions, such as love and ambition, are able to vanquish the rest. Even idleness, as feeble and languishing as it is, sometimes reigns over them; it usurps the throne and sits paramount over all the designs and actions of our lives, and imperceptibly wastes and destroys all our passions and all our virtues.
Of all our faults, the one we avow most easily is idleness; we persuade ourselves that it is allied to all the peaceable virtues,and as for the others, that it does not destroy them utterly, but only suspends the exercise of their functions.
Idleness and constancy fix the mind to what it finds easy and agreeable. This habit always confines and cramps up our knowledge; and no one has ever taken the trouble to stretch and carry his understanding as far as it could go.
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.
Idleness and fear keeps us in the path of duty, but our virtue often gets the praise.
Idleness is more an infirmity of the mind than of the body.
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