Idle Quotes - Page 18

• Goddesses never die. They slip in and out of the world's cities, in and out of our dreams, century after century, answering to different names, dressed differently, perhaps even disguised, perhaps idle and unemployed, their official altars abandoned, their temples feared or simply forgotten.

  Phyllis Chesler

  Dream, Cities, Names

  Phyllis Chesler (1973). “Women & madness”

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• A wise prince then...should never be idle in times of peace but should industriously lay up stores of which to avail himself in times of adversity so that when fortune abandons him he may be prepared to resist her blows.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Wise, Adversity, Blow

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• What a dissimilarity we see in walking, swimming, and flying. And yet it is one and the same motion: it is just that the load- bearing capacity of the earth differs from that of the water, and that that of the water differs from that of the air! Thus we should also learn to fly as thinkers--and not imagine that we are thereby becoming idle dreamers!

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Swimming, Air, Water

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• Then climate is a great impediment to idle persons; we often resolve to give up the care of the weather, but still we regard the clouds and the rain.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Giving Up, Rain, Clouds

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.217, Modern Library

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• It is better to be idle than employed in ill.

  Norm MacDonald

  Laziness, Ill, Employed

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• we must be as satisfied to be powerless, idle and still before God, and dried up and barren when He permits it, as to be full of life, enjoying His presence with ease and devotion. The whole matter of our union with God consists in being content either way.

  Jane Frances de Chantal

  God, Enjoy Life, Ease

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• Those who are too idle to read, save for the purpose of amusement, may in these works acquire some acquaintance with history, which, however inaccurate, is better than none.

  Walter Scott

  Purpose, Amusement, May

  Sir Walter Scott (1841). “Novels of Ernest Theodore Hoffman. The omen. Hajji Baba in England. Tales of my landlord Thornton's Sporting tour. Two cookery books. Johnes' translation of Froissart. Miseries of human life. Carr's Caledonian sketches. Lady Suffolk's correspondence. Kirkton's Church history. Life and works of John Home. The Culloden papers. Pepys' Memoirs”, p.54

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• It was only in South Africa that I got over this shyness, though I never completely overcame it. It was impossible for me to speak impromptu. I hesitated whenever I had to face strange audiences and avoided making a speech whenever I could. Even today I do not think I could or would even be inclined to keep a meeting of friends engaged in idle talk.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Thinking, Speech, Today

  Mahatma Gandhi (1948). “Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth”, p.55, Courier Corporation

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• Can there be any greater reproach than an idle learning? Learn to split wood, at least.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Education, Splits, Woods

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.516, Simon and Schuster

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• All the buildings of justice will remain idle on the day when all men have high conscience!

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Men, Justice, Building

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• Idle people are often bored and bored people, unless they sleep a lot, are cruel. It is not accident that boredom and cruelty are great preoccupations in our time.

  Renata Adler

  Sleep, Blessing, Boredom

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• The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Mind, Action, Reason

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook K 27, 1799.

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• People say: idle curiosity. The one thing that curiosity cannot be is idle.

  Leo Rosten

  People, Curiosity, One Thing

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• True, I talk of dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasy, Which is as thin of substance as the air, And more inconstant than the wind, who woos Even now the frozen bosom of the north, And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence, Turning his side to the dew-dropping south.

  William Shakespeare

  Dream, Children, Air

  William Shakespeare, George Steevens (1828). “The dramatic works of William Shakespeare”, p.392

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• Nobody with an IQ higher than emergency-room temperature could ever believe that 'death panels' would be appointed to nudge the elderly toward euthanasia. Yet for idle entertainment, it's hard to beat Sarah Palin's ignorant nattering on the subject.

  Carl Hiaasen

  Believe, Elderly, Ignorant

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• The idle man is the Devil's cushion, on which he taketh his free ease: who, as he is uncapable of any good, so he is fitly disposed for all evil motions.

  Joseph Hall

  Men, Evil, Ease

  Joseph Hall, Josiah Pratt (1808). “The Works: Now First Collected : with Some Account of His Life and Sufferings. Devotional works”, p.60

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• To devote oneself to vigilance when the enemy is an imaginary one is idle, and to congratulate oneself for looking long and well for a foe that is not coming is foolish and sinful. My life has been a waste.

  Robert Silverberg

  Long, Enemy, Waste

  Robert Silverberg (2004). “Phases of the Moon: Stories of Six Decades”, Subterranean

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• How idle a boast, after all, is the immortality of a name! Time is ever silently turning over his pages; we are too much engrossed by the story of the present to think of the character and anecdotes that gave interest to the past; and each age is a volume thrown aside and forgotten.

  Washington Irving

  Character, Past, Thinking

  Washington Irving (2012). “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories”, p.70, Courier Corporation

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• I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs. There is in every living creature an obscure but powerful impulse to active functioning. Life demands to be lived. Inaction, save as a measure of recuperation between bursts of activity, is painful and dangerous to the healthy organism- in fact, it is almost impossible. Only the dying can be really idle.

  H. L. Mencken

  Life, Success, Powerful

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• Finally from the crease of the ravine I am following, there begins to come the trickling and splashing of water. There is a great restfulness in the sounds these small streams make; they are going down as fast as they can, but their sound seem leisurely and idle, as if produced like gemstones with the greatest patience and care.

  Wendell Berry

  Lakes, Sea, Fishing

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• Manly natural religion - it is not joining the Church; it is not to believe in a creed, Hebrew, Protestant, Catholic, Trinitarian, Unitarian, Nothingarian. It is not to keep Sunday idle; to attend meetings; to be wet with water; to read the Bible; to offer prayers in words; to take bread and wine in the meeting house; love a scape-goat Jesus, or any other theological clap-trap.

  Theodore Parker

  Jesus, Prayer, Believe

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• Custom is custom: it is built of brass, boiler-iron, granite; facts, reasonings, arguments have no more effect upon it than the idle winds have upon Gibraltar.

  Mark Twain

  Wind, Iron, Atheism

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.74, Courier Corporation

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• Man preys on man; and you mourn for the idle tapestry that decorated a gothic pillar, and the dronish bell that summoned the fat priest to prayer. You mourn for the empty pageant of a name, when slavery flaps her wing, ... Why is our fancy to be appalled by terrific perspectives of a hell beyond the grave? - Hell stalks abroad; - the lash resounds on the slave's naked sides; and the sick wretch, who can no longer earn the sour bread of unremitting labour, steals to a ditch to bid the world a long good night.

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Good Night, Prayer, Men

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• The truth does not reveal itself to idle spectators.

  Matthew Crawford

  Doe, Spectators

  Matthew B. Crawford (2009). “Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work”, p.71, Penguin

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• Our lives show the accumulation of all of our varied wishes. Wanting something with all your heart will begin to slough away all of your untrue and idle wishes. Success comes from an undivided heart.

  Chuck Spezzano

  Heart, Wish, Accumulation

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