Idle Quotes - Page 21

• There is nothing I fear so much as idleness, the want of occupation, inactivity, the lethargy of the faculties; when the body is idle, the spirit suffers painfully.

  Charlotte Bronte

  Suffering, Body, Occupation

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• The idle man is the devil's cushion.

  Joseph Hall

  Men, Devil, Laziness

  Joseph Hall, Josiah Pratt (1808). “Works: Devotional works”, p.60

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• The love of solitude, when cultivated in the morn of life, elevates the mind to a noble independence, but to acquire the advantages which solitude is capable of affording, the mind must not be impelled to it by melancholy and discontent, but by a real distaste to the idle pleasures of the world, a rational contempt for the deceitful joys of life, and just apprehensions of being corrupted and seduced by its insinuating and destructive gayeties.

  Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann

  Real, Joy, Solitude

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• An idle life and a holy heart is a contradiction.

  Thomas Brooks

  Heart, Contradiction, Holy

  Thomas Brooks (1820). “The privie key of heaven; or Twenty arguments for closet-prayer, in a select discourse”, p.205

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• Have you not budged an inch, then? Such is the daily news. Its facts appear to float in the atmosphere.... We should wash ourselves clean of such news. Of what consequence, though our planet explode, if there is no character involved in the explosion? In health we have not the least curiosity about such events. We do not live for idle amusement. I would not run round a corner to see the world blow up.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Running, Character, Blow

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• In idle wishes, fools supinely stay. Be there a will and wisdom finds a way.

  George Crabbe

  Success, Wisdom, Wish

  George Crabbe, John Crabbe (1834). “The poetical works of the Rev. George Crabbe: in eight volumes”, p.247

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• We will be better men, braver and less idle, if we believe that one must search for the things one does not know, rather than if we believe that it is not possible to find out what we do not know and that we must not look for it.

  Plato

  Believe, Men, Doe

  Plato, John M. Cooper, D. S. Hutchinson (1997). “Complete Works”, p.886, Hackett Publishing

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• Be ashamed to catch yourself idle.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Ashamed

  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.250

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• True belief and true repentance are twins: it would be idle to attempt to say which is born first. All the spokes of a wheel move at once when the wheel moves, and so all the graces commence action when regeneration is wrought by the Holy Ghost. Repentance, however, there must be.

  Charles Spurgeon

  Moving, Grace, Would Be

  Charles H. Spurgeon (2001). “The Soul-Winner”, p.8, Sovereign Grace Publishers,

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• Being by his faith replaced afresh in paradise and created anew, he (the believer)does not need works for his justification, but that he may not be idle, but that he may exercise his own body and preserve it. His works are to be done freely, with the sole object of pleasing God.

  Martin Luther

  Exercise, May, Doe

  Martin Luther (1896). “Luther's Primary Works: Together with His Shorter and Larger Catechisms”

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• There is no more self-contradictory concept than that of idle thoughts. What gives rise to the perception of a whole world can hardly be called idle. Every thought we have either contributes to truth or to illusion.

  Gautama Buddha

  Self, Giving, Perception

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• Game, noun: Any unserious occupation designed for the relaxation of busy people and the distraction of idle ones. It's used to take people to whom we have nothing to say off our hands, and sometimes even ourselves.

  Etienne Bonnot de Condillac

  Games, Hands, People

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• The Californians are an idle, thriftless people, and can make nothing for themselves. The country abounds in grapes, yet they buy, at a great price, bad wine made in Boston.

  Richard Henry Dana, Jr.

  Country, Wine, Boston

  Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (2001). “Two Years Before the Mast”, p.85, Digital Scanning Inc

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• It is idle to await unanimity.

  Robert Dale Owen

  Unanimity

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• To love Christ more, is the deepest need, the constant cry of my soul
  Out in the woods and on my bed and out driving,
  when I am happy and busy,
  and when I am sad and idle,
  the whisper keeps going up for
  more love, more love, more love!

  Elizabeth Prentiss

  Soul, Bed, Needs

  Elizabeth Prentiss (1880). “Stepping Heavenward”

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• We throw all our attention on the utterly idle question whether A has done as well as B, when the only question is whether A has done as well as he could.

  William Graham Sumner

  Attention, Done, Wells

  William Graham Sumner (1924). “Selected Essays of William Graham Sumner”

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• It does not mean that there will be no work if we turn life into a celebration. It is not that the wind does not work; it is always moving, blowing. It is not that the stars are idle; they are constantly moving. It is not that flowers don't do anything when they bloom; really, they do a lot. But for them, doing it is not that important; what is important is being.

  Rajneesh

  Stars, Flower, Moving

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• Books, not which afford us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual daring; such as an idle man cannot read, and a timid one would not be entertained by, which even make us dangerous to existing institution - such call I good books.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Book, Reading, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.67, Xist Publishing

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• Whenever I produce my best work, it's always because I've spent time being idle. Something always emerges after nothing.

  Will Self

  Produce, Best Work, Working It

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• I'm not very happy idle. There's always this voice in my head that says, 'I should be writing.

  Harlan Coben

  Writing, Voice, Should

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• No man has a right to be idle. Where is it that in such a world as this, that health, and leisure, and affluence may not find some ignorance to instruct, some wrong to redress, some want to supply, some misery to alleviate?

  William Wilberforce

  Ignorance, Men, World

  William Wilberforce (2013). “A Practical View”, p.74, Simon and Schuster

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• Idle dreaming is often of the essence of what we do.

  Thomas Pynchon

  Dream, Essence

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• Nostalgia often leads to idle speculation.

  Paul Getty

  Nostalgia, Economy, Speculation

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• Radicalism usually prospers in the gap between rising expectations and declining opportunities. This is especially true where the population is young, idle, and bored; where the art is impoverished; where entertainment—movies, theater, music—is policed or absent altogether; and where young men are set apart from the consoling and socializing presence of women.

  Lawrence Wright

  Art, Opportunity, Men

  Lawrence Wright (2006). “The Looming Tower”, p.107, Vintage

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• A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people.

  Walter Bagehot

  People, Political, Politics

  Walter Bagehot (1930). “The English Constitution: And Other Political Essays”, p.121, Lulu.com

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