Idle Quotes - Page 23

• Hope is not an idle term. Hope is the reality that can and does reveal itself to us at God's choice hour. To hope is to know the secret of achievement.

  Sri Chinmoy

  Reality, Choices, Achievement

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• In the world of high finance the shilling of the idle rich man can buy more than that of the poor, industrious man.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Men, World, Finance

  Friedrich Nietzsche “Delphi Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Illustrated): Friedrich Nietzsche”, Delphi Classics

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• Evolution by natural selection is not an idle hypothesis. The genetic variation on which selection acts is well understood in principle all the way down to the molecular level.

  E. O. Wilson

  Principles, Variation, Levels

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• Only a great man, believe me, and one whose excellence rises far above human failings, will not allow anything to be stolen from his own span of time, and his life is very long precisely because he has devoted to himself entirely any time that became available. None of it lay uncultivated and idle, none was under another man's control, for guarding it most jealously, he found nothing worth exchanging for his own precious time.

  Seneca the Younger

  Believe, Men, Long

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• Don't be made useless or idle with despair. Gather yourself around your strength for light does the darkness most fear.

  Jewel

  Light, Darkness, Despair

  Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

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• There is not a tool, an implement, or a machine that has not resulted in a decrease in the contribution of human labor. Labor is not made permanently idle [though]; when replaced in one special category... it turns its attack against other obstacles on the main road to progress.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Special, Progress, Tools

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• A creative mess is better than idle tidiness.

  Michael J. Fox

  Creative, Mess

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Old Flossie settle down on the other side of What-the-Dickens and dragged some handiwork out of a sack. She armed herself with two thorns shaped into knitting needles. A wodge of curlicued metallic scrubbing pad supplied the threat. 'I knit handcuffs as a hobby,' explained Old Flossie happily, and set to work. 'Idle hands get up to no good, so I like to be prepared in case I meet up with any idle hands.

  Gregory Maguire

  Knitting, Hands, Two

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• In a way, her strangeness, her naiveté, her craving for the other half of her equation was the consequence of an idle imagination. Had she paints, or clay, or knew the discipline of the dance, or strings, had she anything to engage her tremendous curiosity and her gift for metaphor, she might have exchanged the restlessness and preoccupation with whim for an activity that provided her with all she yearned for. And like an artist with no art form, she became dangerous.

  Toni Morrison

  Art, Discipline, Imagination

  Sula (1973)

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• Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face of a leaf. We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what's going on here. Then we can at least wail the right question into the swaddling band of darkness, or, if it comes to that, choir the proper praise.

  Annie Dillard

  Tunnels, Views, Darkness

  "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek". Book by Annie Dillard, books.google.ru. January 1, 2011.

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• [T]he State . . . gives idle capital the power of increase, and, through interest, rent, profit, and taxes, robs industrious labor of its products.

  Benjamin Tucker

  Giving, Increase, States

  Benjamin Ricketson Tucker (1893). “Instead of a Book”, Ayer Company Pub

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• This is a most unfortunate affair, and will probably be much talked of. But we must stem the tide of idle chatter, and pour into our wounded bosoms the soothing balm of vengeance.

  Seth Grahame-Smith

  Idle Chatter, Tides, Vengeance

  Seth Grahame-Smith, Jane Austen, Roberto Parada (2009). “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance--now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem”, p.262, Chronicle Books

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• It is idle to talk of civil liberties to adults who were systematically taught in adolescence that they had none; and it is sheer hypocrisy to call such people freedom loving.

  Edgar Friedenberg

  People, Hypocrisy, Liberty

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• Why should the wealth of the country be stored in banks and elevators while the idle workman wanders homeless about the streets and the idle loafers who hoard the gold only to spend it on riotous living are rolling about in fine carriages from which they look out on peaceful meetings and call them riots?

  Samuel Gompers

  Country, Peaceful, Gold

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• Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Ocean, Ships, Stuck

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Illustrated)”, p.699, Delphi Classics

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• I think the most joyous thing in life is to loaf around and watch another bloke do a job of work. Look how popular are the men who dig up London with electric drills. Duke's son, cook's son, son of a hundred kings, people will stand there for hours on end, ear drums splitting. Why? Simply for the pleasure of being idle while watching other people work.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  Kings, Jobs, Son

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• ...one cannot but wonder how an environment can make people despair and sit idle and then, by changing the conditions, one can transform the same people into matchless performers.

  Muhammad Yunus

  People, Despair, Wonder

  Muhammad Yunus (2007). “Banker To The Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty”, p.171, PublicAffairs

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• I do want to get married. It's a nice idea. Though I think husbands are like tattoos--you should wait until you come across something you want on your body for the rest of your life instead of just wandering into a tattoo parlor on some idle Sunday and saying, 'I feel like I should have one of these suckers by now. I'll take a thorny rose and a "MOM" anchor, please. No, not that one--the big one.

  Sloane Crosley

  Tattoo, Mom, Husband

  Sloane Crosley (2008). “I Was Told There'd Be Cake”, p.120, Penguin

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• If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumbered here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend: If you pardon, we will mend: And, as I am an honest Puck, If we have unearned luck Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue, We will make amends ere long; Else the Puck a liar call; So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends.

  William Shakespeare

  Good Night, Dream, Liars

  'A Midsummer Night's Dream' (1595-6) act 5, sc. 2, l. 54

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• What's worse: to be idle while someone dies, or to be exiled and empty-handed?

  Veronica Roth

  Empty, Dies

  Veronica Roth (2013). “Divergent Series (Books 1-3) Plus Free Four, The Transfer and World of Divergent”, p.67, HarperCollins UK

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• Woe betide him, and her too, when it comes to things of consequence, when they are placed in circumstances requiring fortitude and strength of mind, if she have not resolution enough to resist idle interference ... It is the worst evil of too yielding and indecisive a character, that no influence over it can be depended on. You are never sure of a good impression being durable; everybody may sway it. Let those who would be happy be firm.

  Jane Austen

  Character, Evil, Mind

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• Be careful how you suggest things to me. For there is in me a madness which goes beyond martyrdom, the madness of an utterly idle man.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Madness, Be Careful

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• I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing.

  Emily Bronte

  Gothic, Heathcliff, Destruction

  Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte (2009). “The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.597, Penguin

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• I'd hate to see any descendants of mine fall into the category of what I'd call 'idle rich' - a group I've never had much use for.

  Sam Walton

  Hate, Fall, Use

  Sam Walton (2012). “Sam Walton: Made In America”, p.98, Bantam

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• As much pains were taken to make me idle as were ever taken to make me studious.

  William Wilberforce

  Pain, Taken, Studious

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