Idleness Quotes - Page 11

• Why, man of idleness, labor has rocked you in the cradle, and nourished your pampered life; without it, the woven silk and the wool upon your bank would be in the shepherd's fold. For the meanest thing that ministers to human want, save the air of heaven, man is indebted to toil; and even the air, in God's wise ordination, is breathed with labor.

  Edwin Hubbel Chapin

  Wise, Men, Air

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• the wasting of time is the most personal, most private, most intimate form of conversation with oneself, as well as with another.

  Mary Ruefle

  Time, Leisure, Intimate

  Mary Ruefle (2012). “Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures”, p.126, Wave Books

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• I am an idle devil. But at least I work at it.

  Helen Cresswell

  Devil, Idle

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• The magical descriptions of Italy and hilarious observations about love, travel, natives and foreigners in Love in Idleness are but a few of its many pleasures. Amanda Craig has created a hot shimmery climate in which a cast of old friends, quirky family members and naughty children who make love potions come to know themselves and their hearts. A delightful brew.

  Jane Hamilton

  Children, Heart, Naughty

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• The archiepiscopal throne of Macedonius, which had been polluted with so much Christian blood, was successively filled by Eudoxus and Damophilus. Their diocese enjoyed a free importation of vice and error from every province of the empire; the eager pursuit of religious controversy afforded a new occupation to the busy idleness of the metropolis: and we may credit the assertion of an intelligent observer, who describes, with some pleasantry, the effects of their loquacious zeal.

  Edward Gibbon

  Christian, Religious, Intelligent

  Edward Gibbon (2000). “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume II: A.D. 395 to A.D. 1185 (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.21, Modern Library

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• there was no crime like the crime of stagnation - unproductiveness. With a creative trinity, mind, body and spirit, one must yield something back to the generous earth.

  Eleanor Dark

  Yield, Creative, Mind

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• The philosophers of antiquity taught contempt for work, that degradation of the free man, the poets sang of idleness, that gift from the Gods.

  Paul Lafargue

  Work, Men, Degradation

  Paul Lafargue (2016). “The Right to be Lazy and Other Studies”, p.4, Library of Alexandria

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• Today, luxury resides in everything that is becoming rare: communion with nature, silence, meditation, slowness rediscovered, the pleasure of living out of step with others, studious idleness, the enjoyment of the major works of the mind–these are all privileges that cannot be bought because they are literally priceless.

  Pascal Bruckner

  Nature, Luxury, Silence

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• I wish you could arrange your life so as to have a little more leisure. I do not want you to be lazy, but the passive conditions of the mind are quite as valuable as the active conditions.

  Elsa Barker

  Lazy, Mind, Wish

  Elsa Barker (2011). “Letters from the Afterlife: A Guide to the Other Side”, p.83, Simon and Schuster

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• Observe a method in the distribution of your time. Every hour will then know its proper employment, and no time will be lost. Idleness will be shut out at every avenue, and with her that numerous body of vices that make up her train.

  Thomas Hartwell Horne

  Time, Vices, Employment

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• Debt is the secret foe of thrift, as vice and idleness are its open foes. The debt habit is the twin brother of poverty.

  Theodore T. Munger

  Brother, Secret, Vices

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• Take us generally as a people, we are neither lazy nor idle; and considering how little we have to excite or stimulate us, I am almost astonished that there are so many industrious and ambitious ones to be found - although I acknowledge, with extreme sorrow, that there are some who never were and never will be serviceable to society. And have you not a similar class among yourselves?

  Maria W. Stewart

  Class, Racism, People

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• If time, like money, could be laid by while one was not using it, there might be some excuse for the idleness of half of the world, but yet not a full one. For even this would be such an economy as the living on a principal sum, without making it purchase interest.

  Laurence Sterne

  Time, Would Be, Half

  Laurence Sterne (1803). “The Works of Laurence Sterne ...: With a Life of the Author, Written by Himself ...”, p.137

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• Idleness and fear keeps us in the path of duty, but our virtue often gets the praise.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Path, Praise, Virtue

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• It is by his activities and not by enjoyment that man feels he is alive. In idleness we not only feel that life is fleeting, but we also feel lifeless.

  Immanuel Kant

  Men, Fleeting, Alive

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• As pride sometimes is hid under humility, idleness if often covered by turbulence and hurry.

  Samuel Johnson

  Humility, Pride, Sometimes

  Samuel Johnson (1811). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, L. L. D.: In Twelve Volumes”, p.108

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• There is nothing more dangerous than idleness...In labor there is salvation; in labor there is safety.

  Francis M. Lyman

  Safety, Salvation, Dangerous

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• We are made weak both by idleness and distrust of ourselves. Unfortunate, indeed, is he who suffers from both. If he is a mere individual he becomes nothing; if he is a king he is lost.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Kings, Suffering, Individual

  Napoleon Bonaparte “Napoleon in his own words from the French of Jules Bertaut”, Рипол Классик

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• The monster is never just there where we think he is. What is truly monstrous is our cowardice and sloth.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Thinking, Sloth, Monsters

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1786, Delphi Classics

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• For too many of us ease is far more soul-destroying than trouble.

  Alice Foote MacDougall

  Soul, Ease, Trouble

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• There is no remedy for time misspent; No healing for the waste of idleness, Whose very languor is a punishment Heavier than active souls can feel or guess.

  Sir Aubrey de Vere, 2nd Baronet

  Healing, Punishment, Soul

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• Spirituality for the most part is a mask worn by idleness, arrogance and greed.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Greed, Arrogance, Spirituality

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.4311, Library of Alexandria

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• He who eats in idleness that which he himself has not earned, steals it; and a capitalist whom the state pays for doing nothing differs little in my eyes from a brigand, who lives at the expense of passers-by.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Eye, Littles, Pay

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• To maintain the harmony of authority and obedience, to chastise the proud, to protect the weak, to reward the deserving, to banish vice and idleness from his dominions, to secure the traveller and merchant, to restrain the depredations of the soldier, to cherish the labors of the husbandman, to encourage industry and learning, and, by an equal and moderate assessment, to increase the revenue, without increasing the taxes, are indeed the duties of a prince . . .

  Edward Gibbon

  Assessment, Soldier, Proud

  Edward Gibbon (2016). “THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (All 6 Volumes): From the Height of the Roman Empire, the Age of Trajan and the Antonines - to the Fall of Byzantium; Including a Review of the Crusades, and the State of Rome during the Middle Ages”, p.3284, e-artnow

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• If capitalism worked as the socialists think an economic system ought to work, and provided a constant equality of living conditions for all, regardless of whether a man was able or not, resourceful or not, diligent or not, thrifty or not, if capitalism put no premiums on resourcefulness and effort and not penalty on idleness or vice, it would produce only an equality of destitution.

  Milton Friedman

  Men, Thinking, Effort

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