Idleness Quotes - Page 16

• Fear is nothing but idleness of the will.

  Eliphas Levi

  40 Copy quote

• Idleness induces caprice.

  James Russell Lowell

  Caprice

  4 Copy quote

• All sin is selfish, whether it be lying, cheating, stealing, immorality, covetousness, or idleness. Sin is for one's own ends, not for another's-certainly not for the Lord's ends.

  Derek A. Cuthbert

  Cheating, Selfish, Lying

  5 Copy quote

• IDLENESS, n. A model farm where the devil experiments with seeds of new sins and promotes the growth of staple vices.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Growth, Devil, Vices

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.95, 谷月社

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Vanity, Names

  Samuel Johnson (1977). “Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.252, Univ of California Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Idleness begets ennui, ennui the hypochondriac, and that a diseased body. No laborious person was ever yet hysterical.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Body, Hysterical, Ennui

  Letter to Martha Jefferson, 28 March (1787)

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Who-only let him be a man and intent upon honor-is not eager for the honorable ordeal and prompt to assume perilous duties? To what energetic man is not idleness a punishment?

  Seneca the Younger

  Men, Honor, Assuming

  7 Copy quote

• Slavery...dishonors labor. It introduces idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury and distress. It enervates the powers of the mind and benumbs the activity of man.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Ignorance, Pride, Men

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2001). “Democracy in America”, p.37, Penguin

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Simplifying our lives does not mean sinking into idleness, but on the contrary, getting rid of the most subtle aspect of laziness: the one which makes us take on thousands of less important activities.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Mean, Buddhism, Suffering

  16 Copy quote

• Idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand than kings and parliaments. If we can get rid of the former, we may easily bear the latter.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Kings, 4th Of July, Pride

  Benjamin Franklin (2010). “Benjamin Franklin: Autobiography & Selected Writings”, p.64, American Liberty Press

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Four be the things I am wiser to know:
  Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.
  Four be the things I'd been better without:
  Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.
  Three be the things I shall never attain:
  Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.
  Three be the things I shall have till I die:
  Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.

  Dorothy Parker

  Hope, Laughter, Eye

  Dorothy Parker (1992). “The Sayings of Dorothy Parker”, Duckbacks

  102 Copy quote

  Show source

• All the capital employed in paper speculation is barren and useless, producing, like that on a gaming table, no accession to itself, and is withdrawn from commerce and agriculture where it would have produced addition to the common mass It nourishes in our citizens habits of vice and idleness instead of industry and morality It has furnished effectual means of corrupting such a portion of the legislature as turns the balance between the honest voters whichever way it is directed.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Mean, Agriculture, Balance

  Thomas Jefferson, Richard Holland Johnston, Thomas Jefferson memorial association of the United States (1907). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Four things I am wiser to know: Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.

  Dorothy Parker

  Friendship, Sorrow, Four

  "Inventory" l. 1 (1926)

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• In early childhood you may lay the foundation of poverty or riches, industry or idleness, good or evil, by the habits to which you train your children. Teach them right habits then, and their future life is safe.

  Lydia Sigourney

  Children, Evil, Childhood

  15 Copy quote

• Work is the best of narcotics, providing the patient be strong enough to take it. I dread idleness as if it were Hell.

  Beatrice Webb

  Strong, Fear, Patient

  16 Copy quote

• Remove the temptation of idleness and Cupid's bow is useless.

  Ovid

  Temptation, Useless, Bows

  16 Copy quote

• When the perfect order prevails, the world is like a home shared by all. Leaders are capable and virtuous. Everyone loves and respects their own parents and children as well as the parents and children of others. The old are cared for, adults have jobs, children are nourished and educated. There is a means of support for all those who are disabled or find themselves alone in the world. Everyone has an appropriate role to play in the family and society. Devotion to public duty leaves no place for idleness. Scheming for ill gain is unknown. Sharing displaces selfishness and materialism.

  Confucius

  Inspirational, Motivational, Jobs

  23 Copy quote

• A Darwinian nation of economic fitness abhors idleness, dependence, non-productivity.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Economic, Dependence, Nations

  4 Copy quote

• A contempt of the monuments and the wisdom of the past, may be justly reckoned one of the reigning follies of these days, to which pride and idleness have equally contributed.

  Samuel Johnson

  Pride, Past, May

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Journey to the Hebrides. Tales of the imagination. Prayers and sermons. Index”, p.356

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The exquisite art of idleness, one of the most important things that any University can teach.

  Oscar Wilde

  Art, College, Important

  Oscar Wilde (2016). “Reviews”, p.602, Oscar Wilde

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Industry need not wish, and he that lives upon hopes will die fasting. There are no gains without pains. He that hath a trade hath an estate, and he that hath a calling hath an office of profit and honor; but then the trade must be worked at and the calling followed, or neither the estate nor the office will enable us to pay our taxes. If we are industrious, we shall never starve; for at the workingman's house hunger looks in, but dares not enter. Nor will the bailiff or the constable enter, for industry pays debts, while idleness and neglect increase them.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Life, Pain, Office

  5 Copy quote

• And to the English court assemble now, From every region, apes of idleness!

  William Shakespeare

  Sloth, Apes, Court

  William Shakespeare (2016). “King Henry IV Part 2: Third Series”, p.378, Bloomsbury Publishing

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• ...and gradually his face assumed the expressions which are so often found among rich people - the expressions of discontent, of sickliness, of displeasure, of idleness, of lovelessness. Slowly the soul sickness of the rich crept over him.

  Hermann Hesse

  Expression, People, Soul

  Hermann Hesse (1980). “Six Novels: With Other Stories and Essays”

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Idleness is the enemy of the soul; and therefore the brethren ought to be employed in manual labor at certain times, at others, in devout reading.

  Benedict of Nursia

  Reading, Soul, Enemy

  127 Copy quote

• Well, I wanted to be a philosopher, which is the idlest occupation in the world. I wanted to be involved in abstract thought, but because of various problems with the authorities I wasn't able to pull that one off. A lifetime of idleness in academia would have really suited me. So I was thrown out, as it were. Other than that, there seemed no possible idle occupations, so writing . . . although writing isn't exactly idleness. There's an enormous tension between indolence and languor.

  Will Self

  Philosophy, Writing, Creativity

  4 Copy quote