Indolence Quotes - Page 7

• Indolence, languid as it is, often masters both passions and virtues.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Passion, Virtue, Masters

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• Clemency, which we make a virtue of, proceeds sometimes from vanity, sometimes from indolence, often from fear, and almost always from a mixture of all three.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Vanity, Three, Mixtures

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• A man must find his occasions in himself, it is true. The natural day is very calm, and will hardly reprove his indolence.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Leisure, Action

  Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.176

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• Enjoyment stops where indolence begins.

  Robert Pollok

  Enjoyment, Idleness

  Robert Pollok, James Robert Boyd (1860). “Pollok's Course of Time”, p.356

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• I suppose that there is no point wasting time being lazy, though of course indolence in a divine way, actually has its advantages.

  Stephen Fry

  Lazy, Way, Wasting Time

  "Big Think Interview With Stephen Fry". bigthink.com. December 8, 2009.

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• She had acquired some of his gypsy ways, some of his nonchalance, his bohemian indiscipline. She had swung with him into the disorders of strewn clothes, spilled cigarette ashes, slipping into bed all dressed, falling asleep thus, indolence, timelessness...A region of chaos and moonlight. She liked it there.

  Anais Nin

  Fall, Clothes, Bed

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• Given a man full of faith, you will have a man tenacious in purpose, absorbed in one grand object, simple in his motives, in whom selfishness has been driven out by the power of a mightier love, and indolence stirred into unwearied energy.

  Alexander MacLaren

  Faith, Simple, Men

  Alexander Maclaren (1902). “The Secret of Power: And Other Sermons”

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• 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

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• And indeed nothing but the most determined scepticism, along with a great degree of indolence, can justify this aversion to metaphysics. For if truth be at all within the reach of human capacity, it is certain it must lie very deep and abstruse: and to hope we shall arrive at it without pains, while the greatest geniuses have failed with the utmost pains, must certainly be esteemed sufficiently vain and presumptuous. I pretend to no such advantage in the philosophy I am going to unfold, and would esteem it a strong presumption against it, were it so very easy and obvious.

  David Hume

  Strong, Pain, Philosophy

  David Hume (1874). “A Treatise on Human Nature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning Into Moral Subjects; and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion”, p.306

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