Quotes about Idleness

We are great fools. "He has passed his life in idleness," we say. "I have done nothing today." What! Haven't you lived? That is not only the fundamental but the most illustrious of your occupations. "Had I been put in a position to manage great affairs, I would have shown what I could do." Have you been able to think out and manage your life? You have performed the greatest work of all. In order to show and release her powers, Nature has no need of fortune; she shows herself equally on all levels, and behind a curtain as well as without one. To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately. All other things, to rule, to lay up treasure, to build, are at most little appendices and props.

Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day.

A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor.

If you're anxious for to shine in the high aesthetic line As a man of culture rare, You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms And plant them everywhere. You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases Of your complicated state of mind, The meaning doesn't matter if it's only idle chatter Of a transendental kind.

Hitler is a monster of wickedness, insatiable in his lust for blood and plunder. Not content with having all Europe under his heel, or else terrorized into various forms of abject submission, he must now carry his work of butchery and desolation among the vast multitudes of Russia and of Asia. The terrible military machine, which we and the rest of the civilized world so foolishly, so supinely, so insensately allowed the Nazi gangsters to build up year by year from almost nothing cannot stand idle lest it rust or fall to pieces. . . . So now this bloodthirsty guttersnipe must launch his mechanized armies upon new fields of slaughter, pillage and devastation.

A Garden, an Elaboratory, a Work-house, Improvements and Breeding, are pleasant and Profitable Diversions to the Idle and Ingenious: For here they miss Ill Company, and converse with Nature and Art; whose Variety are equally grateful and instructing; and preserve a good Constitution of Body and Mind.

"You are right," said Pangloss, "for when man was placed in the Garden of Eden, he was placed there ut operaretur eum, to dress it and keep it; which proves that man was not born for idleness."

The hardest work is being idle.

There is no greater curse than total idleness.

The soul is made for action, and cannot rest till it be employed. Idleness is its rust. Unless it will up and think and taste and see, all is in vain.

Ruin seize thee, ruthless king! Confusion on thy banners wait! Though fann'd by Conquest's crimson wing, They mock the air with idle state.

He that is busy is tempted by but one devil; he that is idle, by a legion.

There is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, in work. Were he never so benighted, forgetful of his high calling, there is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works: in idleness alone there is perpetual despair.

Never be entirely idle: but either be reading, or writing, or praying, or meditating, or endeavouring something for the public good.

Theodore Roosevelt, impatient with the excesses of "purely sentimental historians," authored his own stirring vindication of America's relations with the Indians: Looked at from the standpoint of the ultimate result, there was little real difference to the Indian whether the land was taken by treaty or by war. . . . No treaty could be satisfactory to the whites, no treaty served the needs of humanity and civilization, unless it gave the land to the Americans as unreservedly as any successful war. Whether the whites won the land by treaty, by armed conflict, or, as was actually the case, by a mixture of both, mattered comparatively little so long as the land was won. It was all-important that it should be won, for the benefit of civilization and in the interests of mankind. It is, indeed, a warped, perverse, and silly morality which would forbid a course of conquest that has turned whole continents into the seats of mighty and flourishing civilized nations. . . . It is as idle to apply to savages the rules of international morality which obtain between stable and cultured communities, as it would be to judge the fifth-century English conquest of Britain by the standards of to-day. The most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages, though it is apt to be also the most terrible and inhuman. The rude, fierce settler who drives the savage from the land lays all civilized mankind under a debt to him. . . . It is of incalculable importance that America, Australia, and Siberia should pass out of the hands of their red, black, and yellow aboriginal owners, and become the heritage of the dominant world races.

He is not only idle who does nothing, but he is idle who might be better employed.

If you're anxious for to shine in the high aesthetic line As a man of culture rare, You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms And plant them everywhere. You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases Of your complicated state of mind, The meaning doesn't matter if it's only idle chatter Of a transendental kind.

As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.

No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober.

By whatever basis human desires are classified, the promise of an abundant life covers virtually all. To the spiritual it suggests escape from futility; to the sensuous it calls up visions of luxury; to the defeated it is a dream of success. To the idle it pledges ease; to the weary, rest; to the frightened it means safety; to the anxious, security; and to the improvident it conjures inexhaustible resources. Persuade a man that you can give him the thing he most desires and you will be his hero; offer him justification for his failures and he will be your disciple; assure him a boundless supply of "loaves and fishes" and he will seek to make you king.

If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle.

An apocryphal story from the writings of Clement of Alexandria regarding John the Apostle quoted by John H. Vandenberg, Conference Report, October 1963, p.45 - p.46: ". . . about John the Apostle, handed down and preserved in memory. When, on the death of the tyrant, he (John) passed over to Ephesus from the Island of Patmos, he used to make missionary journeys also to neighboring gentile cities, in some places to appoint bishops, and in some to set in order whole churches and . . . to appoint one of those indicated by the Spirit. On his arrival then at one of the cities at no great distance, of which some even mention the name, . . . he saw a youth of stalwart frame and winning countenance, and impetuous spirit, and said to the bishop, 'I entrust to thee this youth with all earnestness, calling Christ and the Church to witness.' The bishop accepted the trust, and made all the requisite promises, and the apostle renewed his injunction and adjuration. He then returned to Ephesus, and the elder taking home with him the youth who had been entrusted to his care, maintained, cherished, and finally baptized him. After this he abandoned further care and protection of him, considering that he had affixed to him the seal of the Lord as a perfect amulet against evil. Thus prematurely neglected, the youth was corrupted by certain idle companions of his own age, who were familiar with evil, and who first led him astray by many costly banquets, and then took him out by night with them to share in their felonious proceedings, finally demanding his cooperation in some worse crime. First familiarized with guilt, and then, from the force of his character, starting aside from the straight path like some mighty steed that seizes the bit between its teeth; he rushed towards headlong ruin, and utterly abandoning the divine salvation, gathered his worst comrades around him, and became a most violent, bloodstained, and reckless bandit-chief. Not long afterwards John was recalled to the city, and after putting other things in order said, 'Come now, O bishop, restore to me the deposit which I and the Saviour entrusted to thee, with the witness of the Church over which thou dost preside.' At first the bishop in his alarm mistook the meaning of the metaphor, but the apostle said, 'I demand back the young man and the soul of the brother.' Then groaning from the depth of his heart and shedding tears, 'He is dead,' said the bishop. 'How and by what death?' 'He is dead to God! For he has turned out wicked and desperate, and, to sum up all, a brigand; and now, instead of the Church he has seized the mountain, with followers like himself.' Then the apostle, rending his robe and beating his head, with loud wailing said, 'A fine guardian of our brother's soul did I leave! Give me a horse and a guide.' Instantly, . . . he rode away . . . from the Church and arriving at the brigands' outposts, was captured without flight or resistance, but crying, 'For this I have come. Lead me to your chief.' The chief awaited him in his armour, but when he recognized John as he approached, he was struck with shame and turned to fly [flight]. But John pursued him as fast as he could, forgetful of his age, crying out, 'Why my son, dost thou fly [flee] from thine own father, unarmed, aged as he is? Pity me, . . . fear not . . . stay! believe! Christ sent me.' But he on hearing these words first stood with downcast gaze, then flung away his arms, then trembling, began to weep bitterly, and embraced the old man when he came up to him, pleading with his groans, . . . but the apostle pledging himself . . . led him back to the Church and praying for him . . . and wrestling with him in earnest fastings . . . did not depart, as they say, till he restored him to the bosom of the Church."

If the appetite alone hath sinned, let it alone fast, and it sufficeth. But if the other members also have sinned, why should they not fast, too. . . . Let the eye fast from strange sights and from every wantonness, so that that which roamed in freedom in fault-doing may, abundantly humbled, be checked by penitence. Let the ear, blameably eager to listen, fast from tales and rumors, and from whatsoever is of idle import, and tendeth least to salvation. Let the tongue fast from slanders and murmurings, and from useless, vain, and scurrilous words, and sometimes also, in the seriousness of silence, even from things which may seem of essential import. Let the hand abstain from . . . all toils which are not imperatively necessary. But also let the soul herself abstain from all evils and from acting out her own will. For without such abstinence the other things find no favor with the Lord.

National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice.

To be idle requires a strong sense of personal identity.

Idleness is an appendix to nobility.

Idle people are often bored and bored people, unless they sleep a lot, are cruel. It is not accident that boredom and cruelty are great preoccupations in our time.

That man is idle who can do something better.

It is better wither to be silent, or to say things of more value than silence. Sooner throw a pearl at hazard than an idle or useless word; and do not say a little in many words, but a great deal in a few.

Unthinking, idle, wild, and young, I laugh'd and danc'd and talk'd and sung.