The Quote Garden ™

I dig old books. ™

Est. 1998
Quotations about Idleness
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. ~Jerome K. Jerome, "On Being Idle," The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow: A Book for an Idle Holiday, 1890
One of the commonest characteristics of the successful man is his idleness, his immense capacity for wasting time. ~Arnold Bennett (1867–1931)
A steady and agreeable occupation is one of the most potent adjuncts and favorers of health and long life. The idler, without object, without definite direction, is very apt to brood himself into some moral or physical fever — and one is about as bad as the other. ~Mose Velsor (Walt Whitman), "Manly Health and Training," New York Atlas, 1858 October 10th [Thanks, Zachary Turpin! —tεᖇᖇ¡·g]
An idler is a watch that wants both hands,
As useless if it goes as when it stands...
~William Cowper (1731–1800), "Retirement"
Lastly, work secures the rich reward of rest, we must rest to be able to work well, and work to be able to enjoy rest... The idle man does not know what it is to enjoy rest, for he has not earned it. Hard work... tends not only to give us rest for the body, but, what is even more important, peace to the mind. If we have done our best to do, and to be, we can rest in peace. ~John Lubbock
Few women and fewer men have enough character to be idle. ~E. V. Lucas, Mr. Ingleside, "Chapter XII, In Which We Visit the High-Priestess of a Temple of Antiquity," 1910
The men who toil with might and main, who plow the glebe and reap the grain, receive my earnest, ardent praise, and I embalm them in my lays; but I am happy in the shade, with my tall jug of lemonade. ~Walt Mason (1862–1939), "Looking On"
The hardest work is to go idle. ~Yiddish proverb
Idleness is the Mother of Vice, the Step-mother to all Virtues. ~Italian proverb
So runs the genealogy of many another sin: idleness is usually the grandfather of the crime, whatever the father might be. ~C. H. Spurgeon
Idleness is the beginning of all vices. ~German proverb
Idleness is the beginning of all psychology. What? Could it be that psychology is — a vice? ~Friedrich Nietzsche
Idleness is the will-o'-the-wisp among human characteristics. It is hard to distinguish. Stupidity you can put your finger on; and so with sullenness, day-dreaming, or bovine lassitude. But idleness may link itself with any, all, or none of these. ~Louise Imogen Guiney, "On the Beauty of Idleness," Goose-Quill Papers, 1885 [a little altered —tg]
Machines, mind you, are continually diminishing the need for toil and toilers, and most human beings at the present level are fit for nothing else. How can we suddenly make them fit for anything else? What else? Education you say. But education for what? What is to be the new economy, the new functions?... Man with nothing to do is a wretched man and often a dangerous man. ~H. G. Wells, Apropos of Dolores, 1938
We all think idleness be a very pleasant thing when we're obliged to work, but when we are idle, then we feel that a little work be just as agreeable — that's human natur. ~Frederick Marryat, Jacob Faithful, 1831
It's not that I'm a Type‑B personality. It's that I'm driven by a passionate, all-consuming desire to take it easy. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
"In the afternoon they came unto a land in which it seemed always afternoon." I want to come to such a land. I want to be a lotus-eater.... I feel like that toad who, after being embedded in rock for thousands of years, on being rudely ejected, simply sat down on its haunches and blinked. I want to sit down on my haunches and blink in a sunny spot under a sunny wall. I might muster up sufficient energy to fold my hands on my lap as looking more elegant, but afterwards I should want to sit absolutely still and just let the sunshine filter through my tired being. ~Mabel Barnes-Grundy, The Vacillations of Hazel, "Chapter XIX: I Desire to be a Lotus-Eater, and Sammy Brings Me Rudely to Earth," 1905
An Idler's Chance in Life is like a Peach—
Too Green, or Over-Ripe, or Out of Reach.
~Arthur Guiterman, "Of Idlers," A Poet's Proverbs, 1924
There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do — and not doing it. ~Mary Wilson Little, Reveries of a Paragrapher, 1897
Idleness is certainly the Cause, and Busyness the never-failing Cure of Melancholy. ~Author unknown, circa mid-1700s, possibly Charles Palmer
A good way to idleize a boy is to idolize him. ~"Poor Richard Junior's Philosophy," The Saturday Evening Post, 1904, George Horace Lorimer, editor
For indeed the fact is, that there are idle poor and idle rich; and there are busy poor and busy rich.... in a large view, the distinction between workers and idlers, as between knaves and honest men, runs through the very heart and innermost economies of men of all ranks and in all positions. There is a working class — strong and happy — among both rich and poor; there is an idle class — weak, wicked, and miserable — among both rich and poor. ~John Ruskin
She was quite content to be the do-nothing of the family... Her chief characteristic was extreme indolence. Dull or stupid she was not, but idle very. The only active member she possessed was her tongue; that she exercised continually. ~Henrietta Vaughan Palmer Stannard, "Love's Influence," 1878 [a little altered —tg]
Wherever a soul keeps energy in reserve, and a little healthful languor dominant, a patch of Arcadia is yet to be found. ~Louise Imogen Guiney, "On the Beauty of Idleness," Goose-Quill Papers, 1885
To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavours, with his utmost care, to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself. ~Samuel Johnson, 1758
INACTIVITY, IDLENESS, LAZINESS, RESTING. — Lay-up, laze, loaf, lullabye time, time-out, Rip Van Winkle, air one's heels, ass about, bum around, dog it, fart around, flop around, fool-ass around, footle about, hang out, have nothing on, haze around, help the boss, hold up a corner, lie around loose, lollygag, noddle, phutz around, piddle, pose for a picture, slosh, sluff, spud, stall along, swing the bat, tool, jell, jelly, cat around, roost, not stir a finger, diddle, doodle, fiddle-faddle, frivol, piddle, piffle, sit tight, not stir a peg, take root, rust in, tarry awhile, lay over, dead as four o'clock, in mothballs, nothing doing, getting no place fast, holed up, at liberty, in escrow, on the beach, on the loose, spring fever, work horrors, lazy fare, streak of lack, on the hind end of nothing, bone idle, born tired, drag-assed, no gotta da ambish, no-get-up-and-go, no git-up-and-git, pepless, rum-dum, slow-poky, sozzling, sozzly, too slow to grow fast, molasses won't run down his legs, bunk fatigue, nooning, relaxative, daycation, fake-ation, playcation, tear off an hour, come up for air, take a five, take a ten, off duty, unkink, drop anchor, go floppo, grab a flop, possumbelly, vacationize, Sunday it. ~Lester V. Berrey and Melvin Van den Bark, The American Thesaurus of Slang, 1947 edition
Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent... ~Samuel Johnson
One is not idle because one is absorbed in thought. There is visible labor and there is invisible labor. ~Victor Hugo, translated by J. Carroll Beckwith, 1893
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