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LAZINESS is like money — the more a man has the more he seems to want. ~Josh Billings, revised by H. Montague


The Lazy Man, before his Task is done,
Will take a Dozen Steps in saving One.
~Arthur Guiterman, "Of Order," A Poet's Proverbs, 1924


For even worse than laziness of body is laziness of the mind and heart. ~May Sinclair, A Cure of Souls, 1924


Pigeons do not fly roasted into one's mouth. If however a roast duck were to fly into the mouth of a man who is thoroughly fond of ease and indolent, he would beg earnestly it would not come unless properly carved. ~A Course of Exercises in German, Falck Lebahn, 1866


I have frequently held myself compensated for all my indolence by the fact that I recognized it; and the pleasure which the accurate observation of a personal fault afforded me was often greater than the chagrin caused by the fault itself. ~Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799), "The Character of a Person of my Acquaintance"  [Lichtenberg's unfinished "autopsychography" (Norman Alliston, 1908). —tεᖇᖇ¡·g]


The Three Great Sins to which our Woes are traced
Are Cruelty and Laziness and Waste.
~Arthur Guiterman, "Of Reproof," A Poet's Proverbs, 1924


Indolence never lacks excuse to avoid labor. ~Publilius Syrus, 1st century BCE, from the Latin by D. Lyman, 1856


The laggard's idea is to press a button for everything and do nothing but rest. ~"Poor Richard Junior's Philosophy," The Saturday Evening Post, 1903, George Horace Lorimer, editor


A second is lost every time a lazy man looks at the clock. ~"Poor Richard Junior's Philosophy," The Saturday Evening Post, 1903, George Horace Lorimer, editor


The only thing to be afraid of is laziness — and fear itself. ~Elizabeth Jones Towne, Practical Methods for Self Development, 1904


The Siren Sloth thou must resolve to shun... ~Horace (65–8 BCE), translated by Thomas Creech, 1684


That destructive Siren, Sloth, is ever to be avoided. ~Horace (65–8 BCE), translated by D. E. Macdonnel, 1811


We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty. ~Quintilian


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]


But the present generation, wearied by its chimerical efforts, relapses into complete indolence. Its condition is that of a man who has only fallen asleep towards morning: first of all come great dreams, then a feeling of laziness, and finally a witty or clever excuse for remaining in bed. ~Søren Kierkegaard, translated by Alexander Dru and Walter Lowrie, 1940


With me, it was my liver that was out of order.... I had just been reading a patent liver-pill circular, in which were detailed the various symptoms by which a man could tell when his liver was out of order.... I had the symptoms, beyond all mistake, the chief among them being "a general disinclination to work of any kind".... As a boy, the disease hardly ever left me for a day. They did not know, then, that it was my liver. Medical science was in a far less advanced state than now, and they used to put it down to laziness. "Why, you skulking little devil, you," they would say, "get up and do something for your living, can't you?"—not knowing, of course, that I was ill. ~Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), 1889


...certain it is that minds, like bodies, will often fall into a pimpled, ill-conditioned state from mere excess of comfort... ~Charles Dickens

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