Quotes about idleness

"You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by. Yes, but some of them are golden only because we let them slip."

Barrie, Sir James M. on idleness   

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"Idleness is a constant sin, and labor is a duty. Idleness is the devil's home for temptation and for unprofitable, distracting musings; while labor profit others and ourselves."

Baxter, Anne on idleness   

"The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. [Matthew 9:37]"

Bible on idleness   

"Expect poison from standing water."

Blake, William on idleness   

"Idleness is an appendix to nobility."

Burton, Robert on idleness   

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"Idleness is an inlet to disorder, and makes way for licentiousness. People who have nothing to do are quickly tired of their own company."

Collier, Jeremy on idleness   

"Idleness is only a coarse name for my infinite capacity for living in the present."

Connolly, Cyril on idleness   

"The life of ease is a difficult pursuit."

Cowper, William on idleness   

"Just as iron rusts from disuse, even so does inaction spoil the intellect."

Da Vinci, Leonardo on idleness
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"That man is idle who can do something better."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on idleness
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"Trouble springs from idleness, and grievous toil from needless ease."

Franklin, Benjamin on idleness   

"Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears, while the used key is always bright."

Franklin, Benjamin on idleness   

"Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry, all things easy. He that rises late must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night, while laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes him."

Franklin, Benjamin on idleness   

"Purity of mind and idleness are incompatible."

Gandhi, Mahatma on idleness
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"I never remember feeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts me completely."

Holmes, Sherlock on idleness
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"The way to be nothing is to do nothing."

Howe, Nathaniel on idleness
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"A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labor and there is invisible labor."

Hugo, Victor on idleness
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"It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do."

Jerome, Jerome K. on idleness   

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"As peace is the end of war, so to be idle is the ultimate purpose of the busy."

Johnson, Samuel on idleness   

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"Perhaps man is the only being that can properly be called idle."

Johnson, Samuel on idleness   

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"Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good."

Kierkegaard, Søren on idleness   

"Democracy divides people into workers and loafers. It makes no provision for those who have no time to work."

Kraus, Karl on idleness   

"It is not the hours we put in on the job, it is what we put into the hours that counts."

Madwed, Sidney on idleness   

"There is nothing worse than an idle hour, with no occupation offering. People who have many such hours are simply animals waiting docilely for death. We all come to that state soon or late. It is the curse of senility."

Mencken, H. L. on idleness   

"Idleness among children, as among men, is the root of all evil, and leads to no other evil more certain than ill temper."

More, Hannah on idleness   

"Idleness is many gathered miseries in one name."

Paul, Jean on idleness   

"The hardest work of all is to do nothing."

Proverb on idleness
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"He that is doing nothing is seldom in need of helpers."

Proverb on idleness   

"An idle brain is the devil's workshop."

Proverb, English on idleness   

"Idleness is the stupidity of the body, and stupidity is the idleness of the mind."

Seume, Johann G. on idleness   

"Go to the ant, thou sluggard, learn to live, and by her busy ways, reform thy own."

Smart, Elizabeth on idleness   

"The insupportable labor of doing nothing."

Steele, Sir Richard on idleness   

"A faculty for idleness implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal identity."

Stevenson, Robert Louis on idleness   

"To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle."

Thoreau, Henry David on idleness
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"It is better to have loafed and lost than never to have loafed at all."

Thurber, James on idleness   

"Prolonged idleness paralyzes initiative."

Unknown, Source on idleness   

"Millions are idle, but it's comforting to know that most of them have jobs."

Unknown, Source on idleness   

"Life is mostly froth and bubble. Two things stand like stone: Dodging duty at the double, leaving work alone."

Unknown, Source on idleness   

"Sometimes I think that idlers seem to be a special class for whom nothing can be planned, plead as one will with them --their only contribution to the human family is to warm a seat at the common table."

Unknown, Source on idleness   

"You've got to make haste while it's still light of day. My godmother used to say, I don't want to rust out, I just want to work out. If you stand still long enough, people will throw dirt on you."

Vereen, Ben on idleness