Quotes About Idleness

Le sillon du laboureur ne vaut-il pas celui de l'oisif qui a pourtant un nom, un nom qui restera si, par une singularité ou une absurdité quelconque, il fait un peu de bruit dans le monde ?…

It is the idle man, not the great worker, who is always complaining that he has no time or opportunity.

It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.

It would indeed be a sad misfortune if man were released from the necessity of work and struggle, for it is a well-known fact that organs which do not function atrophy; and according to the old saying, 'Idleness is the devil's workshop.'

The regime in too many prisons is one of idleness, and locking up someone from such a background in idleness virtually guarantees re-offending. Instead there needs to be a full day's work every weekday in either the workshops or the education department or preferably a mixture of both.

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

Toil is no source of shame; idleness is shame.

Progressively saved by the machine from the anxieties that bound his hands and mind to material toil, relieved of a large part of his work and compelled to an ever-increasing speed of action by the devices which his intelligence cannot help ceaselessly creating and perfecting, man is about to find himself abruptly plunged into idleness.

Faffing is good. It is an important part of life. Faffing is when we disconnect from the matrix and idle for a while, like a car. Our body and spirit know deep down that human beings were not made for constant toil so subconsciously creates space through the mechanism of faffing.

There was a phase when I would just loaf around, doing nothing. It had put my mom under a lot of stress. I knew her stress stemmed from her love for me, yet I never paid attention to her feelings. When it finally hit me that my idleness was taking a toll on her, I was genuinely sad and depressed.

The best lesson from the myths of Newton and Archimedes is to work passionately but to take breaks. Sitting under trees and relaxing in baths lets the mind wander and frees the subconscious to do work on our behalf. Freeman Dyson, a world-class physi- cist and author, agrees: "I think it's very important to be idle...people who keep themselves busy all the time are generally not creative. So I am not ashamed of being idle.

The clerisy are those who read for pleasure, but not for idleness; who read for pastime but not to kill time; who love books, but do not live by books

Wasting time is negative, but there is something positive about idleness.

A soldier's time is passed in distress and danger, or in idleness and corruption.

I was never comfortable with the risk of climbing in the Himalayas, or the amount of time in idleness that is involved in the Everest expedition.

To rove about, musing, that is to say loitering, is, for a philosopher, a good way of spending time.

I do not like work even when someone else is doing it.

Presently a vagrant poodle dog came idling along, sad at heart, lazy with the summer softness and the quiet, weary of captivity, sighing for change.

Idleness was so often despised. And yet it was on idleness, she knew, that one touched meaning and peace.

I never remember feeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts me completely.

Frattanto, possiamo ringraziare la nostra buona stella che, per qualche ora, ci ha sottratto alla insopportabile fatica dell'ozio.»

Men need some kind of external activity, because they are inactive within.

The truth is that the only time I'm happy is when I'm doing absolutely nothing. I don't understand people who like to work and talk about it like it was some sort of goddamn duty. Doing nothing feel like floating on warm water to me. Delightful, perfect.

Dragons have generally had a reputation for being anti-social. Liberals may attribute this to a deprived childhood, Conservatives to mere idleness: after all, is that a way to go through life, coiled around some tree?