Quotes About Idleness

She wants to be forced to occupy herself with some manual work. If she were obliged, like so many others, to earn her living, she wouldn't have these vapours, that come to her from a lot of ideas she stuffs into her head, and from the idleness in which she lives

Employment was better than idleness for men, because it kept the enemy guessing.

In travelling I shape myself betimes to idleness And take fools' pleasure

Idleness is emptiness; the tree in which the sap is stagnant, remains fruitless.

It is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top.

There's nothing better than doing nothing.

Smokers, male and female, inject and excuse idleness in their lives every time they light a cigarette.

Here they all were together, idle above their fields, nobody hoeing, godlike; nobody weeding, New Year's in summer.

When access to a better life has been denied often enough, and successfully enough, one can use the rejection as an excuse to cease all efforts [...] And if I do nothing, I have every right to my idleness, for, after all, haven't I tried?

Idle men make mischief, especially idle men supplied with ale, whores, and weapons.

There are men who, through ownership of land, are able to make others pay for the privilege of being allowed to exist and to work. These landowners are idle, and I might therefore be expected to praise them. Unfortunately, their idleness is only rendered possible by the industry of others; indeed their desire for comfortable idleness is historically the source of the whole gospel of work. The last thing they have ever wished is that others should follow their example.

in countries which do not enjoy Mediterranean sunshine idleness is more difficult, and a great public propaganda will be required to inaugurate it. I hope that, after reading the following pages, the leaders of the Y.M.C.A. will start a campaign to induce good young men to do nothing. If so, I shall not have lived in vain.

In particular, he named three kinds of troubles that could beset a person with a nervous temperament: poor weather, isolation or idleness, and stressful events.

Idleness does drive me crazy, but I'd rather read or write than do anything just to work. A kind of respect has been instilled in me for acting: I love it too much to ever have a bad relationship with it.

As astronomy is the daughter of idleness, geometry is the daughter of property, and if it were a question of poetry we would likely find that she is the daughter of love.

The alternative to work isn't just idleness. To be ludic is not to be quaaludic. As much as I treasure the pleasure of torpor, it's never more rewarding than when it punctuates other pleasures and pastimes. Nor am I promoting the managed time-disciplined safety-valve called "leisure"; far from it. Leisure is nonwork for the sake of work. Leisure is the time spent recovering from work and in the frenzied but hopeless attempt to forget about work.

Nul ne devrait jamais travailler. Prolétaires du monde entier, reposez-vous !

We are great fools. "He has spent his life in idleness," we say; "I have done nothing today." What, have you not lived? That is not only the most fundamental but the most illustrious of your occupations. . . . To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquillity in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately.

The world is full of ways and means to waste time.

I'm very good at having time off. I tend to take whole years off - I had 1994 and 1997 off. I find it very easy; I just love pottering around doing normal things.

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

The busy man is troubled with but one devil; the idle man by a thousand

How beautiful it is to do nothing, and then to rest afterward.

But our sole delight was play; and for this we were punished by those who yet themselves were doing the like. But elder folks' idleness is called "business"; that of boys, being really the same, is punished by those elders; and none commiserates either boys or men.