Quotes About Idleness

In the matter of piety, poverty serves us better than wealth, and work better than idleness, especially since wealth becomes an obstacle even for those who do not devote themselves to it.

The idea of a government is to create an ordered, willing work force where there's no trouble. I think idlers are generally seen as potentially dangerous because they're asking questions.

The idle man does not know what it is to enjoy rest.

Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness.

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

The idea of passing one's whole life in moral idleness, and having one's hardest work and duty done by another-whether God or man-is most revolting to us, as it is most degrading to human dignity.

Work is no disgrace: it is idleness which is a disgrace.

When I am idle and shiftless, my affairs become confused; when I work, I get results ... not great results, but enough to encourage me.

The poor man with industry is happier than the rich man in idleness.

The frivolous work of polished idleness.

For Satan always finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.

Elogio de la ociosidad y otros ensayos (Diario Público, 2010), de Bertrand Russell.

had set himself to the serious study of the great aristocratic art of doing absolutely nothing.

It is awfully hard work doing nothing.  However, I don't mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind.

The rich would have spoken on the value of thrift and the idle grown eloquent over the dignity of labour.

a really GRANDE PASSION is comparatively rare nowadays. It is the privilege of people who have nothing to do.

the serious study of the great aristocratic art of doing absolutely nothing.

Una grande passion es el privilegio de quienes no tienen nada que hacer.

He had set himself to the serious study of the great aristocratic art of doing absolutely nothing.

Wovon man nicht handeln kann, darüber muss man faulenzen. Whereof one cannot act, thereof one must be lazy.

There are few things more restful than to watch some one else busy under a warm sun.

Today, luxury resides in everything that is becoming rare: communion with nature, silence, meditation, slowness rediscovered, the pleasure of living out of step with others, studious idleness, the enjoyment of the major works of the mind - these are all privileges that cannot be bought because they are literally priceless.

Idleness makes people feeble and peevish. Work makes them stalwart and prone to anger.

But compare the hardest day's work you ever did with the idleness that splits flowers and pokes its way into spiders' stomachs, and thank your stars that your head has got something it must think of, and your hands something that they must do.