That man is idle who can do something better.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
They that do nothing are in the readiest way to do that which is worse than nothing.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann (1728–1795) Swiss Philosophical Writer, Naturalist, Physician
Be not solitary, be not idle
—Robert Burton (1577–1640) English Scholar, Clergyman
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.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
Idleness is the Dead Sea that swallows all virtues
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
How sweet and sacred idleness is!
—Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) English Writer, Poet
Ten thousand harms more than the ills we knew, our idleness doth hatch.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Absence of occupation is not rest; a mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.
—William Cowper (1731–1800) English Anglican Poet, Hymn writer
Rather do what is nothing to the purpose than be idle, that the devil may find thee doing.—The bird that sits is easily shot when the fliers escape the fowler.—Idleness is the Dead Sea that swallows all the virtues, and is the self-made sepulcher of a living man.
—Francis Quarles (1592–1644) English Religious Poet
Life is a short day; but it is a working day. Activity may lead to evil, but inactivity cannot lead to good.
—Hannah More
The first external revelations of the dry-rot in men is a tendency to lurk and lounge; to be at street corners without intelligible reason; to be going anywhere when met; to be about many places rather than any; to do nothing tangible but to have an intention of performing a number of tangible duties tomorrow or the day after.
—Charles Dickens (1812–70) English Novelist
I never remember feeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts me completely.
—Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish Writer
The busy man is troubled with but one devil; the idle man by a thousand.
—Spanish Proverb
From its very inaction, idleness ultimately becomes the most active cause of evil; as a palsy is more to be dreaded than a fever. The Turks have a proverb which says that the devil tempts all other men, but that idle men tempt the devil.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
A nation rushing hastily too and fro, busily employed in idleness.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
Nobody can think straight who does not work. Idleness warps the mind. Thinking without constructive action becomes a disease.
—Henry Ford (1863–1947) American Businessperson, Engineer
How various his employments whom the world
Calls idle; and who justly in return
Esteems that busy world an idler too!
—William Cowper (1731–1800) English Anglican Poet, Hymn writer
Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute.
—Thurgood Marshall (1908–93) American Jurist
The insupportable labor of doing nothing.
—Richard Steele (1672–1729) Irish Writer, Politician
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.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American Novelist
An idle brain is the devil’s workshop.
—English Proverb
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.
—J. M. Barrie (1860–1937) Scottish Novelist, Dramatist
He doth all things with sadness and with peevishness, slackness and excusation, with idleness and without good will.
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400) English Poet, Philosopher, Diplomat, Bureaucrat
As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
Every man is, or hopes to be, an idler.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Diligence is the mother of good fortune, and idleness, its opposite, never brought a man to the goal of any of his best wishes.
—Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish Novelist
Thee too, my Paridel! she mark’d thee there,
Stretch’d on the rack of a too easy chair,
And heard thy everlasting yarn confess
The Pains and Penalties of Idleness.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
Common experience shows how much rarer is moral courage than physical bravery. A thousand men will march to the mouth of the cannon where one man will dare espouse an unpopular cause.
—Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American Civil Liberties Lawyer
Nine-tenths of the miseries and vices of mankind proceed from idleness.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
An idle life always produces varied inclinations.
—Lucan (Marcus Annaeus Lucanus) (39–65 CE) Roman Statesman, Latin Poet
Worse than idle is compassion if it ends in tears and sighs.
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Poet
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.
—Robertson Davies (1913–95) Canadian Novelist, Playwright, Essayist
Idleness is the parent of all psychology
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
Thus idly busy rolls their world away
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730–74) Irish Novelist, Playwright, Poet
Prolonged idleness paralyzes initiative.
—Unknown
Expect poison from standing water.
—William Blake (1757–1827) English Poet, Painter, Printmaker
In such a world as ours the idle man is not so much a biped as a bivalve; and the wealth which breeds idleness, of which the English peerage is an example, and of which we are beginning to abound in specimens in this country, is only a sort of human oyster bed, where heirs and heiresses are planted, to spend a contemptible life of slothfulness in growing plump and succulent for the grave-worms’ banquet.
—Horace Mann (1796–1859) American Educator, Politician, Educationalist
Idleness is the gate of all harms.—An idle man is like a house that hath no walls; the devils may enter on every side.
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400) English Poet, Philosopher, Diplomat, Bureaucrat
It has been said that idleness is the parent of mischief—which is very true; but mischief itself is merely an attempt to escape from the dreary vacuum of idleness.
—George Borrow (1803–81) English Writer, Traveler
A life of ease is a difficult pursuit.
—William Cowper (1731–1800) English Anglican Poet, Hymn writer
For the barbarians were not only at our gates but within our skins. We were our own wooden horses, each one of us full of our own doom. ….these fanatics or those, or crazies or yours; but the explosions burst out of our very own bodies. We were both the bombers and the bombs. The explosions were our own evil – no need to look for foriegn explanations, though there was and is evil beyond our frontiers as well as within. We have chopped away our own legs, we engineered our own fall. And now we can only weep, at the last, for what we were too enfeebled, too corrupt, too little, too contemptable to defend.
—Salman Rushdie (b.1947) Indian-born British Novelist
The bees can abide no drones amongst them; but as soon as they begin to be idle, they kill them.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
I live an idle burden to the ground.
—Homer (751–651 BCE) Ancient Greek Poet
Idleness is many gathered miseries in one name.
—Jean Paul (1763–1825) German Novelist, Humorist
Gloomy calm of idle vacancy.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Millions are idle, but it’s comforting to know that most of them have jobs.
—Unknown
There is one piece of advice, in a life of study, which I think no one will object to: and that is, every now and then to be completely idle, to do nothing at all.
—Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English Clergyman, Essayist, Wit
I don’t think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness, to save oneself trouble.
—Agatha Christie (1890–1976) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright