If you often find yourself sitting around doing nothing, maybe you should take a look at some of these quotes:
Purity of mind and idleness are incompatible. -Mahatma Gandhi
The condition of perfection is idleness: the aim of perfection is youth. -Oscar Wilde
Idleness is the only refuge of weak minds, and the holiday of fools. -Lord Chesterfield
Idleness is the stupidity of the body, and stupidity is the idleness of the mind. -Johann G. Seume (1763-1810)
Idleness is sweet, and its consequences are cruel. -John Quincy Adams
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. -James M. Barrie (1860-1937)
Idleness is an appendix to nobility. -Robert Burton
Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears, while the used key is always bright. -Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
It is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top. -Virginia Woolf
A day without work can yield a night without sleep. -Albanian Proverb
Idleness is the beginning of all vices. -Proverb
Just as iron rusts from disuse, even so does inaction spoil the intellect. -Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519)
What heart can think, or tongue express, The harm that groweth of idleness? -John Heywood
An idle brain is the devil’s workshop. -English Proverb
The way to be nothing is to do nothing. -Nathaniel Howe
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)
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. -Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927)
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. -Benjamin Franklin
As peace is the end of war, so to be idle is the ultimate purpose of the busy. -Samuel Johnson
Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good. -Soren Kierkegaard
That man is idle who can do something better. -Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle. -Henry David Thoreau
Prolonged idleness paralyzes initiative. -Unknown source
Shun idleness. It is a rust that attaches itself to the most brilliant metals. -Voltaire
I never remember feeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts me completely. -Sherlock Holmes
It is idleness that creates impossibilities; and where people don’t care to do anything, they shelter themselves under a permission that it cannot be done. -Robert South
In idleness there is a perpetual despair. -Thomas Carlyle
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
Any of these idleness quotes really hit home for you?
Hello Shawn, I also found a quote of interest….~
“Were’t not affection chains thy tender days
To the sweet glances of thy honored love,
I rather would entreat thy company
To see the wonders of the world abroad
Than, living dully sluggardized at home,
Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness.” ~ William Shakespeare
Always a pleasure to be enlightened by your quotes.
Thanks Lee…I’ve always loved that one.
I think Sherlock Homes puts idleness best it exhaust not just your body but your mind and very soul.
I also loved the Voltaire qoute
Hi Shawn! Thank you for taking the time to gather and offer these wonderful quotes. I always appreciate the inspiration they give – but I have been guilty of appreciating them silently 🙂 I’ll post start posting more comments from now on! Keep up the great work you’re doing for others.
Thanks, Sandy. Actually, I needed to hear these things. My mailing list host says I get a lot of complaints…so I’ve been wondering if everyone hates what I’m doing!
thank you so much sir for imparting all those nice quotes.i really love reading and sharing them to my colleagues.i’m looking forward for the next quotes you’ll send to me.may God bless you more.
I am disgusted by any people who would make complaints about your site. You enrich all our lives by kindly doing this for us. Thanks for the time you take in sending these quotes. Some people must complain about everything if the truth be told. I guess they are just to idle to do anything else. I’d like to make a complaint against them. Anyway, thanks for the effort you put into doing this. You rock Shawn. Anyway, one of my favorites here is:
Purity of mind and idleness are incompatible. -Mahatma Gandhi
Cheers.
Thanks, Laurie. I guess a certain amount of people sign up for my mailing list, and then forget about it. But instead of just unsubscribing, some will go a step further and find a way to complain about me to the list provider. Well, luckily, I decided not to give up and I’m trying to take a few steps to *remind* people who I am. Hopefully this will result in less trouble for me. Depressing, though. 🙁
Hi Shawn, you are trying to help people in a positive way. You have a kind and caring heart.
I find the people who complain do very little to improve anything. They have too much time on there hands, instead of using it in a positive and constructive way all they can do is complain.
Just know that what you are doing is helping those that need encouragement and positive reinforcement.
Take care, have a wonderful day.
Thanks, Lee. I appreciate your words very much.
Hi Shawn,
To those who makes complain…well they’re just those people who do nothing…and complaining is just a product of there idle minds. It is like a rust that attaches to themselves trying to destroy others.
Don’t let them destroy you, and don’t feel depressed. You’re doing a great job!
Keep it up buddy!
Thanks, Sally. I have decided to keep on keeping on. And I’m through feeling annoyed and depressed. Sure, the complainers that got me into trouble with my list host (and I would hate to lose my list of 25,000 subscribers) complained while they were *leaving* my mailing list…so they’re never going to see or understand the trouble they’ve caused me. But I’m striving to make little improvements or tweaks to the list so this stuff doesn’t happen any more. For instance, in all my thoughts-of-the-days, I am now going to have to start them off with a statement like “You are receiving this email because you signed up for it and you asked to be put on this mailing list….” or something like that. Little tweaks like that should help. But I only have 5 more days to show my list host that my “stats” have improved.
Anyway, thanks again for your positive words.
Hi Shawn…The feeling of emptiness occur to every normal being,a void that seems to be the situation of the things we can’t do nothing about.when It comes to me,I think positively to overcome the disguise of emptiness,that is boredom and Say;
“Every morning I wake-up with inspiration
everything I’m doing is turning into
Something…I am happy”
Hello Shawn,
Everyday i look forward to the quotes you send. It really helps me prepare myself for the day and pep up my mood. Im sure it helps others in the similar manner. Keep up the great work.
Thanks and Regards 🙂
Hi Shawn, I love your quotes and look forward to them. Don’t be discouraged and perhaps the next batch could be about complaining and how the cause and effect can be crippling to both parties. People are often unaware of their actions behind the screens and scenes.
Always enjoy reading your quotes! I share them with employees!Thanks so much.