Idleness Quotes

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

Related topics: Wisdom Psychology Philosophy Simplicity Simple Stress Relax Life

It is idle to dread what you cannot avoid.
- Publilius Syrus

To have done anything just for money
is to have been truly idle.
- Henry David Thoreau

Determine never to be idle.
No person will have occasion to complain
of the want of time who never loses any.
It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.
- Thomas Jefferson

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Thank you for joining me on this journey we call life,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If I could tell the world just one thing
it would be we're all okay,
and not to worry cause worry is wasteful
and useless in times like these.
I won't be made useless.
I won't be idle with despair,
I will gather myself around my faith.
Light does the darkness most fear.
- Jewel

I choose to be caring, compassionate and kind toward all people,
and I also choose to be indifferent to gossip,
petty complaints, and idle chatter.
About those, I just don't care.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement.
Properly understood and applied,
it is the most potent instrument of action.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

To be idle is a short road to death
and to be diligent is a way of life;
foolish people are idle,
wise people are diligent.
- The Buddha

Apathy, indifference, not caring...
It may sound insensitive for me to say, "I don't care,"
but ask first to what I am indifferent.
I choose to be caring, compassionate
and kind toward all people,
and I also choose to be indifferent to gossip,
petty complaints, and idle chatter.
About those, I just don't care.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I've developed a new philosophy...
I only dread one day at a time.
- the character Charlie Brown in Charles M. Schulz' Peanuts comic

My only fear is that I may live too long.
This would be a subject of dread to me.
- Thomas Jefferson

A well-developed sense of humor
is the pole that adds balance to your steps,
as you walk the tightrope of life.
- William Arthur Ward

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet.
Only through experiences of trial and suffering
can the soul be strengthened,
vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.
- Helen Keller

An idea that is developed and put into action
is more important than
an idea that exists only as an idea.
- The Buddha

We have no enemies,
we have only friendships that we haven't yet developed
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I personally think we developed language
because of our deep need to complain.
- Lily Tomlin

I have never developed indigestion from eating my words.
- Winston Churchill

Training - training is everything; training is all there is to a person.
We speak of nature; it is folly; there is no such thing as nature;
what we call by that misleading name is merely heredity and training.
We have no thoughts of our own, no opinions of our own;
they are transmitted to us, trained into us.
All that is original in us, and therefore fairly creditable
or discreditable to us, can be covered up and hidden
by the point of a cambric needle, all the rest being atoms
contributed by, and inherited from, a procession of ancestors
that stretches back a billion years to the Adam-clam
or grasshopper or monkey from whom our race has been
so tediously and ostentatiously and unprofitably developed.
And as for me, all that I think about in this plodding sad pilgrimage,
this pathetic drift between the eternities,
is to look out and humbly live a pure and high and blameless life,
and save that one microscopic atom in me that is truly me:
the rest may land in Sheol and welcome for all I care.
- Mark Twain in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions,
but laws and institutions must go hand in hand
with the progress of the human mind.
As that becomes more developed, more enlightened,
as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered
and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances,
institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.
- Thomas Jefferson [inscribed in the Jefferson Memorial]

Trust your own inner guidance.
Have faith that your steps are
carrying you toward your dreams.
Keep your eyes on the heavens
and believe that your feet will carry you well.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If a man is called to be a street sweeper,
he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted,
or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts
of heaven and earth will pause to say,
here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Before we acquire great power
we must acquire wisdom to use it well.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Character is higher than intellect.
A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The well-timed question is more impacting than an answer.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

The hardest of all, is learning to be
a well of affection, and not a fountain,
to show them that we love them,
not when we feel like it, but when they do.
- Nan Fairbrother

The fact is, that to do anything in the world worth doing,
we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger,
but jump in and scramble through as well as we can.
- Robert Cushing

Life is a dangerous - ultimately fatal - endeavor,
so you may as well live it full out.
Chart your course, cast off the lines,
and boldly sail the seas of life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When the well's dry, we know the worth of water.
- Benjamin Franklin

Resistance to the organized mass can be effected only
by the man who is as well organized
in his individuality as the mass itself.
- Carl Jung

Always aim at complete harmony
of thought and word and deed.
Always aim at purifying your thoughts
and everything will be well.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength
which will always spring up if thou wilt always look there.
- Marcus Aurelius

If you want reality to be different than it is,
you might as well try to teach a cat to bark.
- Byron Katie

Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.
- Dave Barry

If there is any one secret of success,
it lies in the ability to get
the other person's point of view
and see things from that person's angle
as well as from your own.
- Henry Ford

Life is not about how fast you run
or how high you climb
but how well you bounce.
- Vivian Komori

All's well that ends well.
- Proverb (and title of a Shakespeare play)

A well-spent day brings happy sleep.
- Leonardo da Vinci

Appreciation is a wonderful thing.
It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.
- Voltaire

It is better to travel well than to arrive.
- The Buddha

Well done is better than well said.
- Benjamin Franklin

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement.
But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
- Niels Bohr

Nothing is ever going to work out the way you want,
so you may as well choose to want the way life does work out.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

To live is to choose. But to choose well,
you must know who you are and what you stand for,
where you want to go and why you want to get there.
- Kofi Annan

Violence, even well intentioned,
always rebounds upon oneself.
- Lao Tzu

The part can never be well unless the whole is well.
- Plato

The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

No face which we can give to a matter
will stead us so well at last as the truth.
This alone wears well.
- Henry David Thoreau

Well-behaved women seldom make history.
- Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

That some achieve great success,
is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.
- Abraham Lincoln

No man who is occupied in doing a very difficult thing,
and doing it very well, ever loses his self-respect.
- George Bernard Shaw

It is not enough to have a good mind,
the main thing is to use it well.
- Rene Descartes

Hold on... Joyfully.
Holding-on does not have to be
a desperate teeth-gritting kind of holding-on.
Holding-on can be a joyful
"this is just the nature of Life,
so I may as well enjoy it"
kind of holding-on.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

It is well to remember that the
entire population of the universe,
with one trifling exception, is composed of others.
- Andrew J. Holmes

I distrust those people who know so well
what God wants them to do,
because I notice it always coincides
with their own desires.
- Susan B. Anthony

Your point of view sets you up well in advance
for how you view the events as they unfold.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Learn to do common things uncommonly well;
we must always keep in mind that anything
that helps fill the dinner pail is valuable.
- George Washington Carver

If there is anything that a man can do well,
I say let him do it. Give him a chance.
- Abraham Lincoln

What is once well done is done forever.
- Henry David Thoreau

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep,
so a life well spent brings happy death.
- Leonardo da Vinci

People often say that motivation doesn't last.
Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily.
- Zig Ziglar

Whatever your life's work is, do it well.
A man should do his job so well that the living,
the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Being angry harms your physical,
emotional, and spiritual well-being.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Treat the earth well.
It was not given to you by your parents,
it was loaned to you by your children.
We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors,
we borrow it from our Children.
- Native American traditional

A house is not a home unless it
contains food and fire
for the mind as well as the body.
- Benjamin Franklin

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread.
- John Muir

Let today be a day to trust your own inner guidance,
a day to have faith that your steps are carrying you
in the direction you desire,
a day to keep your eyes on the heavens
and believe that your feet will carry you well.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Live Well, Love Much, Laugh Often.
- Anonymous

The best friend is the man who in wishing me well
wishes it for my sake.
- Anonymous

Life may not be the party we hoped for,
but while we are here we might as well dance.
- Anonymous

Be careful to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich,
for the hopes of the instructed
are better than the wealth of the ignorant.
- Epictetus

He's my friend that speaks well of me behind my back.
- Thomas Fuller

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May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie