Idleness Quotes

“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want.”
― Bill Watterson

“Inventory:

"Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.
Four be the things I'd been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.
Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.
Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.”
― Dorothy Parker, The Complete Poems of Dorothy Parker

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”
― John Lubbock, The Use Of Life

“Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre.”
― Albert Camus

“It’s how I fill the time when nothing’s happening. Thinking too much, flirting with melancholy.”
― Tim Winton, Breath

“Everybody seems to think I'm lazy
I don't mind, I think they're crazy.
Running everywhere at such a speed
Till they find there's no need.”
― John Lennon

“Idleness, we are accustomed to say, is the root of all evil. To prevent this evil, work is recommended.... Idleness as such is by no means a root of evil; on the contrary, it is truly a divine life, if one is not bored....”
― Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or: A Fragment of Life

“There is a great difference between one idler and another idler. There is someone who is an idler out of laziness and lack of character, owing to the baseness of his nature. If you like, you may take me for one of those. Then there is the other kind of idler, the idler despite himself, who is inwardly consumed by a great longing for action who does nothing because his hands are tied, because he is, so to speak, imprisoned somewhere, because he lacks what he needs to be productive, because disastrous circumstances have brought him forcibly to this end. Such a one does not always know what he can do, but he nevertheless instinctively feels, I am good for something! My existence is not without reason! I know that I could be a quite a different person! How can I be of use, how can I be of service? There is something inside me, but what can it be? He is quite another idler. If you like you may take me for one of those.”
― Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

“If you think of something, do it.

Plenty of people often think, “I’d like to do this, or that.”
― Lydia Davis

“As we are whiling away days of idleness, time may flow rashly through the screen of our thoughts and veil the relevance of individual fragments in our story. The clock of reality can arrest us, though, and compel us to confront the demands of the truth. ("Non mais, t'as vu l'heure !")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“It is in our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that we touch one another and find sympathy. We differ widely enough in our nobler qualities. It is in our follies that we are at one.”
― Jerome K. Jerome, Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

“If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary be not idle.”
― Samuel Johnson , The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D. Vol 3

“He knew now that it was his own will to happiness which must make the next move. But if he was to do so, he realized that he must come to terms with time, that to have time was at once the most magnificent and the most dangerous of experiments. Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre.”
― Albert Camus, A Happy Death

“Idleness is the enemy of the soul; and therefore the brethren ought to be employed in manual labor at certain times, at others, in devout reading.”
― Benedict of Nursia, The Rule of Saint Benedict

“Were it not for the leaping and twinkling of the soul, man would rot away in his greatest passion, idleness.”
― C.G. Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

“The happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.”
― Samuel Johnson

“Of all our faults, the one that we excuse most easily is idleness.”
― La Rochefoucauld

“The art of living is the art of bringing dreams and reality together.”
― Tom Hodgkinson, How to Be Idle

“I suppose the secret of his success is in his tremendous idleness which almost approaches the supernatural.”
― Lawrence Durrell, Justine

“Every little trifle, for some reason, does seem incalculably important today, and when you say of a thing that 'nothing hangs on it,' it sounds like blasphemy. There's never any knowing—(how am I to put it?)—which of our actions, which of our idlenesses won't have things hanging on it for ever.”
― E.M. Forster, Where Angels Fear to Tread

“Ivanov: I am a bad, pathetic and worthless individual. One needs to be pathetic, too, worn out and drained by drink, like Pasha, to be still fond of me and to respect me. My God, how I despise myself! I so deeply loathe my voice, my walk, my hands, these clothes, my thoughts. Well, isn't that funny, isn't that shocking? Less than a year ago I was healthy and strong, I was cheerful, tireless, passionate, I worked with these very hands, I could speak to move even Philistines to tears, I could cry when I saw grief, I became indignant when I encountered evil. I knew inspiration, I knew the charm and poetry of quiet nights when from dusk to dawn you sit at your desk or indulge you mind with dreams. I believed, I looked into the future as into the eyes of my own mother... And now, my God, I am exhausted, I do not believe, I spend my days and nights in idleness.”
― Anton Chekhov, Ivanov

“Idleness for me is not a giving up on life but a spirited grabbing hold of it.”
― Tom Hodgkinson

“Labour-saving devices just make us try to cram more pointless activities into each day, rather than doing the important thing, which is to enjoy our life.”
― Tom Hodgkinson

“A conclusion I’ve come to at the Idler is that it starts with retreating from work but it’s really about making work into something that isn’t drudgery and slavery, and then work and life can become one thing.”
― Tom Hodgkinson

“For his part, Blind Seer had no difficulty accepting idleness. A wolf proverb stated: “Hunt when hungry, sleep when not, for hunger always returns.”
― Jane Lindskold, Through Wolf's Eyes

“Our dreams take us into other worlds, alternative realities that help us make sense of day-to-day realities.”
― Tom Hodgkinson, How to Be Idle

“Machinery which is not used is not capital.”
― Karl Marx, Theories of Surplus Value

“All his [Laurent's] great powerful body wanted was to do nothing, to wallow in never-ending idleness and self-indulgence. He would have liked to eat well, sleep well, satisfy his passions liberally, without stirring from one spot or risking the misfortune of a bit of fatigue.”
― Émile Zola, Thérèse Raquin

“lest the habit of work should be broken, and a taste for idleness acquired”
― John Stuart Mill