Quotations about Idleness

The idle man does not know what it is to enjoy rest, for he has not earned it. ~John Lubbock


Few women and fewer men have enough character to be idle. ~E.V. Lucas


The hardest work is to go idle. ~Yiddish Proverb


Idleness is the beginning of all vices. ~Proverb


There is a working class - strong and happy - among both rich and poor: there is an idle class - weak, wicked, and miserable - among both rich and poor. ~John Ruskin


The real source of almost all our crimes, if the trouble is taken to trace them to a common origin, will be found to be in idleness. ~Walter Gaston Shotwell


The only thing wrong with doing nothing is that you never know when you're finished. ~Author Unknown


Keep doing some kind of work, that the devil may always find you employed. ~St. Jerome


To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself. ~Samuel Johnson


Hunger is not the worst feature of unemployment; idleness is. ~William E. Barrett


Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent. ~Samuel Johnson


All man's troubles come from not knowing how to sit still in one room. ~Blaise Pascal, Pensées, 1670


Nobody can think straight who does not work. Idleness warps the mind. ~Henry Ford


A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor ~Victor Hugo


Shun idleness. It is a rust that attaches itself to the most brilliant metals. ~Voltaire