Idle Quotes

438 Idle quotes by 328 unique authors

Today we may face some boring task or idle conversation that feels like a complete waste of time. Perhaps next week or next year we'll… — Mort Crim
How these curiosities would be quite forgott, did not such idle fellowes as I am putt them downe! — John Aubrey
Radicalism usually prospers in the gap between rising expectations and declining opportunities. This is especially true where the population is young, idle, and bored; where… — Lawrence Wright
Game, noun: Any unserious occupation designed for the relaxation of busy people and the distraction of idle ones. It's used to take people to whom… — Unknown Author
The Californians are an idle, thriftless people, and can make nothing for themselves. The country abounds in grapes, yet they buy, at a great price,… — Richard Henry Dana, Jr.
It is idle to await unanimity. — Robert Dale Owen
People who truly have control over time always have some in their pocket to give to someone in need. A sense of priorities drives their… — Scott Berkun
Whatever work you undertake to do in your lifetime, it is very important that first you have a passion for it - you know, get… — Julius Sumner Miller
EVERY intention which does not assert itself by deeds is a vain intention, and the speech which expresses it is idle speech. It is action… — Eliphas Levi
Edwidge Danticat's prose has a Chekhovian simplicity--an ability to state the most urgent truths in a measured and patiently plain style that gathers a luminous… — Madison Smartt Bell
Not to be lost in idle admiration is the only sure means of making and preserving happiness. — Horace
Today, I am an inquisitor. I shall not sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution. — Barbara Jordan
We throw all our attention on the utterly idle question whether A has done as well as B, when the only question is whether A… — William Graham Sumner
From secrecy and deception in high places; come home, America. From military spending so wasteful that it weakens our nation; come home, America. From the… — George McGovern
It does not mean that there will be no work if we turn life into a celebration. It is not that the wind does not… — Rajneesh
Books, not which afford us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual daring; such as an idle man cannot read, and… — Henry David Thoreau
The devil finds work for idle hands. — Henry David Thoreau
Whenever I produce my best work, it's always because I've spent time being idle. Something always emerges after nothing. — Will Self
I'm not very happy idle. There's always this voice in my head that says, 'I should be writing. — Harlan Coben
The real people of genius were resolute workers not idle dreamers. — George Henry Lewes
Idle dreaming is often of the essence of what we do. — Thomas Pynchon
We will be better men, braver and less idle, if we believe that one must search for the things one does not know, rather than… — Plato
Being by his faith replaced afresh in paradise and created anew, he (the believer)does not need works for his justification, but that he may not… — Martin Luther
True belief and true repentance are twins: it would be idle to attempt to say which is born first. All the spokes of a wheel… — Charles Spurgeon
No man has a right to be idle. Where is it that in such a world as this, that health, and leisure, and affluence may… — William Wilberforce

Who Wrote These Idle Quotes

328 authors contributed a total of 438 Idle Quotes, led by these top contributors: