"Laziness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... good cause. Upon his friends R. H. D. had the same effect. And it was not only in proximity that he could distribute energy, but from afar, by letter and cable. He had some intuitive way of knowing just when you were slipping into a slough of laziness and discouragement. And at such times he either appeared suddenly upon the scene, or there came a boy on a bicycle, with a yellow envelope and a book to sign, or the postman in his buggy, or the telephone rang and from the receiver there poured ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... these two went off to search the fir-wood, but nobody dared to speak or stir, for Swan was still close underneath, so close that they could hear him grumbling to himself over the laziness of a woman who had been hired to weed the walks for him, and was slowly scratching ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... can with the gifts at her disposal. I should leave it at that, if I had not to take into consideration a grave charge brought against her. She is accused of having lost, for want of use and through laziness, the workman's tools with which, so we are told, she was originally endowed. Finding it to her advantage to do nothing, bringing up her family free of expense, to the detriment of others, she is alleged to have gradually inspired her race with an abhorrence ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... just saying that we shall miss you so much this summer. That you're always our stand-by. It's Rob who gets up the rides and picnics, and comes over and stirs us out of our laziness by making us go fishing and walking and tennis-playing. I'm afraid we'll simply go into our shells and stay there after ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... had rebelled against a vacation on a farm, but his carriage was better and his figure sturdier, and his hands weren't half so white and gentlemanlike. Underneath his lazy ease was a hint of something to depend on in an emergency. Perhaps even his laziness wasn't so ingrained as ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... lengthiest details as to the nature and office of Amtsvorstehers, details that were perfectly incomprehensible and wholly indifferent to Anna, and spared neither himself nor her. While he talked, however, he was criticising her, comparing the laziness of her attitude with the brisk and respectful alertness of other women when he talked. He knew that these other women belonged to a different class; his wife, the parson's wife, the wives of the inspectors on other estates, these were not, of course, in the same sphere as ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... "Shame on your laziness, dad!" said Shiela, as Cardross looked after her in pretended pity; "anybody can shoot ducks from a boat, but it takes real hunters to stalk turkeys! I suppose Eudo loads for you and Gray pulls ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... used the discretion of the animals. For ages men have been taught what is good for their bodies and their minds and their souls. There has been no question about the wisdom of being temperate and industrious and honest and kind; and the folly of immoderation and laziness and chicanery and meanness is so well known that a geometrical proposition has not been more definitely proved. Yet only a few people in any community observe the rules of life, and of these few no one observes ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... intimate in the house, made his way up there and Sir John Purefoy joined the party. Sir John was a hunting man who lived in the county and was an old friend of the family. Lady Purefoy hunted also, and came in later. Arabella was the last,—not from laziness, but aware that in this way the effect might be the best. Lord Rufford was in the room when she entered it and of course she addressed herself to him. "Which is it to be, Lord Rufford, ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... investigating; the shoddiest goods were worth owning at a price; the least attractive prospect had to be faced and understood, for any commodity becomes a bargain when the price is right. There was no room for laziness or indulgence in her life. There was also no ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... authority for child, pupil, apprentice and soldier. The negro slave as a workman got less of it than any other class. It was the rule of a Southern master never to use the rod on a slave except for crime if it could be avoided. To flog one for laziness was ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... good and plenty, get specific directions and follow them. Most people won't read directions; more can't follow them. Those people have their knives out for "book farmers and professors," but you can't improve on experience and experiment by the light of laziness or of nature. ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... towns, and getting the trade into their hands, are indeed more industrious and effective than the Mexicans; yet their children are brought up Mexicans in most respects, and if the "California fever'' (laziness) spares the first generation, it is ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... are particularly galling to some Englishmen. The sort of faults which the average Englishman is least willing to condone are unpunctuality, untidiness, promises not kept, inexact answers and false excuses, forgetfulness of favours received but fresh favours asked for, slovenly work, laziness, and obstinacy. When the missionary first meets his flock he sees pleasant and courteous manners, and readiness to please and to obey, a certain aptitude and handiness in work, a real spirit of devotion, and many such-like qualities. The dark skin, the picturesque dress or absence ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... we do more with less perplexity. Sloth makes all things difficult, but Industry all things easy, as POOR RICHARD says: and He that riseth late, must trot all day; and shall scarce overtake his business at night. While Laziness travels so slowly, that Poverty soon over-takes him, as we read in POOR RICHARD who adds, Drive thy business! Let not that drive thee! and Early to bad and early to rise, Makes a ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... shall form one grand collection of specimens and deposit it in the British Museum or some other public place, and this main object being always kept in view, we are at liberty to collect and work for ourselves as we please. Depend upon it unless some sudden attack of laziness supervenes, such an opportunity shall not slip unused out of my hands. The great difficulty in such a wide field is to choose an object. In this point, however, I hope to be greatly assisted by the scientific folks, to many of whom I have already had introductions (Owen, Gray, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... hung over everything, the furniture, the ceilings, the woodwork could be seen, already faded and still new. Spots on the crumpled satins, ashes staining the beautiful marbles, dirty footmarks on the carpets. It reminded one of a huge first-class railway carriage incrusted with all the laziness, the impatience, the boredom of a long journey, and all the wasteful, spoiling disdain of the public for a luxury for which it has paid. In the middle of this set scene, still warm from the atrocious comedy played there every day, his own ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... may interest the reader to mention a valuable discovery which was the result of laziness! A man who was employed in a tin-smelting establishment at this laborious work of stirring the molten metal in order to purify it, accidentally discovered that a piece of green wood dropped into it had the effect of causing ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... he continues, "is to be limited to some particular parts of the world."[193] And again: "Bad laws have made lazy men—they have been reduced to slavery because of their laziness." The first portion of this remark—that bad laws have made lazy men—is not applicable to the African race. For they were made lazy, not by bad laws, but by the depravity of human nature, in connection and co-operation with long, long centuries of ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... so much the ponderous laziness of Peter's time as an opposition polite and elastic, which never ranted and never stood up,—for then Nicholas would have throttled it and stamped upon it. But it did its best to entangle his reason and thwart ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... the distance in sixteen days. For it was not the donkeys that proved recreant to my confidence; they, poor animals, carrying a weight of 150 lbs. each, arrived at Simbamwenni in first-rate order; but it was Maganga, composed of greed and laziness, and his weakly-bodied tribe, who were ever falling sick. In dry weather the number of marches might have been much reduced. Of the half-dozen of Arabs or so who preceded this Expedition along this route, two accomplished the entire distance in eight days. From ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... night at Lady Buckingham's, and am ashamed of my laziness in not going. I dine with his Lordship on Saturday, and to-day I am going with Mie Mie and Mrs. W(ebb) to Mr. Gregg's, who has got a little ball for a dozen children of her age, because it is the birthday ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... hotly. "I do! She was thrown out of her buggy through your negligence and infernal laziness! The ponies ran away, and were stopped by a stranger who wasn't afraid of risking his bones, while you were limping around somewhere like a ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... but an idle god, I guess, Since all the fair midsummer of my dreams He loiters listlessly by woody streams, Soaking the lush glooms up with laziness; Or drowsing while the maiden-winds caress Him prankishly, and powder him with gleams Of sifted sunshine. And he ever seems Drugged with a joy unutterable— unless His low pipes whistle hints of it far out Across the ripples to the dragon-fly That like a wind-born blossom ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... The "laziness" of her husband, as Mrs. Parker did not hesitate so call it, annoyed his good wife. She did not find things any easier—she could not retire from business. In fact, the new order of things made her a great ...
— The Last Penny and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... upward chips and slivers from a beam. How awkward! at what disadvantage he works! But see him on the ground, dressing his timber under him. Now, not his feeble muscles, but the force of gravity brings down the axe; that is to say, the planet itself splits his stick. The farmer had much ill-temper, laziness, and shirking to endure from his hand-sawyers, until, one day, he bethought him to put his saw-mill on the edge of a waterfall; and the river never tires of turning his wheel: the river is good-natured, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... my good and loving nurse saved my life, I must ever remember with deep gratitude. There are stages of fever, when, as they say, "a nurse is everything;" and a very little laziness, selfishness, or inattention on Nurse Bundle's part would probably have been my death-warrant. But night and day she never relaxed her vigilance for one instant of the crisis of my malady. She took nothing for granted, would ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Mere spiritual laziness is at the bottom of much failure in religion. There is no success anywhere in life save through the constant pressure of the will driving a reluctant and protesting set of nerves and muscles to their ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... who has freed himself from the fetters of the thoughtlessness and stupidity of the commonplace; he who can stand without moral crutches, without the approval of public opinion—private laziness, Friedrich Nietzsche called it—may well intone a high and voluminous song of independence and freedom; he has gained the right to it through fierce and fiery battles. These battles already begin ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... mystery and suspense and ceaseless action; even if the style and concept of these yarns be grossly lacking in certain approved elements. So the tale be written with strong evidence of sincerity and with a dash of enthusiasm, why grudge it a small place of its own in readers' hours of mental laziness? ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... acquaintance," said Lady Dalrymple, with a smile, and not taking the Baron's offered hand—not, however, from pride, but simply from laziness—for she hated the bother, and didn't ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... doubt whether to reckon the Peucini, Venedi, and Fenni among the Germans or Sarmatians; [267] although the Peucini, [268] who are by some called Bastarnae, agree with the Germans in language, apparel, and habitations. [269] All of them live in filth and laziness. The intermarriages of their chiefs with the Sarmatians have debased them by a mixture of the manners of that people. [270] The Venedi have drawn much from this source; [271] for they overrun in their predatory excursions ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... and laughed, while Mrs. Kew said, confidentially, as the couple moved away: "She needn't be a reflectin' on the poor beast. That's Mis' Seth Tanner, and there isn't a woman in Deep Haven nor East Parish to be named the same day with her for laziness. I'm glad she didn't catch sight of me; she'd have talked about nothing for a fortnight." There was a picture of a huge snake in Deep Haven, and I was just wondering where he could be, or if there ever ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... present comfort, but also because it was getting a principle with her, as apparently with many middle-aged Englishwoman, that she must always be going abroad. Yet she knew that Miss Gurney did not particularly want to have her, and had invited her more from laziness than ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... It strikes one as curious that people should be ready to sympathize with the slouch who lets his place go to ruin out of laziness, and never think of the storekeepers' just claim on the money he's wasted. Anyway, there's nothing to stop people from bidding; but, in case they hold off, we have fixed up how we'll ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... always yelling—generally imprecations of a serio-comic character. He rarely flogs his mules; but when one of them rouses his indignation by extraordinary laziness, he roars out, "Come here, Judge, with a big club, and give him h——ll." Whilst the animal is receiving such discipline as comes up to the judge's idea of the infernal regions, Mr Sargent generally remarks, "I wish you was Uncle Abe, I'd ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... real play itself; but Robson was nervous of venturing on a purely "legitimate" role. I was half persuaded to write a burlesque on "A New Way to pay Old Debts," and Robson had promised to do his very best with Sir Giles; but a feeling, half of laziness, and half of reverence for the fine old drama, came over me, and I never got farther than ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... wholly unnecessary. You can take charge of one watch, yourself, you know, and your mate will of course command the other, so that you can have no possible use for a second mate. Why, a smart, active young fellow like you ought to be ashamed of such an act of laziness as the carrying of a second mate. Pay the man his wages, if you please, and let him pass into ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... hookworm eradicated by a few simple improvements in sanitation. Dr. Stiles had long been advocating such a campaign as an indispensable preliminary to improving Southern life. But the humorous aspect of the hookworm always interfered with his cause; the microbe of laziness had ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... quite sure whether this is not an encouragement to laziness on the part of the reader. In most respects he is as well able to picture the future of Jeffreys, and Raby, and Percy, and ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... industrious?" their mother would ask, but in tones so sweet and so kindly that she seemed ready to pity laziness as a misfortune, and to glance through tears at the child who ...
— La Grenadiere • Honore de Balzac
... is present with him. How he delights in the law of God with his inward mind, and yet finds another law in his body, warring against the law of God, and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin. How he is crippled by old bad habits, weakened by cowardice, by laziness, by vanity, by general inability of will, till he is ready,—disgusted at himself and his own weakness,—to cry, Who shall deliver me from the body of ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... of the movement. I have always been, am, and propose to remain a mere scholar. All that I have ever proposed to myself is to say, This and this have I learned, thus and thus have I learned it; go thou and learn better; but do not thrust on my shoulders the responsibility for your own laziness if you elect to take, on my authority, conclusions the value of which you ought to have ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... up into the sky to distract her adversary. Much the same as this was also done by certain Californians." [316] "At a lunar eclipse the Orinoko Indians seized their hoes and laboured with exemplary vigour on their growing corn, saying the moon was veiling herself in anger at their habitual laziness." [317] The umbrated moon did good in this way: as many of us remember the beautiful comet of 1858 did good, when it frightened some trembling Londoners into a speedy settlement of old debts, in anticipation of the final account. Ellis says of the Tahitians: "An eclipse ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... F. Apthorp gives us an ingenious explanation in "The Opera Past and Present." He says that after Tell Rossini's pride would not allow him to return to his earlier Italian manner, while the hard work needed to produce more Tells was more than his laziness could stomach.... Perhaps, but it must be remembered that Rossini did not retire to his library or his music room, but to his kitchen. The simple explanation is that he preferred cooking to composing, a fact easy to believe ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... blessings, is justly appropriated to induustry and temperance; the refreshing rest, and the peaceful night, are the portion only of him who lies down weary with honest labour, and free from the fumes of indigested luxury; it is the just doom of laziness and gluttony, to be inactive without ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... company, though not without grudging, paid the poet the stipulated share of profit; and the curious document, recovered by Mr. Malone, not only establishes the terms of the bargain, but that the players, although they complained of the laziness of their indented author, were jealous of their right to his works, and anxious to retain possession of him, and of them.[26] It would have been well for Dryden's reputation, and perhaps not less productive to the company, had the number of his plays been still further abridged; ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... sleeps?" asked the young man. "A fool you are, and a fool you will remain," replied the eagle. "Are you not yet aware that God has created him for the express purpose of guarding the hell-hounds? It is from sheer laziness that he sleeps for seven weeks at a stretch. When he has no stranger as a servant, he will be obliged to rouse himself and do ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... recitation and why he had not dared to tell her his recent marks. She trusted him so thoroughly now that she did not stop him so often when he talked, instead of working. If she had guessed the real reason of his laziness, she would have been honestly disappointed in him. This was the tragedy of it. He could never let her suspect that he was not still fooling the Rho house. She was a girl entirely without sentimentality—this was what he liked in her at first, ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... replied. "It is a fit of sheer laziness. I ought to be elsewhere, but I was born without a conscience. If I had one I should try to quiet it by reminding it that I am fulfilling a long-delayed promise—I am making a garden for Mrs. Larrabbee. You know her, of course, since she is ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Thorndyke, "this is mere laziness. Berkeley wants to witness a display of your forensic wisdom. A learned counsel may be in a fog—he very often is—but he doesn't state the fact baldly; he wraps it up in a decent verbal disguise. Tell us how you arrive at your ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... on the table before me,—fresh gathered roses,—the pride of my gardener's heart. Little Fanchon is at my feet, too idle to eat the biscuits with which I am trying to tempt her,—biscuits from Boston, sent to me by kind Mrs. S., and which Fanchon ought to like; but you know her laziness of old, and she improves in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... of Madam de Vercellis nearly as I had entered it, I returned to my former hostess, and remained there five or six weeks; during which time health, youth, and laziness, frequently rendered my temperament importunate. I was restless, absent, and thoughtful: I wept and sighed for a happiness I had no idea of, though at the same time highly sensible of some deficiency. This situation is indescribable, few men ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... being English myself, I know it is connected with weaknesses as well as merits. In its irony there is condescension and therefore embarrassment. This patronage is allied to the patron, and the patron is allied to the aristocratic tradition of society. The larks are a variant of laziness because of leisure; and the leisure is a variant of the security and even supremacy of the gentleman. When an undergraduate at Oxford smashes half a hundred windows he is well aware that the incident is merely a ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... tin foil round it. [Laughter.] You can see, upon close inspection, the mark of the planer on his well-turned sentences. Now, the competition with gentlemen who are so cultivated is severe upon one who must speak absolutely upon the impulse of the occasion. It is either incapacity or downright laziness that has kept me from competing in the ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... - I know I am a rogue and the son of a dog. Yet let me tell you, when I came here I had a week's misery and a fortnight's illness, and since then I have been more or less busy in being content. This is a kind of excuse for my laziness. I hope you will not excuse yourself. My plans are still very uncertain, and it is not likely that anything will happen before Christmas. In the meanwhile, I believe I shall live on here 'between the sandhills and the sea,' as I think Mr. Swinburne hath it. I was pretty nearly slain; my spirit ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to the laziness of fallen man, is that of fishing down-stream, and not up. What Mr. Stewart says on this point should be read by every tyro. By fishing up-stream, even against the wind, he will on an average kill twice as many trout as when fishing down. If trout are out and feeding ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... well know, recalls them to the boat in which they were sent out. The instant this is heard the ducks come trooping in as fast as possible, followed by their pupils. In order to encourage them to be punctual, the first duck is rewarded with something nice, but the last one is whipped for its laziness. And it is said to be very funny to see how the ducks will waddle, and run, and fly over each other's backs, that they may escape the punishment which they know awaits the ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")
... that of Diogenes, the Cynic, was not very discrepant when he defined lechery—The occupation of folk destitute of all other occupation. For this cause the Sicyonian sculptor Canachus,[225] being desirous to give us to understand that slowth drowsiness, negligence, and laziness, were the prime guardians and governesses of ribaldry, made the statue of Venus, not standing, as other stone-cutters had ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... noteworthy that this "life-ideal" seems to have led, inevitably, to fanaticism and other excesses, so that even at this early date there was much occasion for alarm. Gross immorality was disclosed as well as luminous purity; indolence and laziness as well as the love of sacrifice and toil. So we shall find it down through the centuries. "The East had few great men," says Milman, "many madmen; the West, madmen enough, but still very many, many great men." We have ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... so besotted with your philosophy and your heathenry, and your laziness, and your contempt for God and man, that you will see your nation given up for a prey, and your wealth plundered by heathen dogs? I tell you, Cyril has sworn that God shall do so to him, and more also, if there ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... it was an idle life; and if I myself were not inclined to sloth and laziness, I would never countenance ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... with admiration to the bed which she had dug up that morning, and complained of the laziness of the gardener: he had not done this nor that, but he was such a good man—since he became ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... come first, as one might say, with a sort of dizziness in his foot, then he had a kind of laziness in his joints, and then his leg broke out, and then it swelled, and then it closed again, and then it broke out again, and then it festered, and then it grew better, and then it grew ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar
... of us such a burden to have the management of our own fate, the forming of our own opinions, the fearful responsibility of our own destiny, that we are all only too ready to say to some man or other, from love or from laziness, 'Where thou goest, I will go; thy people shall be my people, and thy ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... in action. The Master points out that while "there must be no laziness, but constant activity in good work ... it must be your own duty that you do—not another man's, unless with his permission and by way of helping him." The teacher has, however, a special duty in this connection; for while he must offer to his boys ...
— Education as Service • J. Krishnamurti
... Chinese proverb that if one man lives in laziness another will die of hunger; and Montesquieu has said, "The fact that many men are occupied in making clothes for one individual is the cause of there being many people without clothes." So one explains the other. We cannot understand the starved and runty ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... them, intermarried with them, and from these had gradually grown up a band of as mongrel, miserable vagabonds as is often seen. They were the terror of the neighborhood. Except for their supreme laziness, they would have been as dangerous as brigands; for they were utter outlaws. No man cared for them; and they cared for no man. Parson Dorrance's heart yearned over these poor Ishmaelites; and he determined to see if they ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... of least resistance seems against it; our laziness, and our wish to think well of ourselves merely because we are ourselves, undoubtedly go against it, as they do against everything in the world worth having. In our own day certain ways of thinking, culminating in development ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... schools for officers of all ranks, with a two-hour course each day in law, military art, etc. There is little taste for military life in France; such a procedure would lessen it. The leisure of army life attracts three out of four officers, laziness, if you like. But such is the fact. If you make an officer a school-boy all his life he will send his profession to the devil, if he can. And those who are able to do so, will in general be those who have received the best education. An army is an extraordinary thing, but since ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... date (November 5th), which amply indemnifies my patience - nay, almost makes me amends for your blindness; for I think, unless you had totally lost your eyes, you would not refuse me a pleasure so easy to yourself as now and then sending me a drawing. I can't call it laziness; one may be too idle to amuse one's self, but sure one is never so fond of idleness as to prefer it to the power of obliging a person one loves! And yet I own your letter has made me amends, the wit of your ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... because it conflicts with the rights of the joint family, and is a serious blow to all the old Hindu family privileges. The Hindu joint family system, while it has been a source of some blessing to the land, has also been a serious curse in that it has fostered laziness, dissension and improvidence, and has put a ban upon individual initiative ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... "Laziness, I guess,—too much work," said old Cap'n Billy. "What he wants is a wife with money. There ain't a better doctor anywhere. I've heard 't up to Boston, where he got his manifest, they thought everything of him. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... married to Hector Vaucogne, by whom she had one daughter, Elodie. She was thirty years of age before she had any suspicion of the calling of her parents, and at that time she took over the management of their establishment. She proved a capable manager, and in spite of the laziness of her husband, was able to keep up the reputation of the house, though in a few years she killed herself with ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... felt tired, they called it laziness and felt disgraced, and thus they had spent their days, working, working from the gray dawn, until the darkness came again, and all for what? When in after years these girls, broken in health and in spirits, slipped away to premature graves, or, worse still, settled ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... manual labor was strongly developed in the boy as he grew older, which his father considered simple laziness. Instead of trying to cure him of his laziness, however, the father decided to give up the farm, and open a store, hoping that the boy would take more kindly to mercantile duties. So he put up a building in Bethel, and in partnership ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... faithful member of the Little Fire order (Ma-ke-tsa-na-kwe), but he grew careless, neglected his sacrifices, and resigned his rank as "Keeper of the Medicines," from mere laziness. In vain his fathers warned him. He only grew hot with anger. One day Mi-tsi went up on the mesas to cut corral posts. He sat down to eat his dinner. A great black bear walked out of the thicket near at hand and leisurely approached ...
— Zuni Fetiches • Frank Hamilton Cushing
... that anybody can be right who differs from you. You've sponged on me for a long time; but I suppose I've learned something from you, so we'll call it even. I think, however, that what you call acting according to impulse is simply an excuse to cover your own laziness.' ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... loiter away their lives, like Soloman's sluggard, with their arms across, and at the winding up of the year scarcely have bread to eat. To speak the truth, tis a thorough aversion to labor that makes people file off to North Carolina, where plenty and a warm sun confirm them in their disposition to laziness for their whole lives."[189] The gangs of outlaws that infested North Carolina during the early years of the 18th century and defied the authority of the governors, were composed largely of runaway servants from Virginia. The laxness and ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... exacted from them the maximum amount of work they were capable of performing. They granted them no privileges, allowed them no holidays, except those required by the law, and never permitted the slightest approach to laziness. Chauncey Jerome's master proved no exception to the rule, and when the boy exhibited an unusual proficiency and quickness in his trade, the only notice his employer took of it was to require more work of him. When only a little over sixteen years old, this boy was able to do ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... the kind, degree, and cause of the fault: take for instance the ordinary fault of laziness. This would be treated very differently when it arose from mental defects—from a tendency to love other things, great or grovelling, or from a ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... in the New Salem grocery store during which there was nothing for him to do, and was therefore in circumstances that made laziness almost inevitable. Had people come to him for goods, they would have found him willing to sell them. He sold all ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... influence was not very great. What chiefly concerns us here is to note Schiller's awakening interest in historical studies. In the spring of 1786, during an absence of the Koerners which deprived him of his wonted inspiration, he found himself unable to work. Letter after letter tells of laziness and mental vacuity. As he could do nothing else he took to desultory reading, and this did not satisfy him. 'Really', he wrote on the ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... former confidence in God, which was founded upon such wonderful experience as I had had of His goodness; as if He that had fed me by miracle hitherto could not preserve, by His power, the provision which He had made for me by His goodness. I reproached myself with my laziness, that would not sow any more corn one year than would just serve me till the next season, as if no accident could intervene to prevent my enjoying the crop that was upon the ground; and this I thought so just a reproof, that ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... breeds laziness, but it also calls out quick passion and the fire of excitement. Catching the inspiration of the boy's earnest spirit, the whole assemblage of knights and barons, prelates and people, shouted their approval, and the ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... "It's not laziness, it's wisdom," said Langdon. "What's the use of working when you don't have to, especially in a June as hot as this one is? I conserve my energy. Besides, I'm going to take care of myself in ways that you fellows don't know ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the many years she had been in England had not made good old Anna think better of English people, and, as was natural, her prejudices had lately become much intensified. She lived in a chronic state of wonder over the laziness, the thriftlessness, and the dirt of Englishwomen. She had described those among whom she dwelt to her niece Minna in the following words: "They wash themselves from head to foot each day, but more never. Their houses are dreadful, ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... trotting along. I do not know why on this first trip he never showed the one of his two most prominent traits—his laziness. As I found out later on, so long as I drove him single (he changed entirely in this respect when he had a mate), he would have preferred to be hitched behind, with me between the shafts pulling buggy and him. That was his weakness, but in it there also ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... school this year,—couldn't afford books and clothes, and couldn't spare their work. There go part of them to the fields now,—three big boys astride mules, and a strapping girl with bare brown legs. Careless ignorance and laziness here, fierce hate and vindictiveness there;—these are the extremes of the Negro problem which we met that day, and we scarce knew ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... for the black inhabitants of the West Indies, than that of these settlers, I very much doubt. They are not a hard-working people, it is true; but hard work in the climate of the tropics is unnatural, and can only be brought about by unnatural means. That they are not sunk in utter laziness one can see by their neat cottages and trim gardens. Their state does not correspond with the idea of prosperity of the political economist, who would have them work hard to produce sugar, rum, and tobacco, that they might earn money to spend in ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... those days,' I answered, shaking my bridle, for Covenant was beginning to show signs of laziness. 'But here comes one who might perhaps tell us ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Besides, the laziness and incapacity of the negro had been more than he could endure. With no ties of tradition or habits of life to bind him, he simply refused to tolerate them. In this feeling Elsie had grown early to sympathize. She discharged Aunt Cindy for feeding her children from the kitchen, ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... heaven, he will be sure to take care for you and yours. I know your excuse is, that having procured for him the accustomed services of the Church, you need do no more for him; for you verily believe he is already in a blessed state. But this is rather a poor shift to excuse your own sloth and laziness, than that you believe it to be so in good earnest. For there is no man, says Origen, but the Son of God, can guess how long, or how many ages, a soul may stand in need of the purgation of fire. Mark the word ages; he seems to believe that a soul may, ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... means do it; you must put on a Joshua's generous and holy resolution, "That whatever others do, you and your house will serve the Lord." You must consider upon it, that well-set speeches concerning the covenant, is not what you are principally to study, but well-set hearts; you must shake off laziness as well as hypocrisy. ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery
... element, it is due to the indolence of the people. I have not yet seen any vestiges of buildings, topes, etc. to indicate that Candahar has ever been a very populous place, the want of trees considering the ease with which they may be cultivated, is a strong evidence of the extreme laziness of the Affghans, who appear to me remarkably low in the scale of civilization; and in personal habits, ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... this subject. Some held that it was absurd to blame men for not being able, "when p'raps they couldn't if they wor to try." Others thought that they might have tried first before saying that "p'raps they couldn't." One admitted that it was nothing but laziness that had prevented him from learning, whereupon another opined that dirtiness had something to do with it too. But all agreed in wishing earnestly that they had learned the noble and useful art, and in regretting deeply that they had not been ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... children and baskets, sit in the shade of the knobby trees which stretch their trunk-like branches horizontally over the beach, forming a natural roof against sun and rain. The half-grown boys are too lively to enjoy contemplative laziness; gossip and important deliberations about pigs and sacrifices do not interest them, and they play about between the canoes, wade in the water, look for shells on the sand, or hunt crabs or fish in the reef. Thus an hour passes. The sun has ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... be twice bidden. The terrible result of his fling of just resentment sobered him completely. He knew, better than any one on board, how nearly the Good Hope had gone bodily down below their feet; and he could tell, by the laziness with which she met the sea, that the peril was by ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and called it laziness, working the harder to recover lost time, and as the hours glided by listening intently for the slightest sound from the quarry below that should indicate the coming of Ram with ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... he could; he must bear the agony and remorse silently from now on. The old laziness and indifference returned slowly as he retraced his steps, and when he entered the silent cabin again he went naturally to the crooked stairs leading up to the loft. The door was closed and locked! Mary had, in this final fashion, ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... began to learn Latin; one of his nightly exercises that he brought home with him being to get by heart a number of Latin words for vocabulary. After a few years he came into trouble with his master for laziness and truancy, and received a severe beating; his mother intervened and got the master dismissed from his post, and Butzbach ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... inhibition of immediate action is often necessary, in order to have time to think the matter over; this prudent attitude becomes a habit with some individuals. Besides, there are the negative motives of fear, shyness and laziness that tend to deter from the actual execution of a plan. Hamlet's "conscience" that makes "cowards of us all", so that "the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... other arts. If criticism is, generally speaking, praise, it is, more definitely, praise of the right things. Praise for the sake of praise is as great an evil as blame for the sake of blame. Indiscriminate praise, in so far as it is the result of distrust of one's own judgment or of laziness or of insincerity, is one of the deadly sins in criticism. It is also one of the deadly dull sins. Its effect is to make criticism ever more unreadable, and in the end even the publishers, who love silly sentences to quote about their bad ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... to work slowly; but he knows well, because his task is a day-long one, that his forces must be economised, that over-exertion must be avoided. This lesson was brought home to me when exasperated by the seeming laziness of the coolie cultivators, I would seize a man's hoe and fly at the work, hoe vigorously for perhaps five minutes, swear at the man for his lack of strenuousness, then retire and find myself puffing and blowing and almost in a state ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... suggestion or a new idea as an attack upon the Jennings Method. The overwhelming majority of the human race—indeed, all but a small handful—have this passion for stagnation, this ferocity against change. It is in large part due to laziness; for a new idea means work in learning it and in unlearning the old ideas that have been true until the unwelcome advent of the new. In part also this resistance to the new idea arises from a fear that the new idea, if tolerated, will put one out of business, will set him adrift without any means ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips |
