"Idleness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are very numerous, as it is reckoned there are at least five thousand of them in the city and its suburbs. These people seem naturally born for trade, and are great enemies to idleness, thinking nothing too hard or laborious that is attended with a prospect of gain. They can live on very little, are bold, enterprising, possessed of much address, and indefatigably industrious. Their sagacity, penetration, and subtilty, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... virtuous, and independent, why can't I be so too if I have any talent? It isn't exactly what I should choose, but any thing honest is better than idleness. I'll try it any way, and get a little fun, even if I don't make much money or glory ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... wishes his home to preserve and seclude his woman, his little harem of one; and in it she is to labor for his comfort or to manifest his ability to maintain her in idleness. The house is the physical expression of the limitations of women; and as such it fills the world with a small drab ugliness. A dwelling house is rarely a beautiful object. In order to be such, it should truly express simple and natural relations; or grow ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... in, the wife's wasteful cooking casts out. But the secondary wastes involve still heavier losses. Man's carelessness in the factory breaks delicate machinery, his ignorance spoils raw materials, his idleness burns out boilers, his recklessness blows up engines; and no skill of manager in juggling figures in January can retrieve the ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... and that the whole exhibition of the sex is just a little prononcee. They have no intellectual resort, but lead a life of decided ease and pleasure much too closely bordering upon the sensuous, their forced idleness being in itself an incentive to immorality and intrigue. The indifferent work they perform is light and simple; a little sewing and embroidery, followed by the siesta, divides the hours of the day. Those who can afford to keep their victorias wait until nearly sunset for a drive, ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... visits, it was not because she disliked or despised her own home life. She was too thoroughly conscious of the inevitable to groan over her lot, she was too strong in mind and body to desire luxurious idleness, and she never imagined that a woman could find occupation except in household duties. Her whole existence had made her so simple that she could never have comprehended that complicated state of mind which ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... got better I was anxious to get some work to do, as I was unwilling to eat the bread of idleness. Mrs. Mash, who was a laundress, recommended me to a lady for a charwoman. She paid me very handsomely for what work I did, and I divided the money with Mrs. Mash; for though very poor, they gave me food when my own money was done, and never ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... passions clearly foresee that, should the final disposition of Fiume prove unacceptable to the Jugoslavs, they will almost certainly divert the trade of the interior to some Slav port, leaving Fiume to drowse in idleness beside her moss-grown wharfs and crumbling warehouses, dreaming dreams of her ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... thought of the value of money until they have come to an end of it, and many do the same with their time. The hours are allowed to flow by unemployed, and then when life is fast waning, they bethink themselves of the duty of making a wiser use of it. But the habit of listlessness and idleness may already have become confirmed, and they are unable to break the bonds with which they have permitted themselves to become bound. Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... had said about my little lady's mare was very true. High- spirited she was at best of times, but a week's idleness and eating had made her fairly wicked; and as I looked out from the kitchen door to watch them start, I wished it was my business and not Martin's to see her safe on ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... and he danced upon a pine, And much I wondered how he lived, and where the beast might dine, And many, many other things, till, o'er my morning smoke, I slept the sleep of idleness and dreamed ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... obvious division of society is into rich and poor; and it is no less obvious, that the number of the former bear a great disproportion to those of the latter. The whole business of the poor is to administer to the idleness, folly, and luxury of the rich; and that of the rich, in return, is to find the best methods of confirming the slavery and increasing the burdens of the poor. In a state of nature, it is an invariable law, that a man's acquisitions ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... maintained, and alike in family as in State, must be opposed all that forms the essence of intellectual civilisation; that is to say, all that develops personal selfishness at the expense of collective interest—luxury, idleness, pleasure, celibacy, feminism, and at the same time, all that develops personality and intelligence at the expense of tradition—liberty of women, independence of children, variety of personal tendencies, and the critical spirit ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... Pillsbury, the fiery abolitionist from New Hampshire, broad-shouldered, dark-bearded, with blazing eyes and almost fanatical zeal, had become her devoted friend. He liked nothing better than to tease her about her idleness and pretend to be in search of more work for her ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... gouverner le Roy d'Angleterre par la nouvelle comtesse. Ils s'etoient assures d'elle." While Bonrepaux was writing thus, Rochester was writing as follows: "Oh God, teach me so to number my days that I may apply my heart unto wisdom. Teach me to number the days that I have spent in vanity and idleness, and teach me to number those that I have spent in sin and wickedness. Oh God, teach me to number the days of my affliction too, and to give thanks for all that is come to me from thy hand. Teach me likewise to number the days of this world's greatness, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... is as the broad seal of heaven attesting the completeness of His work on earth. It inaugurates His repose which is not the sign of His weariness, but of His having finished all which He was born to do. But that repose is not idleness. Rather it is ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... so well that I have nothing to add in excuse of my negligence or idleness, influenza or distraction, or, or, or—you know I explain myself better in person; and when I escort you home to your mother's house this autumn, late at night along the boulevards, I shall try to obtain your pardon. I ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... enormous bubble! Is blown and kept aloft, or burst and shattered By the bribed breath of a lewd soldiery! Chiefly of such, as from the frontiers far, (Which is the noblest station of true warriors) 380 In rank licentious idleness beleaguer City and Court, a venomed thorn i'the side Of virtuous kings, the tyrant's slave and tyrant, Still ravening for fresh largess! But with such What title claim'st thou, save thy birth? What merits 385 Which many a liegeman may not plead as well, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... content to accept this unstinted hospitality for a few days, while I ran over the town, the hills, and the paseos; but I could not consent to dally long eating the bread of idleness and charity. I observed that my friend Carlo was either the most prudent or least inquisitive man I knew, for he never asked me a question about my early or recent history. As he would not lend the conversation to my affairs, I one day took the liberty to inquire ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... that a long life's experience would hardly make it simpler. The man who has to earn his bread must fain resolve to adapt his studies to that end. His choice not often rests with him. But the unfortunate being cursed in youth with the means of idleness, yet without genius, without talents even, is terribly ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... enough of the respectable working life of the New World; but there never was sufficient money to take him back to Europe, even were it safe to go. Of late, however, he felt sure that he might venture, if he could only get cash for the journey. He wanted to drift back to the idleness and adventure and the "easy money" of the old anarchist days in Cadiz and Madrid. He was sick for the patio and the plaza, for the bull-fight, for the siesta in the sun, for the lazy glamour of the gardens and the red wine of Valladolid, for the redolent cigarette of the roadside tavern. This cold ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... into a towering passion, and used some very severe language which deeply wounded my mother's feelings. As he strode angrily from the room he said, "You need not expect anything else but to come to beggary if you keep a great fellow like that lazin' round in idleness, and I, for one, shall not pity you, depend on't." With these words he left the house, closing the door after him with a loud bang. It was indeed a welcome relief when he left us alone. My little sister ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... came here to earn something to help support them. These my ten brothers came after me. When each one left, our good mother hung a copper coin about his neck, and said, 'Remember that you are going to a town where there is much idleness among the shoemakers, masters and men. Whenever you are tempted to be idle or to be discouraged, remember what I tell you, KEEP PEGGING AWAY!' Behold, sire, the charm by which we have succeeded, by which we saved the village from your wrath, and ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... idle. Work for its own sake is not enough. It may turn men into machines—all clatter and monotony; or it may make them fussy nuisances. "A soulless activity," says Canon Ainger, "may save a man from vagrancy only by turning him into a thing; or it may keep him from idleness by making him an egotist." There is the man who, to use the common phrase, "sticks at it" with scarcely a competing thought or interest. He scorns ease, and lives laborious days. For what? I once heard it said, and I believe it was true, of a prosperous Yorkshireman, that ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... understand its insistence. So here the voices said only, "I wish—I wish," and "I choose this—and this," at windows; or, "If I had back my nickel...." "Don't you go expecting nothink!" And over these went the whirr of machinery, beat of treadles, throb of engines, or the silence of forced idleness, or of the disease of dereliction. It was a time of many pagan observances, as when some were decked in precious stuffs and some were ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale
... it. 'I begin to believe in the devil,' he said; 'nobody else could have saved Mrs. Rook.' Other people don't take that view. She has been celebrated in all the medical newspapers—and she has been admitted to come excellent almshouse, to live in comfortable idleness to a green old age. The best of it is that she shakes her head, when her wonderful recovery is mentioned. 'It seems such a pity,' she says; 'I was so fit for heaven.' Mr. Rook having got rid of his wife, is in excellent spirits. He is occupied in looking after an imbecile old gentleman; ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... expiration of the girl's apprenticeship, if the parents complained of her want of proficiency, the pious Sweater would attribute it to idleness or incapacity, and as the people were generally poor he seldom or never had any trouble with them. This was how he fulfilled the unctuous promise made to the confiding parents at the time the girl was handed over to his tender mercy—that he would ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... of an ordinary wet day was doubled by the shade and drip of the leafage. Autumn, this year, was coming in with rains. Gazing, in her enforced idleness, from the one window of the living-room, she could see various small members of the animal community that lived unmolested there—creatures of hair, fluff, and scale, the toothed kind and the billed ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... conduct of Omai to that which was expected! Abandoning his European dress, he quickly sank into idleness, barbarously employing his firearms either to assist the chief in his wars or to shoot those of his countrymen who had offended him. In three years he died, despised even by the savages it was supposed ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... hour later he was once more on his way to the hotel with a note from me for Daphne's maid, and the promise of half a sovereign, while the Mermaid and I stood at the top of the path which led down to the cove where the rest of my party were chafing in exasperated idleness—with the exception of Berry, that is. Prior to our arrival, he had been hovering about on the top of the cliff, but the instant he descried us, and while we were yet a great way off, he had retired ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... she was writing, that her copy-book presented by no means so good an appearance as usual; and never had Miss Day made out so poor a report for her. She carried it with much secret satisfaction to the little girl's father, and entered a long complaint of the child's idleness and inattention. ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... the brave, and never helps a man who does not help himself. It won't do to spend your time like Mr. Micawber, in waiting for something to "turn up." To such men one of two things usually "turns up:" the poorhouse or the jail; for idleness breeds bad habits, and clothes a man in rags. The poor spendthrift vagabond says to a ...
— The Art of Money Getting - or, Golden Rules for Making Money • P. T. Barnum
... flights of the soul cannot be taken through idleness, though they are taken in what would outwardly appear to be a great stillness. This stillness is but the necessary abstraction from physical activity, even from physical consciousness; but inwardly the spirit is in a great activity, a very ferment of ...
— The Golden Fountain - or, The Soul's Love for God. Being some Thoughts and - Confessions of One of His Lovers • Lilian Staveley
... idler, or on the way to Asakusa with the worthy wife. Is he fit for nothing?" Densuke was a mild man. To this man with a grievance his answer was soft. Besides he had no liking for the cook's knife stuck in the girdle, and handy to carve fish or flesh. He said—"Perchance the idleness is more in appearance than fact. Buying and selling on commission the task is an irregular one. It is true, however, that this Densuke has no settled labour. Alas! Former days in the service of a samurai are much to be regretted."—"Can you cook rice?" was the abrupt interruption. "This Densuke ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... thoughts, which otherwise might not be of the most pleasing nature, by means of sprightly tales and profitable reflections. Sages and men of sense spend their days in the delights of light and heavy literature, whereas dolts and fools waste time in sleep and idleness. And I purpose to ask thee a number of questions, concerning which we will, if it seems fit ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... Seymour, to study the profession of the law; but this dry kind of study was soon found to have no attractions for one of his volatile turn of mind. Something, however, was to be done to rescue from sheer idleness a youth of nineteen, with very narrow means, few friends, and no definite prospects; and, by the kindness of Dr. Wheelock, the pious founder of Dartmouth College, who had been the intimate friend of his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 327, August 16, 1828 • Various
... labour from agriculture to manufacture by interfering with, the restrictions imposed by the trade-guilds (which always aimed at making themselves close bodies), the object of such legislation being quite as much to prevent idleness as to relieve distress. Nevertheless, the evil grew. Sir Thomas More in his introduction to the Utopia, written early in the next reign, gives a vigorous sketch of the prevalent vagabondage just ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... afar—and his heart, if not the waves, is comparatively at peace. And oh! the wonders of the deep! Ocean! tame is the soul that loves not thee! grovelling the mind that scorns the joys thou impartest! To lean our head on the vessel's side, and in idleness of spirit ponder on bygone scene, that has brought us anything but happiness,—to gaze on the curling waves, as impelled by the boisterous wind, we ride o'er the angry waters, lashed by the sable keel ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... said Alison, who had, however, had experience enough not to be much alarmed at the prospect. Order was wont to come with her presence, and she hardly knew the aspect of tumultuous idleness or insubordination to unenforced authority; for her eye and voice in themselves brought cheerful discipline without constraint, and upheld by few punishments, for the strong influence took away the spirit ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... thing was done with, and when a letter arrived from the construction office, telling him to stay until he felt able to resume his work, resigned himself to rather dreary idleness. For some days his head ached and he could not go out; the other guests were engaged in the city and there was nobody to whom he could talk. He got badly bored, and it was a relief when one afternoon the gentleman ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... interesting, a fine, even a noble creature. The thought of a girl doing the sort of things she was doing made you reproach yourself for your idleness—your cowardice, I think you called it. Now what I'd like to discover is whether you've quite forgotten the impression she made—the ideal she ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... found the bicycle business left him some spare time, and the gasoline-powered carriages he had read of earlier came constantly into his mind in these periods of idleness.[4] He and Frank studied several books on gasoline engines, among them one by an English writer (title and author now unknown);[5] this described the Otto 4-stroke cycle as now used. Some engineers, however, were concerned because ...
— The 1893 Duryea Automobile In the Museum of History and Technology • Don H. Berkebile
... unhampered by her futile strivings. For the first time in her life, thanks to the hospitality of Aggie Lynch, secretly reinforced from the funds of Joe Garson, Mary found herself living in luxurious idleness, while her every wish could be gratified by the merest mention of it. She was fed on the daintiest of fare, for Aggie was a sybarite in all sensuous pleasures that were apart from sex. She was clothed with the most delicate richness for the first time as to ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... in two or three sketches, more out of idleness than because he wanted them, and succeeded admirably in seeming ignorant of the existence of the Princess Sofia and the husband whose surface of a blackguard was ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... stranger, whom a cruel doom has driven to your land; and let me live in your house as a servant; but treat me honourably, for I was once a king's daughter, and this my boy (as you have truly said) is of no common race. I will not be a charge to you, or eat the bread of idleness; for I am more skilful in weaving and embroidery than all ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... Removed to Cambridge His college friendships 1806. Aug.-Nov., prepares a collection of his poems for the press His visit to Harrowgate Southwell private theatricals Prints a volume of his poems; but, at the entreaty of Mr. Becher commits the edition to the flames 1807. Publishes 'Hours of Idleness' List of historical writers whose works he had perused at the age of nineteen Reviews Wordsworth's Poems Begins 'Bosworth Field,' an epic. Writes part of a novel 1808. His early scepticism Effect produced on his mind by the critique on 'Hours of Idleness,' in the Edinburgh Review Passes his time ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... that secularism, like other religions, needs an eschatology, and has produced one. A more energetic generation than ours looked forward to a gradual extension of busy industrialism over the whole planet; the present ideal of the masses seems to be the greatest idleness of the greatest number, or a Fabian farm-yard of tame fowls, or (in America) an ice-water-drinking gynaecocracy. But the superstition cannot flourish much longer. The period of expansion is over, and we must adjust our view of earthly providence to ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... enforced absence in the pursuit of vaudeville novelties. He was tireless and faithful as a watchdog, keeping awake by whittling at something no more fantastic than a clothespin. There were hundreds of them scattered about the house. It was the sole form his idleness took. He painted heads and eyes on them—cleverly, too—for Zoe, but as she grew older she began to disdain them, bullying him in much the fashion ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... thought of great importance," the Prince continued; "for it was very desirable that thou shouldst not imagine me coming to sit down upon thee, and in idleness fatten upon the fruits of thy industry. As something of even greater importance, thou shouldst know now, at this earliest moment of our intercourse, that I am abundantly able from what I have of goods and treasure to keep any condition I may choose to assume. Indeed ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... rather unjust to be angry with him for breaking them to pieces, when he can by no other device render them subservient to his amusement? He breaks them, not from the love of mischief, but from the hatred of idleness; either he wishes to see what his playthings are made of, and how they are made; or, whether he can put them together again, if the parts be once separated. All this is perfectly innocent; and it is a ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... enjoy themselves. And Seneca, speaking of the Roman youth of old, says, "They were always standing; nothing was taught them that they had to learn when seated." Were they of less account when they reached manhood? Have no fear, then, of this supposed idleness. What would you think of a man who, in order to use his whole life to the best advantage, would not sleep? You would say, "The man has no sense; he does not enjoy life, but robs himself of it. To avoid sleep, he rushes on his death." The two cases are parallel, for ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... charge to her and her good old governess, with some drawbacks, indeed, but not such as to distress her over much. The chief was at first Owen's nightly sorrows, his daily idleness over lessons, Lucilla's pride, and the exceeding daintiness of both children, which made their meals a constant vexation and trouble. But what was this compared with the charm of their dependence on her, and of hearing that newly-invented pet name, 'Sweet Honey,' ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Archipelago in safety, and were crossing the mouth of the Bay of Bengal, without having had any interruption to fine weather. Father Mathias had returned to Lisbon, when he quitted Ternicore, and, tired of idleness, had again volunteered to proceed as a missionary to India. He had arrived at Formosa, and shortly after his arrival, had received directions from his superior to return on important business to Goa, and thus it was that he fell ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... forty-eight-dollars-ninety-eight-cent complete outfit for a four-room flat; had a chat with a policeman; assisted at a runaway; advanced a nickel to a colored gentleman in distress; had my shoes shined by another; helped a child catch an escaped parrot—and still it wasn't nine! Idleness is a grinding occupation, especially on ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... application, he would disappear for several days, and even weeks, and when he revisited the library, he would look more withered and haggard than ever. The student felt interested by this account; he was leading rather a desultory life, and had all that capricious curiosity which springs up in idleness. He determined to make himself acquainted with this book-worm, and find out who and what ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... need it when one is broken in as I am. There's a joy in getting one's work behind one that the luxury of idleness does not know." ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... whole to its individual elements, the nation to the township, and the township to the citizen; which sought its ideal of life in the beautiful and the good, and, but too often, in the enjoyment of idleness; which attained its political development by intensifying the original individuality of the several cantons, and at length produced the internal dissolution of even local authority; which in its view of religion first invested the gods with human attributes, and then denied ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... and started to carry his pack back. Wind fair part of time. Part of time dangerously heavy. Landed on point running out from north shore. Wigwam poles. Have diarrhoea. All chilled. Not sure of way ahead, but not worried. Camped at 5 P.M. Nice camp in clump of balsam. Not craving bread so much. Idleness and a chance to think make us hungrier. Flies about gone. Proverb—On a wet ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... morning, and I was so closely attended by my mother and the women of the household, and so thickly veiled and so shy, that my eyes scarcely saw more ground than I trod on), in spite of all this, the eyes of love, or idleness, more properly speaking, that the lynx's cannot rival, discovered me, with the help of the assiduity of Don Fernando; for that is the name of the younger son of the ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... conscience acquitted her of all blame; but, whether it did or not, she always felt that if Hamish had been at home all this might have been prevented. She did not know how to help it. Sometimes her mother blamed her more than was quite fair for Dan's fits of wilfulness and idleness, and she longed for Hamish ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... discouragements many. The young man can hardly take care of himself. How can he take care of another? And, to the curse of modern society, before a young man is able to set up a home of his own, he is expected to have enough to support in idleness somebody else; when God intended that they should begin together, and jointly earn a livelihood. So, many of our young men are utterly discouraged, and utterly unfit ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... forth, 'this enforced idleness of mine? To think that weeks and weeks go by and I remain just where I was, when the loss of an hour used to seem to me an irreparable misfortune. I have such an appetite for knowledge, surely the unhappiest gift a man can be endowed with it leads ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... unfeeling wretch: "why go to the barracks and work for a morsel of bread; wash and mend the soldiers cloaths, an cook their victuals, and not expect to live in idleness on honest people's means. Oh I wish I could see the day when all such cattle were obliged to work hard and eat little; ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... was indeed satisfactory, daughter. But when you proceeded to point out to these plebeians how much of their misery arose from their own idleness, and ignorance, and dissoluteness, and abasement before those higher in station, and jealousy of the best among themselves—what said ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice. What we are accustomed to decry as great social evils, will, for the most part, be found to be but the outgrowth of man's own perverted life; and though we may endeavour to cut them down and extirpate them by means of Law, they will only spring up again with fresh luxuriance ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... with shame I here set down the fact, that many weeks passed before I came to understand, in ever so slight a degree, what a milksop I must be, thus eating the bread of idleness when I should have won the right, by labor, to ...
— Richard of Jamestown - A Story of the Virginia Colony • James Otis
... brought out again, and so on more capriciously perhaps than any other home-made article. Nobody was expected to finish a rug within a calculable period, and the wools of the beginning became faded and historical before the end was reached. A sense of this inherent nature of worsted-work rather than idleness led Anne to look rather frequently from ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... laughing, and no discontent with the day's sport is exhibited even if there be little to show for the skill and patience expended. There is further occupation in superintending vintage and harvest, while the orange-groves and luxuriant gardens offer plenty of resources for exercise or idleness. Plant-life in Portugal is singularly varied even for so warm a country. To the native orange, olive and other trees of Southern Europe have been added many exotics. The large magnolia of our Southern States, the Japanese ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... municipal ownership of the springs and the lands, and the public control in everything. It condemned the aristocratic constitution of the municipality, but it charged heavily in favor of the purity, beneficence, and wisdom of the administration, under which there was no poverty and no idleness, and which was managed like any ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... inland lake. Occasionally a busy little tug would bustle up or down, a gunboat move along with noiseless dignity, suggestive of a reserved power, or a schooner beat lazily from one side to the other. But these were so few as to make even more pronounced the customary idleness that hung over the scene. The tug's activity seemed spasmodic and forced—a sort of protest against the gradually increasing lethargy that reigned upon the bosom of the waters —the gunboat floated ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... and to acquaint themselves with the bravest fellows; for if not for these causes, I see no other causes why they should sit at their dores, from morning till noon (as many do), from noon to night, thus vainly spending their golden dayes in filthy idleness and sin. Againe, other some being weary of that exercise, take occasion (about urgent affaires you must suppose) to walke into the towne, and least anything might be gathered, but that they goe about serious matters indeed, they ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... and Wisdom laid. These are the basements firm whereon is stayed, Supreme and strong, our new philosophy; The antidotes against that trinal lie Wherewith the burdened world groaning is weighed. Famine, war, pestilence, fraud, envy, pride, Injustice, idleness, lust, fury, fear, Beneath these three great plagues securely hide. Grounded on blind self-love, the offspring dear Of Ignorance, they flourish and abide:— Wherefore to root up Ignorance ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
... has, for nigh thirty years, hunted, badgered, insulted, and imprisoned in almost every capital of Europe, and yet no sooner liberated than, like a giant refreshed, he again returns to his old toil, never weary wherever the bread of idleness can be eaten, and where a lie will pay for ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... said, "your idleness is incorrigible and your stupidity beyond example. You are a disgrace to your school, and to your family, and I have no doubt will prove so in after-life to your country. If that vice, sir, which is described to us as the root of all ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... night—(another sign of the times; women no longer "play for love," but "love to play!")—to say nothing of the constant strain on one's nerves as to what the weather was going to do to one's gowns, I have had a severe attack of overwork, with complicating symptoms of my old enemy, idleness!—so that, on my return to town, my Doctor—(he's a dear man, and prescribes just what I suggest)—insisted that I should at once run down to the Seaside to recuperate. Hence my retirement to the little fishing village of Sheepsdoor ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, July 2, 1892 • Various
... Senora Barenna. She evidently had a keen sense of the romantic, and hoped for something more tragic than a mere flirtation begotten of idleness at sea. ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... loving Proteus: Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits. Were't not affection chains thy tender days To the sweet glances of thy honour'd love, I rather would entreat thy company To see the wonders of the world abroad, Than, living dully sluggardiz'd at home, Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness. But since thou lov'st, love still, and thrive therein, Even as I would, when I ...
— The Two Gentlemen of Verona • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... ignorance and disfranchise that. If the negro be vicious, you may define vice and disfranchise that. If the negro be poor, you may define poverty and disfranchise that. If the negro be idle, you may define idleness and disfranchise that. If the negro be lazy, you may define laziness and disfranchise that. If you will only disfranchise him for the qualities which you say unfit him to vote and not for his race or the color of his skin there is no Constitutional ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... John Broom's discovery was passed, and his character at school gave no hopes of his ever qualifying himself to serve the lawyer, it was resolved that—"idleness being the mother of mischief," he should be put under the care of the farm-bailiff, to do such odd jobs about the place as might be suited to his capacity and love of out-door life. And now John Broom's troubles began. By fair means or foul, with here an hour's weeding ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... steady and radical reduction of loans and discounts, following a panic and extending until new enterprises are very scarce, till prices are very low, till there is wide-spread idleness among workmen, a decrease in salaries and in interest rates, when the public is wary and speculation dead, and expenditures are cut down as far as possible, may be taken to mean a rapid and continued resumption of every prosperous business: but if the above ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar
... and otherwise suffer Time to loiter onward at his own pleasure, till the dinner-hour. In pleasant days, the chief event of the afternoon, and the happiest one of the day, is our walk.... So comes the night; and I look back upon a day spent in what the world would call idleness, and for which I myself can suggest no more appropriate epithet, but which, nevertheless, I cannot feel to have been spent amiss. True, it might be a sin and shame, in such a world as ours, to spend a lifetime in this manner; but for a few summer weeks it is good to live as if this world ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... Rainbow rather than under the shadow of his own dark wainscot; perhaps, also, for the fact that his sons had turned out rather ill. Raveloe was not a place where moral censure was severe, but it was thought a weakness in the Squire that he had kept all his sons at home in idleness; and though some licence was to be allowed to young men whose fathers could afford it, people shook their heads at the courses of the second son, Dunstan, commonly called Dunsey Cass, whose taste for swopping and betting might turn out to be a sowing of something ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... and great a thing let all be thankful, for all can have as much of it as may be desired. The eight-hour law is not mandatory to the laborer, nor does possession of leisure entail idleness. It is permitted to the clerk, the shopman, the street peddler—to all who live by the light employment of keeping the wolf from the door without eating him—to abandon their ignoble callings, seize the shovel, the axe and the ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... not in London, where, I fear me, thou wouldst soon be ruined body and soul. There be stirring things passing in the great world beyond the seas. Take ship, and go and see some of these things. Linger not in idleness in the haunts of vice. The world is a bigger place than thou canst know. Go forth and see it, and learn and ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... those we saw at Norfolk—poor whites from the back country and mountains; people from the cities on a humble "lark," who cannot afford to rusticate at a hotel; semi-tramps, who have not attained to the final stage of aristocratic idleness, wherein the offer of work is an insult which they resent by burning a barn. Rude shanties, with bunks, are fitted up to give all the shelter they require. Here they lead a gypsy life, quite as much to their taste as camping in the Adirondacks, cooking and smoking through the June ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... bread of idleness, the frenzy of poetry creeps over me both night and day. Round past the hedge I wend, and, leaning on the rock, I intone verses gently to myself. From the point of my pencil emanate lines of recondite grace, so near the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... reformed or regenerated until he resolves, with the help of the Lord, to stop drinking intoxicating drinks and sets himself honestly about it; so the thief must stop stealing, the vain woman must stop her tight dressing and habits of idleness; and so of all other evils affecting physical ...
— Personal Experience of a Physician • John Ellis
... of me? you hear I sometimes drink maybe a glass too much—who does not? you can drink a glass yourself, Sir; drink more, and show it less than I maybe; and you listen to every damned slander that any villain, to whose vices and idleness you pander with what you call your alms, may be pleased to invent, and you deem yourself charitable; save us from such charity! Charitable, and you refuse to deliver my miserable message: ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... I have written a line; always racing and always idleness. Went from Chatsworth to Heaton Park; an immense party, excellent house and living, and very good sport for the sort of thing in a ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... terrible old martinet, with long Bible lessons, lectures, pages of catechism, sermons to be conned by rote, and an awful catalogue of punishments for idleness, and what would seem to him impiety. I was going, then, to a frightful isolated reformatory, where for the first time in my life I should be subjected to a rigorous and ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... buyers came; to ward off robbers; and to sweep the sidewalk, making all tidy before breakfast. Gainsborough pere was fairly prosperous, but not prosperous enough to support any of his nine children in idleness. They all worked, took a Saturday night "tub," and went to the Independent Church in decent attire ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... drawing-room or the kitchen," (this was, as I meant it to be, a poser; if Mr Hawthorne senior had a hobby, it was his magisterial authority.) "The fact is, that at home, up-stairs or down-stairs, I couldn't read. I should have not only my own idleness, but the various idlenesses of the whole family combined, to fight against. My sisters would be knocking at the door every half hour, if only to ask how I was getting on: Bob would tease me to come out skating, and Charles would start me perpetually after wild-ducks or woodcocks. And ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... nay, what can I name, But would become thee better than to beg: But men of thy condition feed on sloth, As cloth the beetle on the dung she breeds in; Nor caring how the metal of your minds Is eaten with the rust of idleness. Now, afore me, whate'er he be, that should Relieve a person of thy quality, While thou insist'st in this loose desperate course, I would esteem the sin not ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... mechanic have seen their several interests attended to, and from thence they unite in placing a confidence in their representatives, as well as in those in whose hands the execution of the laws is placed. Industry has there taken place of idleness, and economy of dissipation. Two or three years of good crops, and a ready market for the produce of their lands, have put everyone in good humor, and, in some instances, they even impute to the government what is due only to the goodness ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... very late indeed. Until the choice was no longer between making love in idleness, and conscientiously holding aloof; but between acting like a frank blackguard, and making the amends ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... his twentieth year, wrote a review of these volumes not, on the whole, unfair. Crabb Robinson is reported as saying that Wordsworth was indignant at the Edinburgh Review's attack on Hours of Idleness. "The young man will do something if ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... there sounded: "Yet ye first perchance May to repose you by constraint be led." At sound thereof each turn'd, and on the left A huge stone we beheld, of which nor I Nor he before was ware. Thither we drew, find there were some, who in the shady place Behind the rock were standing, as a man Thru' idleness might stand. Among them one, Who seem'd to me much wearied, sat him down, And with his arms did fold his knees about, Holding his face between them downward bent. "Sweet Sir!" I cry'd, "behold that man, who shows ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... characteristics of the prisoners tried before him, said: "They are just like other people; in fact, I often think that, but for different opportunities and other accidents, the prisoner and I might very well be in one another's places." "Greed, love of pleasure," writes a French judge, "lust, idleness, anger, hatred, revenge, these are the chief causes of crime. These passions and desires are shared by rich and poor alike, by the educated and uneducated. They are inherent in human nature; the germ is ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... above all things in traditions of knights and chivalry, and deeds of derring-do. The odor of English social life in its highest range—a melancholy, affectionate, very manly, but dainty breed—pervading the pages like an invisible scent; the idleness, the traditions, the mannerisms, the stately ennui; the yearning of love, like a spinal marrow, inside of all; the costumes brocade and satin; the old houses and furniture—solid oak, no mere veneering—the moldy secrets everywhere; the verdure, the ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... been very silent, partly through pressure of business and partly from idleness and procrastination, but it would be very ungracious to delay returning my thanks for your kindness in transmitting the very flattering particulars of the Prince Regent's conversation with Lord Byron. I trouble you with a few lines to his Lordship ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... Mrs. Grundy. "No, but I guess you'll find there's something to do before breakfast, or did you think we's goin' to support you in idleness?" ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... beside me tripped, so slim 25 And graceful in his rustic dress! And, as we talked, I questioned him, [7] In very idleness. ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... again, sir," said Mr. Rushton; "this will never do—come, write away. The idleness of this world is revolting!" he growled, returning to his sanctum, and closing the door ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... carry the rest of my books down to the new library, make catalogue, consider subjects for five more speeches, write thirty-six letters and postcards, and polish off the ten last clauses of the Home-Rule Bill. This idleness is oppressive. Not used to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., November 8, 1890 • Various
... congenital afflictions of persons. For why are some born blind, others paralytic, others with some sickness in the soul itself? Again, it is the natural duty of Souls to do their work in the body; are we to suppose that when once they leave the body they spend all eternity in idleness? ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... conscious of his own dignity and sundry dams. He became a tranquil feature in the scene. The trees and towns saw themselves in him, as in a mirror. He carried the canoes lightly on his broad breast; there was no need to work hard against an eddy: but idleness became the order of the day, and mere straightforward dipping of the paddle, now on this side, now on that, without intelligence or effort. Truly we were coming into halcyon weather upon all accounts, and were floated towards ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... seem at first, a truth irrelevant to your discussion. For it teaches that all change must proceed from within outward. There is not, there never has been, a just polity, for there has never been one based on the love of God and man. All that you condemn—poverty, and wealth, idleness and excessive labour, squalor, disease, barren marriages, aggression and war, will continue in spite of all changes in form, until men will to get rid of them. And that they will not do till they have learnt to love God and man. Revolution will be ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... have never threaded one yet," laughed Vera, lazily. "I might try; but you see you won't let me be useful, so I had better resign myself to idleness." And then she rose and took her hat, and went out through the French window, out among the fallen yellow leaves, leaving the other women to discuss the ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... "Give us this day our daily bread," mean that we are to do nothing to secure our bread, lest we show no faith in God, and simply wait in idleness for God to repeat the miracle of sending it by a raven? or, does it mean that with thankful hearts to God for the ability he has given us to work, that we go forth diligently fulfilling our task in the use of all appropriate means to secure that which his loving ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... could all be put to some steady work it would be the best thing for them," said Judith. "Idleness is the mother of mischief. Blasi is not an ill-meaning fellow, but he is lazy, greatly to his own injury. Long Jost is the worst of the two; a sly-boots, and a rare one too. It is to be hoped that ...
— Veronica And Other Friends - Two Stories For Children • Johanna (Heusser) Spyri
... disease aboard the ships, and of the stops made in the West Indies to eat the health-restoring citrus fruits, but in the case of the colonists at Jamestown the fruit was non-existent. A belief, also held, that idleness caused the disease did little to bring about measures to promote proper treatment. Because the incapacitating aspects of the disease could produce the appearance of idleness, numerous ill persons must have been innocently stigmatized. Their situation became hopeless when denied rations ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes
... violent but chronic visceral disturbances. This is not simply an inference:—it is a truth to which every medical man can bear witness; and it is one to which a long and sad experience enables us to give personal testimony. Various degrees and forms of bodily derangement, often taking years of enforced idleness to set partially right, result from this prolonged over-exertion of mind. Sometimes the heart is chiefly affected: habitual palpitations; a pulse much enfeebled; and very generally a diminution in the number ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... large sums, in proportion to the means of the gamblers, are wagered on the result. [Its bad influence.] It is very evident that these cock-fights must have a most demoralising effect upon a people so addicted to idleness and dissipation, and so accustomed to give way to the impulse of the moment. Their effect is to make them little able to resist the temptation of procuring money without working for it. The passion for the game ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... Davis to him one morning. "It is time that you should rouse yourself. We are all exerting ourselves to the utmost for the common good, and I wonder you are not ashamed to sit in the hut doing nothing. Surely it is more degrading to eat the bread of idleness than to labour like the rest of us. Take a spade in hand, and come and dig for roots; or, if you like it better, try to catch, some fish. At least endeavour to gain ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... of idleness; it is useful energy gone to seed. In small towns hoodlumism is rife, and the hoodlums are usually the children of the best citizens. Hoodlumism is the first step in the direction of crime. The hoodlum is very often a good boy who does ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... scamp; a gentleman or a clown. You have, I see, registered a good resolution to-day. Keep it; and remember that Pandemonium will get paved without your help. There would be no industry, boy, if there was no idleness, and all true progress ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... said her mother when the ship was quite out of sight, "idleness will only make loneliness harder to bear. Here is a task for thee." She handed her a basket of raw wool. "Take this and card it for me ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... matter more philosophically,—probably under the impression that to keep quiet will be to "bring the nigger out" where he may be caught and the reward secured. Two hundred dollars is a sum for which they would not scruple to sacrifice life; but they have three gods-whiskey, ignorance, and idleness, any one of which can easily gain ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... artist draws the reflections in water as he sees them; over large spaces, and in weather that is not very calm, it is nearly impossible to do so; when it is possible, sometimes in haste, and sometimes in idleness, and sometimes under the idea of improving nature, they are slurred or misrepresented; it is so easy to give something like a suggestive resemblance of calm water, that, even when the landscape is finished from nature, the water is merely ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... hour does the youth confer with Francois Ribaut. The priest is dependent on his patron. The Church fabric is swept away, for Church and state went down together. With only one friend in the State, Valois must now quit his place of enforced idleness. ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... with an airy appeal to Madame Idleness—in order to forget. Then, the war seemed a sacred duty, an heroic endeavor, an inevitable trial, according as Southerners chose to take it; but the prevailing opinion was that the solution would come ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... Saturday evening came, and she saw that the waiting-maid had finished her task, she took fright lest she should be punished for her idleness. So she hurried off to the palace of the fairy, and confided all her woes to her. The fairy embraced her tenderly, and gave her a sack full of spun flax, in order that she might show it to the king, and let him see what a good worker she was. Renzolla took the sack without one word of ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... this world, that we were approaching as a tiger hunter draws near the jungle, gradually unfolded itself to our inspection, there was hardly one of us willing to devote to sleep or idleness the prescribed eight hours that had been fixed as the time during which each member of the expedition must remain in the darkened chamber. We were too eager to watch for every new ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... the very word child as soon as might be, if not sooner. When a poor little boy came to be eight years old they called him a youth. The diarist himself had no cause to be proud of his own early years, for he was so far indulged in idleness by an "honoured grandmother" that he was "not initiated into any rudiments" till he was four years of age. He seems even to have been a youth of eight before Latin was seriously begun; but this fact ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... and poverty, Of fortune and mishap, who gives to the rich luck and idleness, and pain ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... well too, Mr. Gilmore," Dimchurch said. "I took your advice, and Tom and I have put all our prize-money aside. He has over a thousand saved, and I have quite sufficient to keep me in idleness all my life, even if I never do ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty |
