Idlers Quotes

I suddenly realised, hey, I’m not a lazy idiot, I’m an idler! It’s something to aspire to, it’s part of the creative process! That’s fantastic!

Democracy does not contain any force which will check the constant tendency to put more and more on the public payroll. The state is like a hive of bees in which the drones display, multiply and starve the workers so the idlers will consume the food and the workers will perish.

A happy man or woman is a better thing to find than a five-pound note. He or she is a radiating focus of goodwill; and their entrance into a room is as though another candle had been lighted.

Go your way, seducers, flatterers, idlers, those glib of tongue and charlatans; I am not a seed that you can force to grow; my goal differs so from yours that I would be wasting my time in trying to explain where my inclination drives me.

I like the idea of the idler wheel – it just sits in between things, but it makes such a big difference in the way that the machine is working. That concept has always been something that has interested me, but I didn’t really know why.

Sometimes I think that idlers seem to be a special class for whom nothing can be planned, plead as one will with them – their only contribution to the human family is to warm a seat at the common table.

Most of us have no sympathy with the rich idler who spends his life in pleasure without ever doing any work. But even he fulfills a function in the life of the social organism. He sets an example of luxury that awakens in the multitude a consciousness of new needs and gives industry the incentive to fulfill them.

London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.

Writing a book is a brilliant thing because once you’ve finished it, you’ve done it, and there’s the potential for it to go on earning you a living without you doing any more work on it. It’s absolutely ideal for an idler.

If I were to imagine myself as an idler wheel inside some big mix of gears, then I would be connected to everything. It’s not like there’s just me and then nothing.

Every man is, or hopes to be, an idler.

An idler is a watch that wants both hands; As useless if it goes as when it stands.

The wicked can have only accomplices, the voluptuous have companions in debauchery, self-seekers have associates, the politic assemble the factions, the typical idler has connections, princes have courtiers. Only the virtuous have friends.

I am credited with being one of the hardest workers and perhaps I am, if thought is the equivalent of labour, for I have devoted to it almost all of my waking hours. But if work is interpreted to be a definite performance in a specified time according to a rigid rule, then I may be the worst of idlers.

The perfect woman, you see [is] a working-woman; not an idler; not a fine lady; but one who [uses] her hands and her head and her heart for the good of others.

The only differences one can and should allow in socialism are between hard working people and idlers and between honest people and dishonest people.

Idlers cannot even find time to be idle, or the industrious to be at leisure. We must always be doing or suffering

Without doubt, machinery has greatly increased the number of well-to-do idlers.

Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don’t turn up at all.

Beauty, pleasure, freedom and plenty of sleep: these are the hallmarks of a successful idler’s break. Travel should not be hard work.

In both word and deed, one of the greatest idlers of all time was John Lennon. In his songs we see repeated defences of simply lying around doing nothing.

Do not lounge in the cities! There is room & health in the country, away from the crowds of idlers & imbeciles. Go west, before you are fitted for no life but that of the factory.

Work is as much a necessity to man as eating and sleeping. Even those who do nothing that can be called work still imagine they are doing something. The world has not a man who is an idler in his own eyes.

An idler and a sluggard are as different as a gourmand and a glutton.

In my mind nothing is more abhorrent than a life of ease. None of us has any right to ease. There is no place in civilization for the idler.

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

Idlers do not make history: they suffer it!

The faster you go, the idler you get.

Industry has operated against the artisan in favor of the idler, and also in favor of capital and against labor. Any mechanical invention whatsoever has been more harmful to humanity than a century of war.

Vanity in its idler moments is benevolent, is as willing to give pleasure as to take it, and accepts as sufficient reward for its services a kind word or an approving smile.

Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a poor substitute for life.

The idea of a government is to create an ordered, willing work force where there’s no trouble. I think idlers are generally seen as potentially dangerous because they’re asking questions.

Go West, young man, go West. There is health in the country, and room away from our crowds of idlers and imbeciles.

Tomorrow is the day when idlers work, and fools reform and mortal men lay hold on heaven.

A learned man is an idler who kills time by study.

There is probably no greater idler than myself. And I would consider myself a lazy-bones if I did not write so many volumes, and if I did not admire my diligence once I begin writing.

O, once in each man’s life, at least, Good luck knocks at his door; And wit to seize the flitting guest Need never hunger more. But while the loitering idler waits. Good luck beside his fire, The bold heart storms at fortune’s gates, And conquers its desire.