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• Idleness: An inclination not to do work or engage in activities. Lack of action or activity. Lack of use.  Merriam Webster
• Idleness: Laziness; indolence. Oxford Dictionary
• Laziness,  Efficiency,  Apathy and indifference,  Lethargy,  Vice,  Hard work,  Diligence,  Busyness

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Some argue strongly against idleness

• Work is no disgrace: it is idleness which is a disgrace. Hesiod
• Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds. Lord Chesterfield
• Idleness is sweet, and its consequences are cruel. John Quincy
• To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent. Buddha
• Trouble springs from idleness, and grievous toil from needless ease. Benjamin Franklin
• Idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand than kings and governments. Benjamin Franklin
• What heart can think, or tongue express, the harm that groweth of idleness? John Heywood
• There is nothing worse than an idle hour, with no occupation offering. People who have many such hours are simply animals waiting docilely for death. We all come to that state soon or late. It is the curse of senility. L. Mencken

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They argue that idleness is the beginning of vice and work is the cure …

• Idle people are often bored and bored people, unless they sleep a lot, are cruel. It is not accident that boredom and cruelty are great preoccupations in our time. Renata Adler
• Idleness is the beginning of all vices. Proverb
• There are two cardinal sins from which all others spring: impatience and laziness. Franz Kafka
• Idleness among children, as among men, is the root of all evil, and leads to no other evil more certain than ill temper. Hannah More
• It has been said that idleness is the parent of mischief, which is very true; but mischief itself is merely an attempt to escape from the dreary vacuum of idleness. George Borrow
• The real source of almost all our crimes, if the trouble is taken to trace them to a common origin, will be found to be in idleness. Walter Gaston Shotwell
• Blessed is the man that has found his work. One monster there is in the world, the idle man. Thomas Carlyle
• From its very inaction, idleness ultimately becomes the most active cause of evil; as a palsy is more to be dreaded than a fever. The Turks have a proverb which says that the devil tempts all other men, but that idle men tempt the devil. Charles Caleb Colton
• Boredom is therefore a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it. Bertrand Russell
• Ennui has made more gamblers than avarice, more drunkards than thirst, and perhaps as many suicides as despair. Charles Caleb Colton
• Evil thoughts often come from idleness. Gaelic Proverb
• You must avoid sloth, that wicked siren. Horace
• Idleness is the Dead Sea that swallows all Virtues. Benjamin Franklin
• Idleness and lack of occupation tend – nay are dragged – towards evil. Hippocrates
• By doing nothing we learn to do ill. Proverb
• Vice

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… for no-one is more susceptible to temptation than the idle

• An idle brain is the devil’s workshop. English Proverb
• Keep doing some kind of work, that the devil may always find you employed. Jerome
• …for when men labor they keep out of mischief. You remember the old proverb–An idle mind is the Devils workshop… George Q. Cannon
• Idleness is a constant sin, and labor is a duty. Idleness is the devil’s home for temptation and for unprofitable, distracting musings; while labor profit others and ourselves. Anne Baxter
• He that is busy is tempted by one devil; he that is idle, by a legion. Thomas Fuller
• The Devil often finds work for them who find none for themselves. Benjamin Whichcote
• Temptation

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Many argue that idleness comes at a heavy price

• If you are idle you are on the way to ruin, and there are few stopping places upon it. It is rather a precipice than a road. Henry Ward Beecher
• Too much idleness, I have observed, fills up a man’s time much more completely, and leaves him less his own master, than any sort of employment whatsoever. Edmund Burke
• You see men of the most delicate frames engaged in active and professional pursuits who really have no time for idleness. Let them become idle-let them take care of themselves, let them think of their health-and they die! The rust rots the steel which use preserves. Edward Bulwer-Lytton
• Idleness buries a man alive. John Thornton
• Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears, while the used key is always bright. Benjamin Franklin

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They argue that idleness gets nothing done and gets you no-where

• The real people of genius were resolute workers not idle dreamers. George Henry Lewes
• The really idle man gets nowhere. The perpetually busy man does not get much farther. Sir Heneage Ogilvie
• Inaction creates nothing. Action creates success. Stephen Richards
• It is idleness that creates impossibilities; and where people don’t care to do anything, they shelter themselves under a permission that it cannot be done. Robert South
• 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. F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The happy people are those who are producing something; the bored people are consuming much and producing nothing. Dean Inge
• Idleness is emptiness; the tree in which the sap is stagnant, remains fruitless. Hosea Ballou
• The way to be nothing is to do nothing. Nathaniel Howe

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Idleness often becomes an excuse

• It wounds a man less to confess that he has failed in any pursuit through idleness, neglect, the love of pleasure, etc., etc., which are his own faults, than through incapacity and unfitness, which are the faults of his nature. Lord Melbourne
• Of all our faults, the one that we excuse most easily is idleness. François de La Rochefoucauld
• We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty. Quintilian (Marcus Fabius Quintilian)
• Excuses

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There is nothing more exhausting than constant idleness …

• I never remember feeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts me completely. Arthur Conan Doyle, Sr.
• Man grows most tired while standing still. Chinese Proverb
• Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation … even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind. Leonardo da Vinci
• The hardest work is to go idle. Yiddish Proverb
• The hardest work of all is to do nothing. Proverb
• The life of ease is a difficult pursuit. William Cowper
• The insupportable labor of doing nothing. Sir Richard Steele

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… especially when there’s work we should be doing

• It’s not what we do that makes us tired – it’s what we don’t do. The tasks we don’t complete cause the most fatigue. Steve Chandler
• The greatest weariness comes from work not done. Eric Hoffer
• Nothing is as fatiguing as the eternal, hanging on of an uncompleted task. William James
• The greatest weariness comes from work not done. Eric Hoffer
• Work,  Procrastination

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Idleness can make us miserable

• Laziness erodes a person of his enthusiasm and energy. As a result, the person loses all opportunities and finally becomes dejected and frustrated. The worst thing is that he stops believing in himself. Sam Veda
• It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man. Benjamin Franklin
• People who have nothing to do are quickly tired of their own company. Jeremy Collier
• Inaction will cause a man to sink into the slough of despond and vanish without a trace. Farley Mowat
• Indecision leads to inaction, which leads to low energy, depression, despair. George Leonard
• Toil is man’s allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief that’s more than either, the grief and sin of idleness. Herman Melville
• In idleness there is a perpetual despair. Thomas Carlyle
• There is a working class – strong and happy – among both rich and poor: there is an idle class – weak, wicked, and miserable – among both rich and poor.  John Ruskin
• Hunger is not the worst feature of unemployment; idleness is. William E. Barrett
• There is no greater cause of melancholy than idleness. Robert Burton
• A lot of what passes for depression these days is nothing more than a body saying that it needs work. Geoffrey Norman
• There is no remedy for time misspent; No healing for the waste of idleness, whose very languor is a punishment Heavier than active souls can feel or guess. Sir Aubrey de Vere
• Idleness is many gathered miseries in one name. Jean Paul

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Idleness can breed fear

• A good idea if not acted upon produces terrible psychological pain. But a good idea acted upon brings enormous mental satisfaction. Got a good idea? Then do something about it. Use action to cure fear and gain confidence. Here’s something to remember: Actions feed and strengthen confidence; inaction in all forms feeds fear. To fight fear, act. To increase fear—wait, put off, postpone. David Schwartz
• Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all. Norman Vincent Peale
• Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy. Dale Carnegie
• Got a good idea? Then do something about it. Use action to cure fear and gain confidence. Here’s something to remember: Actions feed and strengthen confidence; inaction in all forms feeds fear. To fight fear, act. To increase fear—wait, put off, postpone. David Schwartz
• Fear

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Idleness rusts and robs the human mind

• Idleness is to the human mind like rust to iron. Ezra Cornell
• Idleness is the stupidity of the body, and stupidity is the idleness of the mind. Johann G. Seume
• Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds, and the holiday of fools. Philip Dormer Stanhope
• Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation … even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind. Leonardo da Vinci
• Just as iron rusts from disuse, even so does inaction spoil the intellect. Leonardo da Vinci
• Nobody can think straight who does not work. Idleness warps the mind.  Henry Ford
• Shun idleness. It is a rust that attaches itself to the most brilliant metals.   Voltaire
• ndolence is the sleep of the mind. Luc de Clapier de Vauvanargues
• By too much sitting still the body becomes unhealthy; and soon the mind. Hyperion

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Time and life are too valuable to be idle

• Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent. Samuel Johnson
• Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no delay, no procrastination; never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. Lord Chesterfield
• Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing. Thomas Jefferson
• Time is the one thing that can never be retrieved. One may lose and regain a friend; one may lose and regain money; opportunity once spurned may come again; but the hours that are lost in idleness can never be brought back to be used in gainful pursuits. Most careers are made or marred in the hours after supper. C.R. Lawton
• Idle people are dead their life long. Thomas Fuller
• Time

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There is much to be said for preferring diligence over idleness

• Diligence is the mother of good fortune, and idleness, its opposite, never brought a man to the goal of any of his best wishes. Miguel de Cervantes
• Prefer diligence before idleness, unless you esteem rust above brightness. Plato
• To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent. Buddha
• In the diligence of his idleness. Hosea Ballou
• Diligence overcomes difficulties, sloth makes them. Benjamin Franklin
• Diligence

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Action generally beats idleness

• Action always beats inaction. T. Harv Eker
• Inaction creates nothing. Action creates success. Stephen Richards
• Our trouble is not ignorance, but inaction. Dale Carnegie
• There are risks and costs to a program of action, but they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction. John F. Kennedy
• Just enough sense to stick with something—a chore, task, project, until it’s completed pays off much better than idle intelligence, even if idle intelligence be of genius caliber. David J. Schwartz
• Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It’s not a day when you lounge around doing nothing. It’s when you’ve had everything to do, and you’ve done it. Margaret Thatcher
• Action

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However, some idleness can be of great benefit, even sacred …

• Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good. Soren Kierkegaard
• To do great work a man must be very idle as well as very industrious. Samuel Butler
• Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre. Albert Camus
• Idleness, we are accustomed to say, is the root of all evil. To prevent this evil, work is recommended…. Idleness as such is by no means a root of evil; on the contrary, it is truly a divine life, if one is not bored. Soren Kierkegaard
• Idleness is not doing nothing. Idleness is being free to do anything. Floyd Dell
• Certainly work is not always required of a man. There is such a thing as a sacred idleness-the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected. George MacDonald
• Work is not always required. There is such a thing as sacred idleness. George MacDonald
• There is one piece of advice, in a life of study, which I think no one will object to: and that is, every now and then to be completely idle, to do nothing at all. Sydney Smith
• I was raised to feel that doing nothing was a sin. I had to learn to do nothing. Jenny Joseph
• He who knows how to loaf is wiser than three sages. Abraham Miller

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… especially in smaller doses

• I’m not a fan of idleness, except in small doses. Timothy Ferriss

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Idleness can be a form of savouring life

• Idleness is only a coarse name for my infinite capacity for living in the present. Cyril Connolly
• Idleness for me is not a giving up on life but a spirited grabbing hold of it. Tom Hodgkinson
• Idleness allows you to turn a situation from boredom to pleasure. Tom Hodgkinson
• Savouring

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A bit of idleness can give birth to inspiration

• I learned that inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic striving, but it comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness. Brenda Ueland
• It is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top. Virginia Woolf
• Inspiration

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Idleness, some argue, can lead to invention and progress

• All of the biggest technological inventions created by man – the airplane, the automobile, the computer – says little about his intelligence, but speaks volumes about his laziness.  Mark Kennedy
• I don’t think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness – to save oneself trouble. Agatha Christie
• Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something. Robert A. Heinlein
• Innovation,  Progress

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Being overly busy can actually be a form of mental idleness

• The really idle man gets nowhere. The perpetually busy man does not get much further. Sir Heneage Ogilvie
• Being busy can actually be a form of mental laziness …
• Slow down and remember this: Most things make no difference. Being busy is a form of laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate action. Timothy Ferriss
• The idlest minds are those that inhabit the busiest bodies. Bauvard
• Extreme busyness, whether at school or college, kirk or market, is a symptom of deficient vitality; and a faculty for idleness implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal identity. Robert Louis Stevenson
• Western laziness consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so that there is no time at all to confront the real issues. Sogyal Rinpoche
• Everybody seems to think I’m lazy. I don’t mind, I think they’re crazy. Running everywhere at such a speed, till they find there’s no need. John Lennon
• Busy idleness urges us on. Horace
• A nation rushing hastily too and fro, busily employed in idleness. Phaedrus
• Busyness

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Dedicated thinking is not idleness …

• There is no such thing as an idle thought. All thought creates form on some level. Every thought leads to either love or fear. A Course in Miracles
• A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labor and there is invisible labor. Victor Hugo
• An hour of effective, precise, hard, disciplined, and integrated thinking can be worth a month of hard work. Thinking is the very essence of, and the most difficult thing to do in, business and life. Empire builders spend hour after hour on mental work…while others party. If you’re not consciously aware of putting forth the effort to exert self- guided integrated thinking, if you don’t act beyond your feelings and you take the path of least resistance, then you’re giving in to laziness and no longer control your life. David Kekich
• Thinking is the very essence of, and the most difficult thing to do in, business and in life. Empire builders spend hour-after-hour on mental work… while others party. If you’re not consciously aware of putting forth the effort to exert self-guided integrated thinking…then you’re giving in to laziness and no longer control your life. David Kekich
• Am I going home to idleness? No, no. My feet and hands may be still, not so the mind–that has its aspirations yet, and it will work, for it has a law unto itself. Idleness is one thing, doing is another. Lew Wallace
• Made dedicated time to think

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… unless it is simply day dreaming with no initiative

• Imagination without initiative would more properly be called idle daydreaming. James Van Fleet
• Nobody can think straight who does not work. Idleness warps the mind. Thinking without constructive action becomes a disease. Henry Ford

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Rest is not idleness …

• Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time. J. Lubbock
• There is also an honest and necessary idleness whereby good men are made more apt and ready to do their labors and vocations whereunto they are called. John Northbrooke
• If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live. Lin Yutang
• Rest and renewal

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… so long as it comes after work

• As peace is the end of war, so to be idle is the ultimate purpose of the busy. Samuel Johnson
• The idle man does not know what it is to enjoy rest, for he has not earned it. John Lubbock
• The idle man does not know what it is to enjoy rest. Albert Einstein
• Work

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Time doing nothing that you thoroughly enjoy is not idleness

• We are great fools. “He has passed his life in idleness,” we say. “I have done nothing today.” What! Haven’t you lived? That is not only the fundamental but the most illustrious of your occupations. Michel de Montaigne
• Labour-saving devices just make us try to cram more pointless activities into each day, rather than doing the important thing, which is to enjoy our life. Tom Hodgkinson
• Life does not agree with philosophy: There is no happiness that is not idleness, and only what is useless is pleasurable. Anton Chekhov
• You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by. Yes, but some of them are golden only because we let them slip. Sir James M. Barrie

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When you consciously choose to be idle, embrace it

• Or is there something that you “should” be doing but are not doing it? Get up and do it now. Alternatively, completely accept your inactivity, laziness, or passivity at this moment, if that is your choice. Go into it fully. Enjoy it. Either way, there is no inner conflict, no resistance, no negativity. Eckhart Tolle
• Choice

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Don’t let your knowledge be idle. Put it to work.

• A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle. Khalil Gibran
• Once Ibrahim bin Adham saw a stone with the inscription, “Turn me over and read!” When he did an inscription appeared: “You do not practice what you know. Why do you seek what you do not know? Al-Hujwiri
• Knowledge

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Focus your mind or switch it over rather than letting it be idle

• So it is with minds. Unless you keep them busy with some definite subject that will bridle and control them, they throw themselves in disorder hither and yon in the vague field of imagination… And there is no mad or idle fancy that they do not bring forth in the agitation. Michel de Montaigne
• Focus

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Idleness, to be enjoyable, generally needs to be stolen

• It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. Jerome K. Jerome
• Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen. Jerome K. Jerome
• There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it. Mary Wilson Little

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• Golf is a day spent in a round of strenuous idleness. William Wordsworth
• Convent – a place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness. Ambrose Bierce
• Never get out of bed before noon. Charles Bukowski
• It is better to have loafed and lost than never to have loafed at all. James Thurber
• Any time you got nothing to do–and lots of time to do it–come on up. Mae West
• Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. Charlie McCarthy
• All I’m saying is why blame it on being lazy when you can blame it on being old?
• I’m not lazy… I’m just on my energy saving mode.
• I’m too lazy to work and too scared to steal. Tom Bolton
• Most people are so lazy they don’t even exercise good judgement! Alfred E. Neuman
• People who throw kisses are hopelessly lazy. Bob Hope
• Yeah I’m kind of lazy; I’m dating a pregnant woman.   Myers Yori

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