Busy opinion is an idle fool.
If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary be not idle.
Instead of yielding to idle conversation it might profit one to cultivate silence and contemplation.
Woe to those who lead idle lives. Idleness is a dreadful illness and must be cured in childhood. If it is not cured then, it can never be cured.
On a mission your worst enemy is idle time.
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, So I make an idle boast; Jesus of the twice-turned cheek Lamb of God, although I speak With my mouth thus, in my heart Do I play a double part.
Arguments derived from probabilities are idle.
That man is idle who can do something better.
It is better to be idle than employed in ill.
Where Labor stands idle. . . there is a demonstrated deficiency, not of Capital, but of brains.
It was only in South Africa that I got over this shyness, though I never completely overcame it. It was impossible for me to speak impromptu. I hesitated whenever I had to face strange audiences and avoided making a speech whenever I could. Even today I do not think I could or would even be inclined to keep a meeting of friends engaged in idle talk.
After visiting several of America's most fashionable playgrounds, I have reached the conclusion that men who work hard enjoy life most. The men at such places can be divided into two classes, first, busy men of affairs. . . and, second, rich loafers. I was impressed by the obvious enjoyment corporation heads and other important executives were deriving from their vacation activities. . . . The idle rich fellows, on the other hand, although indulging in exactly the same activities, palpably were bored.
As much pains were taken to make me idle as were ever taken to make me studious.
Just enough sense to stick with something-a chore, task, project, until its completed pays off much better than idle intelligence, even if idle intelligence be of genius caliber.
To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.
I'm a novelist, and idle speculation is what novelists do. How odd to spend one's life trying to pretend that non-existent people are real: though no odder, I suppose, than what government bureaucrats do, which is trying to pretend that real people are non-existent.
Very idle is all curiosity concerning other people's estimate of us, and all fear of remaining unknown is not less so.
Paradoxically, to be truly idle, you also have to be efficient.
I'd hate to see any descendants of mine fall into the category of what I'd call 'idle rich' - a group I've never had much use for.
No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober.