The study of geometry is a petty and idle exercise of the mind, if it is applied to no larger system than the starry one. Mathematics should be mixed not only with physics but with ethics; that is mixed mathematics.
The devil finds work for idle hands to do. Better to reign in the hell than serve in heaven. We are in bondage to the law in order that we may be free.
To such idle talk it might further be added: that whenever a certain exclusive occupation is coupled with specific shortcomings, it is likewise almost certainly divorced from certain other shortcomings.
It is the ignorant and childish part of mankind that is the fighting part. Idle and vacant minds want excitement
The ruin of most men dates from some idle moment.
She believed, and was entitled to believe, I must say, that all human beings were evil by nature, whether tormentors or victims, or idle standers-by. They could only create meaningless tragedies, she said, since they weren't nearly intelligent enough to accomplish all the good they were meant to do.
An absolute monarch, who is rich without patrimony, may be charitable without merit; and Constantine too easily believed that he should purchase the favour of Heaven if he maintained the idle at the expense of the industrious, and distributed among the saints the wealth of the republic.
As a Jew I cannot sit idle while genocidal atrocities continue to unfold in Darfur, Sudan.
[Chess] is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever, when they are only wasting their time.
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.
Hope is not an idle term. Hope is the reality that can and does reveal itself to us at God's choice hour. To hope is to know the secret of achievement.
There was a moment when I was getting death threats and bullshit via the Internet, so I was being a little more conscious and reading local message boards before going to certain towns, just to see if people were making bullshit idle threats on the Internet.
People say: idle curiosity. The one thing that curiosity cannot be is idle.
When the idle poor become the idle rich, you'll never know just who is who, or which is which.
Where Labor stands idle. . . there is a demonstrated deficiency, not of Capital, but of brains.
As well might you leave the fairies to plough your land or the idle winds to sow it, as sit down and wait for freedom.
And, indeed, I will ask on my own account here, an idle question: which is better - cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?
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.
It is. . . idle to pretend, as many do, that there is no contradiction between religion and science. Science contradicts religion as surely as Judaism contradicts Islam-they are absolutely and irresolvably conflicting views. Unless, that is, science is obliged to change its fundamental nature.
It's always the idle habits you acquire which you will regret.