London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.
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.
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.
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.
No man is so methodical as a complete idler, and none so scrupulous in measuring out his time as he whose time is worth nothing.
By amusing myself with all these games, all this nonsense, all these picture puzzles, I became famous. . . I am only a public entertainer who has understood his time.
Idlers cannot even find time to be idle, or the industrious to be at leisure. We must always be doing or suffering
A learned man is an idler who kills time by study.
What is a Communist? One who hath yearnings For equal division of unequal earnings, Idler or bungler, or both, he is willing, To fork out his copper and pocket your shilling.
Come, come, leave business to idlers, and wisdom to fools: they have need of 'em: wit be my faculty, and pleasure my occupation, and let father Time shake his glass.
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.
All poets are idlers, even if all idlers are not poets.
How various his employments whom the world Calls idle; and who justly in return Esteems that busy world an idler too!
Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a poor substitute for life.
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.
Without doubt, machinery has greatly increased the number of well-to-do idlers.
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.
Every man is, or hopes to be, an idler.
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.
