The greater part of human misery is caused by indolence.
Patience and submission are very carefully to be distinguished from cowardice and indolence. We are not to repine, but we may lawfully struggle; for the calamities of life, like the necessities of Nature, are calls to labor and diligence.
He who would not be idle, let him fall in love.
It is indolence. . . Indolence and love of ease; a want of all laudable ambition, of taste for good company, or of inclination to take the trouble of being agreeable, which make men clergymen. A clergyman has nothing to do but be slovenly and selfish; read the newspaper, watch the weather, and quarrel with his wife. His curate does all the work and the business of his own life is to dine.
Human happiness seems to consist in three ingredients: action, pleasure and indolence.
Flee sloth; for the indolence of the soul is the decay of the body.
Well, I wanted to be a philosopher, which is the idlest occupation in the world. I wanted to be involved in abstract thought, but because of various problems with the authorities I wasn't able to pull that one off. A lifetime of idleness in academia would have really suited me. So I was thrown out, as it were. Other than that, there seemed no possible idle occupations, so writing. . . although writing isn't exactly idleness. There's an enormous tension between indolence and languor.
One can be deceived by three types of laziness: of indolence, which is the wish to procrastinate; the laziness of inferiority, which is doubting your capabilities; and the laziness that is attachment to negative actions, or putting great effort into non-virtue.
To an active mind, indolence is more painful than labor.
the most dangerous temptations are not due to the active, sudden flames of desire, 'the lusts of the flesh,' but to the disinclinations of the flesh, its indolence and sluggishness, our tendency to become creatures of habit.
When you and I are inclined to nestle down in indolence and self indulgence. God "stirs up our nests" and bids us fly upward.
Nothing is difficult; it is only we who are indolent.
The great difficulty is first to win a reputation; the next to keep it while you live; and the next to preserve it after you die, when affection and interest are over, and nothing but sterling excellence can preserve your name. Never suffer youth to be an excuse for inadequacy, nor age and fame to be an excuse for indolence.
Indolence and stupidity are first cousins.
A useless life is an early death. [Ger. , Ein unnutz Leben ist ein fruher Tod. ]
The sluggard is a living insensible.
Not indolence but congenial work is man's Divinely allotted portion.
What is public opinion? It is private indolence.
A giant as we hoped, in truth, a dwarf; A barrel of slop that shines on Lethe's wharf', Which at first seemed a vessel with sweet wine For thirsty lips. So down the swift decline You went through sloven spirit, craven heart And cynic indolence. And here the art Of molding clay has caught you for the nonce And made your shame our shame ~ Your head in bronze!
You despise books; you whose lives are absorbed in the vanities of ambition, the pursuit of pleasure or indolence; but remember that all the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books.