#idleness

I suppose the secret of his success is in his tremendous idleness which almost approaches the supernatural. ↗

— Lawrence Durrell

#success #supernatural

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

#idle-minds #idleness #suspicion #business

Do you smoke? Well, yes, I must admit I smoke. I am glad to hear it. A man should always have an occupation of some kind. There are far too many idle men in London as it is. ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#smoking #men

Life does not agree with philosophy: There is no happiness that is not idleness, and only what is useless is pleasurable. ↗

— Anton Chekhov

#does #happiness #idleness #life #only

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

#certain #children #evil #idleness #ill

The day, like the previous days, dragged sluggishly by in a kind of insipid idleness, devoid even of that dreamy expectancy which can make idleness so enchanting. ↗

— Vladimir Nabokov

#dreams #expectancy #hope #idleness #life

His idleness was his refuge, and in this he was like many others in [occupied] France in that period; laziness became political. ↗

— Iain Pears

#laziness #occupation #occupied-france #politics #war

If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary be not idle. ↗

— Samuel Johnson

#life #solitude #life

Boredom was at the root of Lazare's unhappiness, an oppressive, unremitting boredom, exuding from everything like the muddy water of a poisoned spring. He was bored with leisure, with work, with himself even more than with others. Meanwhile he blamed his own idleness for it, he ended by being ashamed of it. ↗

— Émile Zola

#idleness #zola #life

If you think of something, do it. Plenty of people often think, “I’d like to do this, or that. ↗

— Lydia Davis

#depression #idleness #self-sabotage #terror #writer-s-block