Page:Three Thousand Selected Quotations from Brilliant Writers.djvu/353

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INDOLENCE.
345

The passive idler of all men in the world is the most difficult to please. Those who do the least themselves are always the severest critics upon the noble achievements of others.


The idle man is the devil's cushion.


If you are idle, you are on the road to ruin; and there are few stopping places upon it. It is rather a precipice than a road.


Idleness is the great corrupter of youth, and the bane and dishonor of middle age. He who, in the prime of life, finds time to hang heavy on his hands, may with much reason suspect that he has not consulted the duties which the consideration of his age imposed upon him; assuredly he has not consulted his happiness.

Blair.

An idle man has a constant tendency to torpidity. He has adopted the Indian maxim—that it is better to walk than to run, and better to stand than to walk, and better to sit than to stand, and better to lie than to sit. He hugs himself into the notion, that God calls him to be quiet.


Some temptations come to the industrious, but all temptations attack the idle.


Be always employed about some rational thing that the devil find thee not idle.