Idleness Quotes to Inspire and Motivate

Motivational Idleness Quotes

Determine never to be idle.
No person will have occasion to complain
of the want of time who never loses any.
It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.
- Thomas Jefferson

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Thank you for joining me on this journey we call life,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If I could tell the world just one thing
it would be we're all okay,
and not to worry cause worry is wasteful
and useless in times like these.
I won't be made useless.
I won't be idle with despair,
I will gather myself around my faith.
Light does the darkness most fear.
- Jewel

I choose to be caring, compassionate and kind toward all people,
and I also choose to be indifferent to gossip,
petty complaints, and idle chatter.
About those, I just don't care.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Apathy, indifference, not caring...
It may sound insensitive for me to say, "I don't care,"
but ask first to what I am indifferent.
I choose to be caring, compassionate
and kind toward all people,
and I also choose to be indifferent to gossip,
petty complaints, and idle chatter.
About those, I just don't care.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

To be idle is a short road to death
and to be diligent is a way of life;
foolish people are idle,
wise people are diligent.
- The Buddha

Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement.
Properly understood and applied,
it is the most potent instrument of action.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

I've developed a new philosophy...
I only dread one day at a time.
- the character Charlie Brown in Charles M. Schulz' Peanuts comic

My only fear is that I may live too long.
This would be a subject of dread to me.
- Thomas Jefferson

An idea that is developed and put into action
is more important than
an idea that exists only as an idea.
- The Buddha

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet.
Only through experiences of trial and suffering
can the soul be strengthened,
vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.
- Helen Keller

A well-developed sense of humor
is the pole that adds balance to your steps,
as you walk the tightrope of life.
- William Arthur Ward

We have no enemies,
we have only friendships that we haven't yet developed
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I personally think we developed language
because of our deep need to complain.
- Lily Tomlin

I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions,
but laws and institutions must go hand in hand
with the progress of the human mind.
As that becomes more developed, more enlightened,
as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered
and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances,
institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.
- Thomas Jefferson [inscribed in the Jefferson Memorial]

Training - training is everything; training is all there is to a person.
We speak of nature; it is folly; there is no such thing as nature;
what we call by that misleading name is merely heredity and training.
We have no thoughts of our own, no opinions of our own;
they are transmitted to us, trained into us.
All that is original in us, and therefore fairly creditable
or discreditable to us, can be covered up and hidden
by the point of a cambric needle, all the rest being atoms
contributed by, and inherited from, a procession of ancestors
that stretches back a billion years to the Adam-clam
or grasshopper or monkey from whom our race has been
so tediously and ostentatiously and unprofitably developed.
And as for me, all that I think about in this plodding sad pilgrimage,
this pathetic drift between the eternities,
is to look out and humbly live a pure and high and blameless life,
and save that one microscopic atom in me that is truly me:
the rest may land in Sheol and welcome for all I care.
- Mark Twain in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.
- John F. Kennedy

No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered
with a searching but at the same time a steady eye.
- Winston Churchill

An invasion of armies can be resisted,
but not an idea whose time has come.
- Victor Hugo

A good question is never answered.
It is not a bolt to be tightened into place
but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed
toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea.
- John Ciardi

Unity can only be manifested by the Binary.
Unity itself and the idea of Unity are already two.
- The Buddha

Many persons have a wrong idea of
what constitutes true happiness.
It is not attained through self-gratification
but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
- Helen Keller

An idea that is not dangerous is
unworthy of being called an idea at all.
- Oscar Wilde

If you are possessed by an idea,
you will find it expressed everywhere,
you even smell it.
- Thomas Mann

When an idea reaches critical mass
there is no stopping the shift
its presence will induce.
- Marianne Williamson

If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it.
It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.
- Grace Hopper

However carefully we plan our future,
we are always climbing the steps to nowhere.
While it is important to our happiness
that we have an intent for our lives,
it is equally crucial to accept in advance
that we truly have no idea how our lives will turn out -
and that is good.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

After fifteen minutes I wanted to marry her,
and after half an hour
I completely gave up the idea of stealing her purse.
- the movie Take the Money and Run (1969)

The human mind treats a new idea the way the body
treats a strange protein; it rejects it.
- Peter Medawar

The movie character Forrest Gump describing life
as being "like a box of chocolates,"
is such a positive upbeat way of
characterizing the uncertainty of life.
I have no idea what life will give me next,
but whatever it is, it will be sweet.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea,
never regains its original dimensions.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

That deep emotional conviction of the presence
of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed
in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.
- Albert Einstein

I never accepted the idea
that I had to be guided by
some pattern or blueprint.
- Little Richard

The intellect is a cold thing
and a merely intellectual idea
will never stimulate thought
in the same manner that a spiritual idea does.
- Ernest Holmes

When I eventually met Mr. Right
I had no idea that his first name was Always.
- Rita Rudner

There is a secret wisdom-of-the-ages
that holds the key to breaking our
cycle of self-imposed suffering.
The secret wisdom is, "Life is not supposed to be fair."
This is not sad news. This is GLORIOUS news!
Life is not broken. Nothing is wrong.
God has not failed, died, or gone on vacation.
The world is working perfectly. We just misunderstood.
Somewhere along the way, someone got the idea that
life was "supposed" to be "fair,"
and all the trouble started -
expectation, disappointment, resentment, anger -
a whole cycle of suffering that began
with the belief that life is "supposed" to be "fair."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Unity with all creation is a huge idea,
but it fits comfortably within the vast cathedral of our being.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

As I would not be a slave,
so I would not be a master.
This expresses my idea of democracy.
- Abraham Lincoln

It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person
to reconcile himself to the idea that
after all God will not help him
- H. L. Mencken

Plant trees for your great-grandchildren -
for future generations.
Create the legacy of a better world.
Leave this world a better place than you found it.
Literally planting trees for
your great-grandchildren is a wonderful idea,
but far more important...
use this symbolism - this imagery -
to represent the kind of legacy
you want to leave to future generations.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I will dance a little.
I will move with the wind.
I will give my body to my love and celebrate
that we have substance beyond the idea of ourselves.
We can move. We can touch. This is my physical exclamation point.
This is how I can awaken my mind to the possibilities in the day.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

What do I think of Western civilization?
I think it would be a very good idea.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

The church is always trying to get other people to reform;
it might not be a bad idea to reform itself a little,
by way of example.
- Mark Twain

One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.
- Walter Bagehot

Important ideas can come from unexpected places.
We tend to label people - Genius, Idiot,
Socialist, Regressive, Wingnut, Revolutionary, Terrorist.
But it is helpful to remind ourselves to be open
to good ideas - whatever their source.
It is equally important to avoid accepting any idea
merely because we respect that person's
other ideas or accomplishments.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There is nobody in this country who got rich on their own. Nobody. You built a factory out there - good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory... Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea - God bless! Keep a hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."
- Elizabeth Warren

The idea of brotherhood re-dawns upon the world
with a broader significance
than the narrow association of
members in a sect or creed.
- Helen Keller

The value of an idea has nothing whatsoever
to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it.
- Oscar Wilde

A mind, once stretched by a new idea,
never regains its original dimensions.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Beyond mind, there is an awareness that is intrinsic,
that is not given to you by the outside, and is not an idea -
and there is no experiment up to now
that has found any center in the brain
which corresponds to awareness.
The whole work of meditation is
to make you aware of all that is "mind"
and disidentify yourself from it.
That very separation is the
greatest revolution that can happen to man.
Now you can do and act on only that
which makes you more joyous, fulfills you,
gives you contentment, makes your life a work of art, a beauty.
But this is possible only if the master in you is awake.
- Osho

Do real life people actually fall in love
with the idea of being in love?
Unfortunately, it is actually quite common.
Someone wants desperately to have
the husband or wife of their dreams.
They visualize the vine-covered cottage
with the white picket fence.
They choose the colors for the nursery.
They design all the aspects of their married life.
A real person stands no chance of measuring up to those fantasies.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Just as in the comedies, a person who is in love
with the idea of love sees prospective partners
through the lens of idealism.
The reaction is, "This must be the one.
They are so perfect - the match of my dreams."
Is that person they just met a perfect match?
It's unlikely their friends think so.
So what happened? That person with the cute smile
was not much more than a mirror for the hopes and dreams
of the one in love with love.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Is a belief a perception of the five senses,
or is it a perception of emotional feeling?
Is it better to say "I sense" and/or "I feel"?
Is it better to say " I know" than "I believe"?
Is belief based on experience or on a idea?
My thinking is that belief/believing is a very missed used word.
- Anonymous

Human salvation lies in the hands
of the creatively maladjusted.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Our honorable and worthy ancestors knew that the world was flat,
motionless, and the center of the universe.
They knew the human body could not withstand
the forces of traveling faster than 19 mph.
They knew that the way to salvation was
exorcising witches and slaying non-believers.
They knew that it was a mortal sin to marry
someone of a different skin color.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The choice is to work alone to be a little
more successful than the next person,
or to work together for the great betterment of humanity.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Men of lofty genius,
when they are doing the least work,
are most active.
- Leonardo da Vinci

A time for work, a time for play -
balance in all things.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

What work I have done I have done because it has been play.
If it had been work I shouldn't have done it.
- Mark Twain

Nothing is ever going to work out the way you want,
so you may as well choose to want the way life does work out.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The Tao of the sage is work without effort.
Practice non-action. Work without doing.
- Lao Tzu

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May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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Motivational Idleness Quotes

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