A Quote by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Idleness is righteous if it is comfortable. Uncomfortable idleness is sin & sinful waste.

Sylvia Townsend Warner

Quote Topics

Comfortable Idleness Righteous Sin Sinful Uncomfortable Waste

Quote Author

Sylvia Townsend Warner
English - Novelist
December 6, 1893 - May 1, 1978

Idleness is a constant sin, and labor is a duty. Idleness is the devil's home for temptation and for unprofitable, distracting musings; while labor profit others and ourselves

Anne Baxter

Idleness is a constant sin, and labor is a duty. Idleness is the devil's home for temptation and for unprofitable, distracting musings; while labor profit others and ourselves.

Anne Baxter

Idleness is not doing nothing. Idleness is being free to do anything.

Floyd Dell

It is idleness that is the curse of man - not labour. Idleness eats the heart out of men as of nations, and consumes them as rust does iron.

Samuel Smiles

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

Slavery...dishonors labor. It introduces idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury and distress. It enervates the powers of the mind and benumbs the activity of man.

Alexis de Tocqueville

It has been said that idleness is the parent of mischief, which is very true; but mischief itself is merely an attempt to escape from the dreary vacuum of idleness.

George Borrow

We cannot afford idleness, waste or inefficiency.

Eamon de Valera

Sluggish idleness--the nurse of sin.

Edmund Spenser

The regime in too many prisons is one of idleness, and locking up someone from such a background in idleness virtually guarantees re-offending. Instead there needs to be a full day's work every weekday in either the workshops or the education department or preferably a mixture of both.

Ann Widdecombe

Mistakes are good, successes are great, and idleness is a sin.

Mike Michalowicz

Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness.

Samuel Butler

All sin is selfish, whether it be lying, cheating, stealing, immorality, covetousness, or idleness. Sin is for one's own ends, not for another's-certainly not for the Lord's ends.

Derek A. Cuthbert

Love is born of idleness and, once born, by idleness is fostered.

Ovid

Idleness, we are accustomed to say, is the root of all evil. To prevent this evil, work is recommended.... Idleness as such is by no means a root of evil; on the contrary, it is truly a divine life, if one is not bored.