A Quote by Soren Kierkegaard

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.

Soren Kierkegaard

Quote Topics

Accustomed Bored Contrary Divine Divine Life Evil Idleness Life Means On The Contrary Prevent Root Say Truly Work

Quote Author

Soren Kierkegaard
Danish - Philosopher
May 5, 1813 - November 11, 1855

What is evil? Killing is evil, lying is evil, slandering is evil, abuse is evil, gossip is evil, envy is evil, hatred is evil, to cling to false doctrine is evil; all these things are evil. And what is the root of evil? Desire is the root of evil, illusion is the root of evil.

Gautama Buddha

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

Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good.

Soren Kierkegaard

When one has once accepted and absorbed Evil, it no longer demands the unfitness of the means. The ulterior motives with which youabsorb and assimilate Evil are not your own but those of Evil.... Evil is whatever distracts. Evil knows of the Good, but Good does not know of Evil. Knowledge of oneself is something only Evil has. One means that Evil has is the dialogue.... One cannot pay Evil in installments--and one always keeps on trying to.

Franz Kafka

It seems to me that all of the evil in life comes from idleness, boredom, and psychic emptiness, but all of that is inevitable when you become accustomed to living at others' expense.

Anton Chekhov

There’s an old adage that says that money is the root of all evil. Bullshit. Lack of money is the root of all evil.

Gene Simmons

Money is not the root of all evil...ignorance is the root of all evil. People do cruel and foolish things for money because they feel oppressed by a sense of lack. If people knew their power to generate wealth, they would never fight or hurt each other over money.

Alan Cohen

Since boredom advances and boredom is the root of all evil, no wonder, then, that the world goes backwards, that evil spreads. This can be traced back to the very beginning of the world. The gods were bored; therefore they created human beings.

Soren Kierkegaard

... a bad attitude, that the love of money is the root of all evil and the rich are evil and greedy and all that stuff. It’s basically socialism and communism.

Robert Kiyosaki

Idleness is the grand Pacific Ocean of life, and in that stagnant abyss the most salutary things produce no good, the most noxious no evil. Vice, indeed, abstractedly considered, may be, and often is engendered in idleness; but the moment it becomes efficiently vice, it must quit its cradle and cease to be idle.

Charles Caleb Colton

Annihilation itself is no death to evil. Only good where evil was, is evil dead. An evil thing must live with its evil until it chooses to be good. That alone is the slaying of evil.

George MacDonald

Just as it is the love of money that is the root of all evil, it is the belief in shamefulness that is the root of all misery.

Stephen Fry

I have the belief that truly evil people, it's a genetic evil. I only have the experience of exploring the landscape of some of the characters I've played that people have labeled as evil; I don't think they're evil.

Glenn Close

Evil being the root of mystery, pain is the root of knowledge.

Simone Weil

Food is not evil, but gluttony is. Childbearing is not evil, but fornication is. Money is not evil, but avarice is. Glory is not evil, but vainglory is. Indeed, there is no evil in existing things, but only in their misuse.