Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Laziness

"Laziness begat wearisomeness, and this put men in quest of diversions, play and company, on which however it is a constant attendant; he who works hard, has enough to do with himself otherwise." - Jean de La Bruyère

"At times, laziness is the root of taking action. When we feel an urge to give in to a desire, we might hear a whisper telling us that something is not right. Laziness, however, prevents us from fighting that desire and we give in to our bad habit." - Chazon Ish, named Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz

"Laziness is the one common deficiency in mankind that blocks the establishment of a perfect world in which everyone leads a happy life." - William Feather

"Laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes him." - Benjamin Franklin

"Poverty due to laziness is incurable." -

"Exert your talents and distinguish yourself, and don’t think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire. I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark." -

"Leave your bed upon the first desertion of sleep it being ill for the eyes to read lying, and worse for the mind to be idle; since the head during that laziness is commonly a cage for unclean thoughts." - Francis Osborn

"The chief danger to our philosophy, apart from laziness and wooliness, is scholasticism, the essence of which is treating what is vague as if it were precise and trying to fit it into an exact logical category." - Frank Plumpton Ramsey

"Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired." - Jules Renard, aka Pierre-Jules Renard

"Despair is the offspring of fear; of laziness, and impatience; it argues a defect of spirit and resolution, and often of honesty too. I would not despair unless I saw my misfortune recorded in the book of fate; and signed and sealed by necessity." - Jeremy Collier

"Employ thy time well if thou meanest to gain leisure; and since thou art not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour. Leisure is time for doing something useful, and this leisure the diligent man will obtain, but the lazy man never, for a life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things." - Benjamin Franklin

"Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry, all things easy. He that rises late must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night, while laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes him." - Benjamin Franklin

"Laziness grows on people it begins in cobwebs and ends in iron chains. The more business a man has to do the more he is able to accomplish, for he learns to economize his time." -

"Laziness grows on people; it begins in cobwebs and ends in iron chains. The more business a man has to do the more he is able to accomplish, for he learns to economize his time." - Matthew Hale, fully Sir Matthew Hale

"It has been objected that upon the abolition of private property all work will cease and universal laziness will overtake us. According to this, bourgeois society ought long ago to have gone to the dogs through sheer idleness; for those of its members who work acquire nothing, and those who acquire anything do not work." - Karl Marx (1818-1883) German Philosopher, Socialist and Friedrich Engels

"Efficiency is intelligent laziness." - David Dunham

"The only causes of regret are laziness, outbursts of temper, hurting others, prejudice, jealousy and envy." - Germaine Greer

"Ambition is not a reprehdnsible quality, nor are ambitious men to be censured, if they seek glory through honorable and honest means. In fact, it is they who produce great and excellent works. Those who lack this passion are cold spirits, inclined towards laziness than activity. But ambition is pernicious and detestable when it has as its sole end power." - Francesco Guicciardini

"Ignorance is not a simple lack of knowledge but an active aversion to knowledge, the refusal to know, issuing from cowardice, pride or laziness of mind." -

"Failure is not our only punishment for laziness: there is also the success of others." - Jules Renard, aka Pierre-Jules Renard

"Laziness is the beginning of all vices." - Alfie Kohn

"Laziness grows on people; it begins in cobwebs, and ends in iron chains. The more one has to do the more he is able to accomplish." - Charles Buxton

"Laziness breeds humors of the blood." - Claudius Galen or Aelius Galenus

"Trusting to luck is only another name for trusting to laziness." - Josh Billings, pen name for Henry Wheeler Shaw, aka Uncle Esek

"Six, or at most seven, hour’s sleep is, for a constancy, as much as you or anybody else can want; more is only laziness and dozing, and is, I am persuaded, both unwholesome and stupefying." - Lord Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

"Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day." - Lord Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

"Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable; however, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable." - Lord Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

"If we overcome laziness, all the other impediments to spiritual growth will be overcome. If we do not, none of the others will be hurdled." - M. Scott Peck, fully Morgan Scott Peck

"No matter what his present state, man can change for the better through self-control, discipline, and following proper diet and health laws. Why do you think you cannot change? Mental laziness is the secret cause of all weakness." - Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh

"Poverty is dishonorable, not in itself, but when it is a proof of laziness, intemperance, luxury, and carelessness; whereas in a person that is temperate, industrious, just and valiant, and who uses all his virtues for the public good, it shows a great and lofty mind." - Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL

"Luck is always the last refuge of laziness and incompetence." - J. C. Penney, formally James Cash Penney

"The bad that comes from laziness does not come about in one fell swoop, but slowly and without notice. It comes in a sequence of one leisurely bad deed after another, until you find yourself sunk in evil." - Moshe Chayim Luzzatto, also Moses Hayyim Luzzato, known by Hebrew acronym RaMCHal

"But one cannot achieve anything through laziness and procrastination. People who desire worldly enjoyment say about spiritual progress: 'Well, it will all happen in time. We shall realize God some time or other.'" - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"I hate a fellow whom pride, or cowardice, or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl; let him come out as I do, and bark." - Robertson Davies

"Nationalism appeals to our tribal instincts, to passion and to prejudice, and to our nostalgic desire to be relieved from the strain of individual responsibility which it attempts to replace by a collective or group responsibility." - Karl Popper, fully Sir Karl Raimund Popper

"Each day befriend a single fear, and the miscellaneous terrors of being human will never join together to form such a morass of vague anxiety that it rules your life from the shadows of the unconscious. We learn to fly not by being fearless, but by the daily practice of courage." - Sam Keen

"Ease, a neutral state between pain and pleasure ... if it is not rising into pleasure will be falling towards pain." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"Extended empire, like expanded gold exchanges solid strength for feeble splendor." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"I hate mankind, for I think of myself as one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"It is unjust to claim the privileges of age and retain the playthings of childhood." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"There is but one Paris and however hard living may be here, and if it became worse and harder even-the French air clears up the brain and does good-a world of good." - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh

"Things are not so important; the transcendental truth of things is of value." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

"The advice of the old light without heat, like the sun in the winter." - Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL

"As smoking is to the lungs, so is resentment to the soul; even one puff is bad for you." - Elizabeth Gilbert