George Croghan Quotes

The land is very good, producing all the necessaries of life in abundance, but by reason of inactivity and idleness of the French inhabitants ... they themselves are living little better than the Indians

an Indolent Slothful Set of Vagabonds, who, were lurking and walking up and down the backcountry having great influence on the Savages ... (and) exciting their Jealousys and Stirring up their hatred

Surely there is no place in the World where the Inhabitants live with less Labour than in North Carolina. It approaches nearer to the Description of Lubberland than any other, by the great felicity of the Climate, the easiness of raising Provisions, and the Slothfulness of the People.

We were sharecroppers - we were a little bit of everything. We farmed and tried to make something.

The fact is, if a young man is naturally indolent, the spur of necessity will drive him but a very little way, while the having enough to live upon is often the means of preserving his self-respect.

When you've got a lot of slaves at your command, you tend to get a little bit fat. You tend to get a little bit lazy. You tend to get a little incompetent because there's not much that you do for yourself anymore.

He's made an art form out of doing nothing.

In a society of little economic development, universal inactivity accompanies universal poverty. You survive not by struggling against nature, ... or by relentless labor; instead you survive by expending as little energy as possible...

Not much shall be feared nor expected from a people whose principal ministers, principal merchants, and principal generals consume day after day smoking tobacco and playing at chess, while the citizens and soldiers are sauntering in rags, sleeping against walls, or praying away their lives …. Such is the military and such the industry of Barbary.

You must get good at one of two things; planting in the spring or begging in the fall.

Idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand than kings and governments.

Idleness is the key of beggary.

Idleness is a mother. She has a son, robbery, and a daughter, hunger.

No man is so methodical as a complete idler, and none so scrupulous in measuring out his time as he whose time is worth nothing.

You can't imagine what a pleasure this complete laziness is to me: not a thought in my brain- you might send a ball rolling through it!

Sometimes I think that idlers seem to be a special class for whom nothing can be planned, plead as one will with them - their only contribution to the human family is to warm a seat at the common table.

Idleness is the beginning of all psychology. What? Could it be that psychology is ? a vice?

Division of labor is a justification for sloth.

Perhaps man is the only being that can properly be called idle.

To spend too much time in studies is sloth.

The frivolous work of polished idleness.

What is going to happen in the course of my day that will be an improvement over lying on something very soft, underneath something very warm, wearing only underwear, doing absolutely nothing, all by myself?

The only liberty an inferior man really cherishes is the liberty to quit work, stretch out in the sun, and scratch himself.

And to tell the truth I don't want to let go of the wrists of idleness, I don't want to sell my life for money, I don't even want to come in out of the rain.

Doing nothing gives me great pleasure. And believe me, I succeed wonderfully in it.