Samuel Johnson Quotes

Idleness is often covered by turbulence and hurry. He that neglects his known duty and real employment naturally endeavours to crowd his mind with something that may bar out the remembrance of his own folly, and does any thing but what he ought to do with eager diligence, that he may keep himself in his own favour.

Flee idleness... for no one is more exposed to such temptations than he who has nothing to do.

The less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in.

I used to think that: whenever I heard that someone had taken 10 years to write a novel, I'd think it must be a big, serious book. Now I think, 'No - it took you one year to write, and nine years to sit around eating Kit Kats.'

People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.

I'm not good when idle.

Mostly, I just waste my time.

Trouble Springs From Idleness.

Remove the temptation of idleness and Cupid's bow is useless.

There is no kind of idleness by which we are so easily seduced as that which dignifies itself by the appearance of business.

Killing time is the chief end of our society.

The sofa is the enemy of productivity.

Idleness is the Dead Sea that swallows all virtues. Be active in business, that temptation may miss her aim; the bird that sits is easily shot.

Keen at the start, but careless at the end.

That the Devil finds work for idle hands to do is probably true. But there is a profound difference between leisure and idleness.

When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else - we are the busiest people in the world.

the less one does, as I long ago observed, the less one can find time to do.

Don't confuse activity with productivity. Many people are simply busy being busy.

All the time that he can spare from the adornment of his person, he devotes to the neglect of his duties.

But I still feel I waste a lot of time leaning on my elbow and thinking to myself, 'alright sucker, now what?'

We told him to get on with it. We liked wasting time, but almost nothing was more annoying than having our wasted time wasted on something not worth wasting it on.

Killing time is not an easy job.

I love to work, although sometimes I can spend whole days doing nothing more than picking the lint off the carpet and talking to my mother on the phone.

Idleness makes hours pass slowly and years swiftly. Activity makes the hours short and the years long.

The Devil often finds work for them who find none for themselves.