Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Idleness is the Dead Sea that swallows all virtues

An idle man has a constant tendency to torpidity. He has adopted the Indian maxim that it is better to walk than to run, and better to stand than to walk, and better to sit than to stand, and better to lie than to sit. He hugs himself into the notion, that God calls him to be quiet.

The long days seduce all thought away, and we lie like the lizards in the sun, postponing our lives indefinitely.

He has sat on the fence so long that the iron has entered his soul.

Sloth, not ill-will, makes me unjust.

I kind of waited for opportunities to be handed to me. I think I was lazy, and when things didn't go right, I just said, 'Oh well.'

I don't want to be the guy who sits on a front porch with a mint julep in his hand and rocks his life away.

Men fall into a routine when they are tired and slack: it has all the appearance of activity with few of its burdens.

Oh, if only I did nothing simply as a result of laziness.

The biggest sin is sitting on your ass.

Inaction will cause a man to sink into the slough of despond and vanish without a trace.

The greater part of human misery is caused by indolence.

The very soul of the slothful does effectually but lie drowsing in his body, and the whole man is totally given up to his senses.

The easiest thing to do in the world is pull the covers up over your head and go back to sleep.

Inaction may be the biggest form of action.

Men stop trying after a while and get lazy.

I think it's a pretty good day if I can get through it without lifting a finger.

This was in '79. I got pretty restless there, sitting around with a lot of people sitting around smoking cigarettes and talking about films, but nobody really doing anything.

When we hold back out of laziness, that is when we tie ourselves into knots of boredom.

As long as you don't make waves, ripples, life seems easy. But that's condemning yourself to impotence and death before you are dead.

I'm incredibly lazy!

I'll probably make loads of plans, and then just sit around on my bottom all day long and do nothing.

Human nature is above all things lazy.

I believe that when things are easy, people stay dormant.

Doing nothing is very hard to do... you never know when you're finished.