Robert Christy, comp. Proverbs, Maxims and Phrases of All Ages. 1887.
Idleness
A hundred years of idleness are not worth one hour well employed.French.
A young idler, an old beggar.German.
An idle brain is the devil’s workshop.German.
An idle man is the devil’s bolster.Italian, Dutch.
An idle person is the devil’s playfellow.Arabian.
An idle youth becomes in age a beggar.Latin.
An idler is a watch that wants both hands,
As useless when it goes as when it stands.Cowper.
As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean.Coleridge.
As we must render account of every idle word, so must we likewise of our idle silence.Ambrose.
Better lose your labor than your time in idleness.Dutch.
Better to be idle than not well occupied.
By doing nothing we learn to do evil.Latin.
Doing nothing is doing ill.
Employ thyself in anything rather than stand idle.Hesiod.
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.Watts.
He is idle that might be better employed.
He that is busy is tempted but by one devil; he that is idle by a legion.
He who does nothing does ill.French.
He who follows idleness shall find it the path to distress.Sri Lankan.
I would rather be sick than idle.Seneca.
Idle bairns are the devil’s work-houses.
Idle dogs worry sheep.
Idle folks have the least leisure.
Idle folks have the most labor.
Idle folks lack no excuses.
Idle men are the devil’s playfellows.
Idle people take the most pains.
Idleness always envies industry.
Idleness and lust are sworn friends.German.
Idleness has a bad outcome.German.
Idleness has poverty for wages.German.
Idleness is a house out of which all sins come.
Idleness is a living death.German.
Idleness is hunger’s mother, and of theft it is full brother.Dutch.
Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds and the holiday of fools.
Idleness is the beginning of sin.German.
Idleness is the devil’s bolster.Danish.
Idleness is the devil’s couch of ease.German.
Idleness is the greatest prodigality in the world.
Idleness is the key of beggary.
Idleness is the root of all evil.German.
Idleness is the rust of the soul.
Idleness is the sepulchre of a living man.Anselm.
Idleness is the step-mother of virtue.German.
Idleness is the shipwreck of chastity.Latin.
Idleness makes the fullest purse empty.German.
Idleness must thank itself if it go barefoot.
Idleness leads to vice.
Idleness turns the edge of wit.
If the devil catch a man idle he’ll set him to work.
It is more painful to do nothing than something.
It is only idle people that can find time for everything.Beaumarchais.
No deity assists the idle.Latin.
Of idleness comes no goodness.
The idler’s mind—the devil’s workshop.
They must hunger in frost that will not work in heat.
They must hunger in frost who spring-time have lost.German.
To be idle is to be vicious.Rambler.
To do nothing teacheth to do evil.Dutch.
Troubles spring from idleness and grievous toils from needless ease.Franklin.
Where idleness dwells sickness turns.German.
You’ll soon learn to shape idle a coat.
You may tell an idle fellow if you but see him at dinner.