" I dismounted from my perch at last, and was sauntering idly along the path (idleness like this is often the best of ornithological industry), when suddenly I had a vision!

The poor, free negro is ashamed of himself; he dares not aspire to any thing noble and great; he preserves, besides, as the legacy of slavery, the idea that labor is dishonoring, that idleness is a sign of independence.

I have spent many an hour, when I was younger, floating over its surface as the zephyr willed, having paddled my boat to the middle, and lying on my back across the seats, in a summer forenoon, dreaming awake, until I was aroused by the boat touching the sand, and I arose to see what shore my fates had impelled me to; days when idleness was the most attractive and productive industry.

And this makes me ask, if idleness is a vice in the poor, how is it that among the rich it is counted as a sign of distinction and even of elevation of mind?

Idleness and sanctity are a powerful combination, and it is written in the shastras that every day in which a holy man does no work for his bread, but lives by begging, is equal in the eyes of the gods to a day spent in fasting; so, though the prospect of power and wealth might tempt a few restless and wayward spirits, the great mass of the Brahmin caste clung to the sacred calling.

In ours, Sir! Abbot. Idleness, Sir, deceit, and immorality, are the three children of this same barbarous self-indulgence in almsgiving.

However, idleness is not the leading feature of life of the Filipinos, and when they are mixed, especially crossed with Chinese, they are indefatigable.

This, however, was meant with a just restriction; for, he on another occasion said to me, 'Sir, a man may be so much of every thing, that he is nothing of any thing.' 'Raising the wages of day-labourers is wrong; for it does not make them live better, but only makes them idler, and idleness is a very bad thing for human nature.'

Idleness is a silent and peaceful quality, that neither raises envy by ostentation, nor hatred by opposition; and therefore nobody is busy to censure or detect it.

Idleness is the stepdame of virtue, as our preachers have often told us.

Idleness is so general a Distemper that I cannot but imagine a Speculation on this Subject will be of universal Use.

Idleness is dreadful tryin' to me, and I'd rather wear out than rust out; so I guess I can weather it a spell longer.

Belgian industrial idleness has been the creation of the Germans, maintained by them for their own profit.

And idleness is a curse.

Idleness for the fishermen had been the rule in previous winters, and, as idleness is usually only another word for mischief and dissipation, the morals of the men had suffered seriously.

So true it is that idleness is the food of soft desires.

" "Well, dear," says she, "I do believe 'tis idleness is the root of my disorder.

It has been observed by some of those philosophers who have made the human mind the object of their study, that idleness is often the mother of love.

Idleness is the malus genius of our nation.

The good sense of the mass gives me reason to hope that idleness will be the exception, not the rule.

'Summer idleness in a drawing-room is an agreeable variety.

That the definition may be complete, idleness must be not only the general, but the peculiar characteristick of man; and perhaps man is the only being that can properly be called idle, that does by others what he might do himself, or sacrifices duty or pleasure to the love of ease.