Idle

Famous quotes containing the word idle:

“In times like ours, where the growing complexity of life leaves us barely the time to read the newspapers, where the map of Europe has endured profound rearrangements and is perhaps on the brink of enduring yet others, where so many threatening and new problems appear everywhere, you will admit it may be demanded of a writer that he be more than a fine wit who makes us forget in idle and byzantine discussions on the merits of pure form ...”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)

“Books are for the scholar’s idle times. When he can read God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men’s transcripts of their readings.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

“One person tells an idle story; ten thousand repeat it as truth.”
—Chinese proverb.