“How various his employments whom the world
Calls idle, and who justly in return
Esteems that busy world an idler too!”

—  William Cowper , The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book III, The Garden, Line 352.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "How various his employments whom the world Calls idle, and who justly in return Esteems that busy world an idler too!" by William Cowper?
William Cowper photo
William Cowper 174
(1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist 1731–1800

Related quotes

Daniel Defoe photo

“I have since often observed, how incongruous and irrational the common temper of mankind is, especially of youth, to that reason which ought to guide them in such cases - viz. they are not ashamed to sin, and yet are ashamed to repent. Not ashamed of the action for which they ought justly to be esteemed fools, but are ashamed of the returning, which can only make them be esteemed wise men.”

Daniel Defoe (1660–1731) English trader, writer and journalist

Source: Robinson Crusoe (1719), Ch. 1, Start in Life.

Czeslaw Milosz photo

“Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he's much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
No other end of the world will there be,
No other end of the world will there be.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

"A Song On the End of the World"

Milton Friedman photo

“A worker is protected from his employer by the existence of other employers for who he can go to work. An employer is protected from exploitation by his employees by the existence of other workers whom he can hire. The consumer is protected from exploitation by a given seller by the existence of other sellers from whom he can buy.”

Milton Friedman book Free to Choose

Source: Free to Choose (1980), Ch. 8 "Who Protects the Workers?", p. 246

“Not returning phone calls is the severest form of torture in the civilized world.”

Marisha Pessl Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Source: Special Topics in Calamity Physics

David Hume photo

“As to the Approbation or Esteem of those Blockheads who call themselves the Public, & whom a Bookseller, a Lord, a Priest, or a Party can guide, I do most heartily despise it.”

David Hume (1711–1776) Scottish philosopher, economist, and historian

Letter 138, To Gilbert Elliot of Minto; August 9, 1757

Ramakrishna photo

“If there are errors in other religions, that is none of our business. God, to whom the world belongs, takes care of that.”

Ramakrishna (1836–1886) Indian mystic and religious preacher

Source: The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (1942), p. 559

“The passive idler of all men in the world is the most difficult to please. Those who do the least themselves are always the severest critics upon the noble achievements of others.”

Elias Lyman Magoon (1810–1886) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 345.

Dejan Stojanovic photo

“Arrival in the world is really a departure and that, which we call departure, is only a return.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

“Reprise,” p. 50
The Sun Watches the Sun (1999), Sequence: "Forgotten Place”

“It seems to me that entitlement is the key to nearly all atrocities, and that any threat to perceived entitlement will provoke hatred. The man who flayed the cat presumably felt that his employers were entitled to the cat's skin. Europeans felt that they were (and are) entitled to the land of North and South America. Slave owners clearly felt they were entitled to the labor (and the lives) of their slaves, not only in partial payment for protecting slaves from their own idleness, but also simply as a return on their capital investment. Owners of nonhuman capital today feel they, too, are entitled to the "surplus return on labor," as economists put it, as part of their reward for furnishing jobs, and to provide a return on their investment in capital. Rapists act on the belief that they are entitled to their victims' bodies, and entitled to inflict cruelty upon them. Americans act as though we are entitled to consume the majority of the world's resources, and the change the world's climate. All industrialized humans act like they're entitled to anything they want on this planet.”

Derrick Jensen book The Culture of Make Believe

Source: The Culture of Make Believe (2003), p. 105-6

“And this is how I sometimes think of myself, as a great explorer who has discovered some extraordinary land from which he can never return to give his knowledge to the world: but the name of this land is hell.”

Malcolm Lowry book Under the Volcano

Source: Under the Volcano (1947), Ch. I (p. 36)

Related topics