“There is, however, nothing wanting to the idleness of a philosopher but a better name, and that meditation, conversation, and reading should be called “work.””

“Other people’s tragedies should not be the subject of idle conversation.”

“One should eliminate yearning that arises for various idle conversations, which often take place, and for all kinds of entertainment.”

“One should work to his last breath. Idleness should always be avoided.”

“Work, Mr. Burton. There’s nothing like work, for men and women. The one unforgivable sin is idleness.”

“For better is knowledge than constant practice; and than knowledge meditation is more excellent; than meditation, abandonment of the fruit of work; after abandonment, peace ensues.”

“Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience- or give it a more fascinating name, call it hope.”

“Now the code of life of the High Middle Ages said something entirely opposite to this: that it was precisely lack of leisure, an inability to be at leisure, that went together with idleness; that the restlessness of work-for-work's sake arose from nothing other than idleness. There is a curious connection in the fact that the restlessness of a self-destructive work-fanatacism should take its rise from the absence of a will to accomplish something.”

“The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.”

“One should have bigger & better conversions everyday, like a mechanized phoenix.”