“By doing nothing men learn to do ill.”
Publilio Siro Latin writer
Maxim 318
Compare Ecclesiasticus 33:27 (KJV): "idleness teacheth much evil".
Sentences, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave
“753. By doing nothing we learne to do ill.”
Jacula Prudentum (1651)
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Do you have more details about the quote "753. By doing nothing we learne to do ill." by George Herbert?
George Herbert216
Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest 1593–1633Related quotes
“He that leaveth nothing to chance will do few things ill, but he will do very few things.”
George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax (1633–1695) English politician
Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Reflections (1750), Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections
“I was raised to feel that doing nothing was a sin. I had to learn to do nothing.”
Jenny Joseph (1932–2018) Poet
The Observer, 19 April, 1998, p. 23
“For a human being, nothing comes naturally,” said Grumman. “We have to learn everything we do.”
Philip Pullman book The Subtle Knife
Stanislaus Grumman to Lee Scoresby in Ch. 14 : Alamo Gulch
Source: His Dark Materials, The Subtle Knife (1997)
“Even though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion and ill temper.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
1860s, Cooper Union speech (1860)
Context: It is exceedingly desirable that all parts of this great Confederacy shall be at peace, and in harmony, one with another. Let us Republicans do our part to have it so. Even though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion and ill temper. Even though the southern people will not so much as listen to us, let us calmly consider their demands, and yield to them if, in our deliberate view of our duty, we possibly can.
“For the things we have to learn before we can do, we learn by doing.”
Aristotle book Nicomachean Ethics
Book II, 1103a.33: Cited in: Oxford Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (2005), 21:9
Nicomachean Ethics
Source: The Nicomachean Ethics
Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist
Source: 1970s, Ecodynamics: A New Theory Of Societal Evolution, 1978, p. 42
