“Visits are insatiable devourers of time, and fit only for those who, if they did not that, would do nothing.”
Letter to the Rev. John Johnson, (29 September1793).
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William Cowper174
(1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist 1731–1800Related quotes
“Only those are fit to live who are not afraid of dying.”
Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) U.S. Army general of the army, field marshal of the Army of the Philippines
Richards Topical Encyclopedia (1951)
“It's only those who do nothing that make no mistakes, I suppose.”
Joseph Conrad book An Outcast of the Islands
Source: An Outcast of the Islands (1896), Pt. 3, Ch. 2; possibly an adaptation of a Polish proverb, "Ten się nie myli, kto nic nie robi" — "One is not wrong, who does nothing."
Fritz Leiber (1910–1992) American writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction
Source: Bazaar of the Bizarre (pp. 233-234) note: Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series (1939-1988), Swords Against Death (1970)
Douglas William Jerrold (1803–1857) English dramatist and writer
Douglas Jerrold's Wit, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Huston Smith book The World's Religions
On Australian indigenous spirituality.
The World's Religions (1991)
“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”
Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman
Not found in Burke's writings. Appears to be a paraphrase of "It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little." sourced to Sydney Smith (1771 - 1845).
