“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the blue sky, is by no means waste of time.”

— John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury

The Use of Life (1894), ch. IV: Recreation

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 "Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of w…" by John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury?

John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury 7

British banker, Liberal politician, philanthropist, scienti… 1834–1913

Related quotes

“And the water below gives a gift to the sky
And the clouds give back every time that they cry
And make the grass grow green beneath my toes.”

Jack Johnson (musician) (1975) American musician

Talk of the Town.
Song lyrics, Sing-A-Longs and Lullabies for the Film Curious George (2006)

“Oh, sweet it is, where grass is deep
And swifts are overhead,
To lie and watch the clouds, and weep
For friends already dead.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Source: Collected Poems (1990), p. 31

“How sweet to be a Cloud Floating in the Blue! It makes him very proud To be a little cloud.”

A.A. Milne book Winnie-the-Pooh

Variant: How sweet to be a cloud
Floating in the blue.
Source: Winnie-the-Pooh (1926)

“On a blue island in a sky-wide water
The wild orange trees continued to bloom and to bear,
Long after the planter’s death.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction (1942), It Must Change

“From all the misty morning air, there comes a summer sound,
A murmur as of waters from skies, and trees, and ground. The birds they sing upon the wing, the pigeons bill and coo.”

Richard Watson Gilder A Midsummer Song

"A Midsummer Song", in Lyrics and Other Poems (1885).

“The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

The Wild Swans At Coole http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1712/, st. 1
The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)

“Let's build us a happy, little cloud that floats around the sky.”

Bob Ross (1942–1995) American painter, art instructor, and television host

Ann Curry (September 22, 2004) "Painter Bob Ross remains an iconic figure years after his death", NBC News.
Attributed

“The sky was aquamarine, stroked with clouds. She could smell the grass and taste the scent of small, crushed flowers. She looked back up over her forehead at the gray-black wall towering behind her, and wondered if the castle had ever been attacked on days like this. Did the sky seem so limitless, the waters of the straits so fresh and clean, the flowers so bright and fragrant, when men fought and screamed, hacked and staggered and fell and watched their blood mat the grass?
Mists and dusk, rain and lowering cloud seemed the better background; clothes to cover the shame of battle.”

Iain Banks Culture series

Source: Culture series, Use of Weapons (1990), Chapter Two (pp. 50-51).

“Clouds come floating into my life from other days no longer to shed rain or usher storm but to give colour to my sunset sky.”

Rabindranath Tagore Stray Birds

292
Source: Stray Birds (1916)

“Time that withers you will wither me. We will fall like ripe fruit and roll down the grass together. Dear friend, let me lie beside you watching the clouds until the earth covers us and we are gone.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Source: Written on the Body

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the blue sky, is by no means waste of time.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury 7

Related quotes

Related topics