100 Lazy Quotes
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There seems to be some consensus on a few aspects of laziness. Allow me to list the observations I’ve made from studying the below 100 quotes:
1. Most people are lazy about some things, for example exercise.
2. Success tempts even hardworking folks to become a little lazy.
3. People were less tolerant and more ashamed of laziness in the past.
4. Nowadays, some people seem almost proud of their laziness.
5. Sometimes, a body in constant motion hides a sleeping mind.
But, why don’t you have a look for yourself and draw your own conclusions. Or, just skim them if you’re feeling a tad lazy at the moment! I’d certainly understand. ; )
100 QUOTES ABOUT LAZINESS
1. There are no lazy veteran lion hunters.
- Norman Augustine
2. Perhaps there are none more lazy, or more truly ignorant, than your everlasting readers.
- Marcus Aurelius
3. An American of the present day reading his Sunday newspaper in a state of lazy collapse is one of the most perfect symbols of the triumph of quantity over quality that the world has yet seen.
- Irving Babbitt
4. Much of my work has come from being lazy.
- John Backus
5. Fatalism is the lazy man’s way of accepting the inevitable.
- Natalie Clifford Barney
6. There are men so incorrigibly lazy that no inducement that you can offer will tempt them to work; so eaten up by vice that virtue is abhorrent to them, and so inveterately dishonest, that theft is to them a master passion. When a human being has reached that stage, there is only one course that can be rationally pursued. Sorrowfully, but remorselessly, it must be recognized that he has become lunatic, morally demented, incapable of self-government, and that upon him, therefore, must be passed the sentence of permanent seclusion from a world in which he is not fit to be at large.
- William Booth
7. Laziness grows on people; it begins in cobwebs, and ends in iron chains. The more one has to do, the more he is able to accomplish.
- Thomas Buxton
8. I was too lazy to start a whole new story, so I just stuck a princess into the story I was working on … and The Princess Diaries was born!
- Meg Cabot
9. It should cause no surprise that anyone so lazy as myself should be economical to the point of miserliness with everything he writes.
- Leslie Charteris
10. Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired.
- Mortimer Caplan
11. I haven’t really got much get up and go. I can’t believe I’m on the telly. I’m so lazy.
- Alan Carr
12. Whenever there is a hard job to be done, I assign it to a lazy man; he is sure to find an easy way of doing it.
- Walter Chrysler
13. The time will come when winter will ask you what you were doing all summer.
- Henry Clay
14. He has the manner of a giant with the look of a child, a lazy activeness, a mad wisdom, a solitude encompassing the world.
- Jean Cocteau
15. A lazy person, whatever the talents with which he starts out, have condemned himself to second-rate thoughts and to second-rate friends.
- Cyril Connolly
16. I was trying to spend it as quickly as possible. Because I’m so lazy, all that money created a block. I was flying around the world, staying at fancy hotels, having fun and trying to get rid of it as quickly as possible, so I could get on with some more work.
- Evan Dando
17. I’ve always just adored music. It’s my first love, really. I admire and respect people in the music business. You really have to work hard and diligently. Sometimes actors can be lazy and get away with it, but you can’t do that if you’re a musician.
- Blythe Danner
18. We seldom call anybody lazy, but such as we reckon inferior to us, and of whom we expect some service.
- Bernard de Mandeville
19. The idle always have a mind to do something.
- Marquis de Vauvernagues
20. There’re so many things I want to do, like become more media savvy. I am too lazy. But, I’m making an effort.
- Ajay Devgan
21. Efficiency is intelligent laziness.
- David Dunham
22. Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.
- Albert Einstein
23. I believe welfare makes you lazy and unproductive.
- Charles Evers
24. The paintings may communicate even better because people are lazy and they can look at a painting with less effort than they can read a poem.
- Lawrence Ferlinghetti
25. The laziest man I ever met put popcorn in his pancakes so they would turn over by themselves.
- W. C. Fields
26. Nobody can think straight who does not work. Idleness warps the mind.
- Henry Ford
27. There are lazy Minds as well as lazy Bodies.
- Benjamin Franklin
28. Laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes him.
- Benjamin Franklin
29. Leisure is the time for doing something useful. This leisure the diligent person will obtain; the lazy one never.
- Benjamin Franklin
30. We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork.
- Milton Friedman
31. You get used to being lazy doing films, but classical theatre’s going to finish me off.
- Michael Gambon
32. I’m French, so I’m quite lazy about exercising, and I smoke. But, I do love going for a run in the morning with my dog. That’s all.
- Eva Green
33. Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.
- Robert A. Heinlein
34. People who throw kisses are hopelessly lazy.
- Bob Hope
35. That destructive siren, sloth, is ever to be avoided.
- Horace
36. Lack of pep is often mistaken for patience.
- Kin Hubbard
37. Determine never to be idle … It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.
- Thomas Jefferson
38. I didn’t only have a perceptual problem, I was also so nervous and so upset. The process just didn’t work. I lost enthusiasm for school and I flunked second grade. The teachers said I was lazy.
- Bruce Jenner
39. All of the biggest technological inventions created by man—the airplane, the automobile, the computer—says little about his intelligence, but speaks volumes about his laziness.
- Mark Kennedy
40. When you drop your guard in films, the acting process compensates. You get lazy and you start acting.
- Ben Kingsley
41. The present generation, wearied by its chimerical efforts, relapses into complete indolence. Its condition is that of a man who has only fallen asleep towards morning: first of all come great dreams, then a feeling of laziness, and finally a witty or clever excuse for remaining in bed.
- Søren Kierkegaard
42. But, you know, my dad called me the laziest white kid he ever met. When I screamed back at him that he was putting down a race of people to call me lazy, his answer was that’s not what he was doing, and that I was also the dumbest white kid he ever met.
- Norman Lear
43. There must be a reason why photographers are not very good at verbal communication. I think we get lazy.
- Annie Leibovitz
44. Italians know about human nature—they understand human nature perhaps better than anyone else does. They know that people are weak and greedy and lazy and dishonest, and they just try to make the best of it—to work around it.
- Donna Leon
45. Let us be lazy in everything, except in loving and drinking, except in being lazy.
- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
46. President Bush says he needs a month off to unwind. Unwind? When the hell does this guy wind?
- David Letterman
47. To accuse another of having weak kidneys, lungs, or heart, is not a crime. On the contrary, saying he has a weak brain is a crime. To be considered stupid, and to be told so, is more painful than being called gluttonous, mendacious, violent, lascivious, lazy, or cowardly. Every weakness, every vice, has found its defenders, its rhetoric, its ennoblement, and exaltation; but, stupidity hasn’t.
- Primo Levi
48. Some people read because they are too lazy to think.
- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
49. The average man doesn’t wish to be told that it is a bull or a bear market. What he desires is to be told specifically which particular stock to buy or sell. He wants to get something for nothing. He does not wish to work. He doesn’t even wish to have to think.
- Jesse Livermore
50. The idle man does not know what it is to enjoy rest, for he has not earned it.
- John Lubbock
51. I’m lazy, but generally task-oriented; so, having a hoop to jump through means, eventually, I’ll make the effort.
- Thomas Lynch
52. Tomorrow is the only day in the year that appeals to a lazy man.
- Jimmy Lyons
53. Rules are mostly made to be broken and are too often for the lazy to hide behind.
- Douglas MacArthur
54. I will act now. I will act now. I will act now. Henceforth, I will repeat these words each hour, each day, everyday, until the words become as much a habit as my breathing, and the action which follows becomes as instinctive as the blinking of my eyelids. With these words, I can condition my mind to perform every action necessary for my success. I will act now. I will repeat these words again and again and again. I will walk where failures fear to walk. I will work when failures seek rest. I will act now for now is all I have. Tomorrow is the day reserved for the labor of the lazy. I am not lazy. Tomorrow is the day when the failure will succeed. I am not a failure. I will act now. Success will not wait. If I delay, success will become wed to another and lost to me forever. This is the time. This is the place. I am the person.
- Og Mandino
55. It’s okay to be a fat man. It’s prestige and power and all of that. But, fat women are seen as just lazy and stupid and having no self-control.
- Camryn Manheim
56. I would step into a place of being lined up with a sense of purpose, and my inner compass and everything was going in the same direction. Then, I’d get lazy and get off the track. And, then things would start to fall apart, and I’d back up and get it together again.
- Kathy Mattea
57. Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy.
- Charlie McCarthy
58. Fanatic is often the name given to people of action by people who are lazy.
- Bryant H. McGill
59. To paint comic books as childish and illiterate is lazy. A lot of comic books are very literate—unlike most films.
- Alan Moore
60. Like most people, I can be lazy; so, it’s nice to have a goal or deadline or reason to work out. I feel better when I get to exercise, or when I’m outdoors. I like to hike, swim, and run; and, I love to play soccer.
- Viggo Mortensen
61. Office life taught me to be tolerant, lazy, and a good gossip.
- Bob Mortimer
62. You’ve got to look for a gap, where competitors in a market have grown lazy and lost contact with the readers or the viewers.
- Rupert Murdoch
63. To exercise power costs effort and demands courage. That is why so many fail to assert rights to which they are perfectly entitled—because a right is a kind of power but they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise it. The virtues which cloak these faults are called patience and forbearance.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
64. The martyrs sacrifice themselves entirely in vain. Or, rather, not in vain; for they make the selfish more selfish, the lazy more lazy, the narrow narrower.
- Florence Nightingale
65. It’s hard to do it because you have got to look people in the eye and tell them they’re irresponsible and lazy. And, who’s going to want to do that? Because that’s what poverty is, ladies and gentlemen. In this country, you can succeed if you get educated and work hard. Period.
- Bill O’Reilley
66. All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy; and, at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery. Writing a book is a long, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.
- George Orwell
67. I’m barely prolific and incredibly lazy.
- Tom Petty
68. We have produced a world of contented bodies and discontented minds.
- Adam Clayton Powell
69. Lazy people tend not to take chances, but express themselves by tearing down other’s work.
- Ann Rule
70. It is easier to mend neglect than to quicken love.
- Saint Jerome
71. Working hard is great; being lazy sometimes is great; but, failed potential is the worst.
- Campbell Scott
72. It’s easier to pick off a fast runner, than to pick off a lazy runner.
- Vin Scully
73. Acting is easier—writing is more creative. The lazy man vies with the industrious.
- William Shatner
74. We were playing popular music; but, we were doing our own arrangements because we were too lazy to sit down and figure out the originals.
- Tommy Shaw
75. If I have an idea, I write it down; although, I usually carry a little dictation machine with me because I’m too lazy to write.
- Tommy Shaw
76. Human nature is above all things lazy.
- Harriet Beecher Stowe
77. How can a society that exists on instant mashed potatoes, packaged cake mixes, frozen dinners, and instant cameras teach patience to its young?
- Paul Sweeney
78. Too many young people itch for what they want without scratching for it.
- Thomas Taylor
79. All life demands struggle. Those who have everything given to them become lazy, selfish, and insensitive to the real values of life. The very striving and hard work that we so constantly try to avoid is the major building block in the person we are today.
- Ralph Ransom
80. People are not lazy. They simply have impotent goals—that is, goals that do not inspire them.
- Anthony Robbins
81. Broad-minded is just another way of saying a fellow’s too lazy to form an opinion.
- Will Rogers
82. The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.
- Jim Rohn
83. Everything we would ever need to become rich and powerful and sophisticated is within our reach. The major reason that so few take advantage of all that we have is, simply, neglect.
- Jim Rohn
84. There are no ugly women, only lazy ones.
- Helena Rubinstein
85. Disobedience, the rarest and most courageous of the virtues, is seldom distinguished from neglect, the laziest and commonest of the vices.
- George Bernard Shaw
86. There is no fatigue so wearisome as that which comes from lack of work.
- Charles Haddon Spurgeon
87. I was a personality before I became a person. I am simple, complex, generous, selfish, unattractive, beautiful, lazy, and driven.
- Barbara Streisand
88. What is right is often forgotten by what is convenient.
- Bodie Thoene
89. If you really want to succeed, you’ll have to go for it every day like I do. The big time isn’t for slackers. Keep up your mental stamina and remain curious. I think that bored people are unintelligent people.
- Donald Trump
90. I have seen slower people than I am and more deliberate … and even quieter, and more listless, and lazier people than I am. But, they were dead.
- Mark Twain
91. Everyone’s really lazy in L.A.
- Skeet Ulrich
92. I would rather do movies because I’m very lazy and the hours are much easier.
- Michael Vartan
93. Shun idleness. It is a rust that attaches itself to the most brilliant metals.
- Voltaire
94. We’re both very, very lazy; and, having someone else do half the work is very convenient.
- Larry Wachowski
95. Programmers can be lazy.
- Larry Wall
96. I’m lazy. But, it’s the lazy people who invented the wheel and the bicycle because they didn’t like walking or carrying things.
- Lech Walesa
97. If you’re coasting, you’re either losing momentum or else you’re headed downhill.
- Joan Welsh
98. Because you can be lazy if you don’t know the truth.
- Meg White
99. I like the word “indolence.” It makes my laziness seem classy.
- Bern Williams
100. I’m a bit hesitant to do anything because I’m actually kind of lazy and I’d like an easier life from now on. The world’s a massive place with lots of early mornings and late starts when you’re working.
- Robbie Williams
CONCLUSION
The only thing I can see wrong with being lazy is if it prevents you from getting the things you want out of life. If you already have those things, then laziness is only bad if it causes you to lose them. But, if your special brand of laziness doesn’t affect your happiness, then, by all means, enjoy your leisure! You’ve earned it! : )
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[For “Lessons on Laziness from ‘Office Space,’” click here.]
[For “Lessons on Never Giving Up from Team Hoyt,” click here.]
[For “Lessons from Faith, the Dog that Walks Like a Human,” click here.]
[For entire “Lessons On” series, click here.]
[For “200 Work Quotes,” click here.]
[For “300 Dream Quotes,” click here.]
[For “300 Entrepreneur Quotes,” click here.]
[For “200 Existence Quotes,” click here.]
[For “200 Happiness Quotes,” click here.]
[For “300 Friendship Quotes,” click here.]
[For “100 Love and Marriage Quotes,” click here.]
[For all posts about different QUOTES, click here.]
[For “25 Statements to Happiness,” click here.]
