Doing Nothing

“I was just moving around the globe, learning classical music and generally doing nothing. I was completely away from glitz and glamour and did not miss it at all.”

“If I know I'm going to be in a little different system, I'm 39, I can plan for that; we can plan for that. Doing nothing, the status quo, is going to guarantee cuts for current seniors... reforming the system is the only way you shore it up.”

“Having faith in God did not mean sitting back and doing nothing. It meant believing you would find success if you did your best honestly and energetically.”

“If I have to spend prolonged periods of time in a trailer, I go mad. Stuck in a metal box doing nothing, I lie there paralysed with boredom.”

“Is an out-of-control life challenge making you feel 'out of control' over your entire life? If so, stop lying around doing nothing. Stop sleeping late. Stop watching too much TV. Start recognizing that this lack of a disciplined schedule will only increase your feelings of being out of control of your life.”

“I wish someone would give me some money for doing nothing.”

“In a packed programme tonight, I shall be having a word with a man who goes in for meditation, because he thinks it's better than sitting around doing nothing.”

“I'm laid-back. Sometimes, I think being laid-back will be my downfall; I'm a little too good at sitting on the sofa and doing nothing. But what can I say? It's who I am, how I am, how I've always been.”

“The ultimate fun is doing nothing. I like doing nothing with people I like - maybe just eating, hanging out and talking.”

“If you want to relax, watch the clouds pass by if you're laying on the grass, or sit in front of the creek; just doing nothing and having those still moments is what really rejuvenates the body.”

“I can't sit around doing nothing. If I'm not working, I have a habit of becoming rather insular.”

“I'm terrified of the thought of time passing (or whatever is meant by that phrase) whether I 'do' anything or not. In a way I may believe, deep down, that doing nothing acts as a brake on 'time's - it doesn't of course. It merely adds the torment of having done nothing, when the time comes when it really doesn't matter if you've done anything or not.”

“Keep chasing your dreams before guilt of doing nothing touches your back”

“There is nothing in the world I wouldn't do for Hope, and there is nothing he wouldn't do for me... We spend our lives doing nothing for each other.”

“I think my goal is to find a way to spend all of my time writing. I mean, sort of; true success is I'm doing nothing but writing if I do my job correctly.”

“Hold childhood in reverence, and do not be in any hurry to judge it for good or ill. Leave exceptional cases to show themselves, let their qualities be tested and confirmed, before special methods are adopted. Give nature time to work before you take over her business, lest you interfere with her dealings. You assert that you know the value of time and are afraid to waste it. You fail to perceive that it is a greater waste of time to use it ill than to do nothing, and that a child ill taught is further from virtue than a child who has learnt nothing at all. You are afraid to see him spending his early years doing nothing. What! is it nothing to be happy, nothing to run and jump all day? He will never be so busy again all his life long. Plato, in his Republic, which is considered so stern, teaches the children only through festivals, games, songs, and amusements. It seems as if he had accomplished his purpose when he had taught them to be happy; and Seneca, speaking of the Roman lads in olden days, says, "They were always on their feet, they were never taught anything which kept them sitting." Were they any the worse for it in manhood? Do not be afraid, therefore, of this so-called idleness. What would you think of a man who refused to sleep lest he should waste part of his life? You would say, "He is mad; he is not enjoying his life, he is robbing himself of part of it; to avoid sleep he is hastening his death." Remember that these two cases are alike, and that childhood is the sleep of reason.The apparent ease with which children learn is their ruin. You fail to see that this very facility proves that they are not learning. Their shining, polished brain reflects, as in a mirror, the things you show them, but nothing sinks in. The child remembers the words and the ideas are reflected back; his hearers understand them, but to him they are meaningless.Although memory and reason are wholly different faculties, the one does not really develop apart from the other. Before the age of reason the child receives images, not ideas; and there is this difference between them: images are merely the pictures of external objects, while ideas are notions about those objects determined by their relations.”

“Doing nothing is even worse than doing the wrong thing.”

“A great chunk of our lives is wasted on thoughts that bring nothing. We all think about something but, in the end, we only close the day thinking a lot and doing nothing but little.”

“In doing you're not, rather in your non-doing you really are!”

“I like to unwind by doing nothing. If I do get a day, I just like to vegetate and laze around.”