It's feeding, Billy. It's port and stimulants where there is no scope for action. It's idleness. I begin to see now how much fatter you are, how much coarser." "Idleness! Look at this pile of examination answers. Look at that filing system like an arsenal of wisdom. Useless wisdom, I admit, but anyhow not idleness." "There's still bodily idleness. That's your trouble.英文原著 · 《The Research Magnificent》
Consider that you have lost a good deal of time by your illness; fetch it up now that you are well. At present you should be a good economist of your moments, of which company and sights will claim a considerable share; so that those which remain for study must be not only attentively, but greedily employed. But indeed I do not suspect you of one single moment's idleness in the whole day. Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds, and the holiday of fools. I do not call good company and liberal pleasures, idleness; far from it: I recommend to you a good share of both.英文原著 · 《Letters to His Son, 1749》
"But you went to the ball," said the elder woman. "You were not idle there, I imagine. And a ball is good for a great deal. One ought to accomplish more there than in a garden. Besides, you went with John Gray, and he is never idle. Did--he--accomplish--nothing?""Indeed, he was not idle!" exclaimed Amy with a jubilant laugh. "Indeed he did accomplish something--more than he ever did in his life before!"英文原著 · 《The Choir Invisible》
There were some Italian and Flemish pictures of admitted authenticity, a few genuine bronzes, and other objects of curiosity, which her brothers or herself had picked up while abroad. In short, it was a place where the idle were tempted to become studious, the studious to grow idle where the grave might find matter to make them gay, and the gay subjects for gravity.英文原著 · 《Chronicles of the Canongate》
I do not believe it would be possible for any person to be idle in the House of Industry at Munich. I never saw any one idle; often as I have passed through the working-rooms; nor did I ever see any one to whom the employments of industry seemed to be painful or irksome.英文原著 · 《ESSAYS-1》
In Mark Twain's Bermuda chapters entitled Idle Notes of an Idle Excursion he tells of an old sea captain, one Hurricane Jones, who explained biblical miracles in a practical, even if somewhat startling, fashion. In his story of the prophets of Baal, for instance, the old captain declared that the burning water was nothing more nor less than petroleum. Upon reading the "notes," Professor Phelps of Yale wrote that the same method of explaining miracles had been offered by Sir Thomas Browne.英文原著 · 《Letters Vol. 5》
Sorry, no time for idle chit-chat, because we've entered - the Small Talk Round. - The what now?美剧 · 《Bojack Horseman》