Literary notes about idle (AI summary)
The term “idle” is employed in literature to convey both a moral judgment on unproductive behavior and a nuanced description of leisure or aimlessness. In some works, being idle is seen as a vice, suggesting laziness or a lack of industrious spirit, as when young men are reproached for not engaging in meaningful work ([1], [2], [3], [4]). Conversely, other texts invoke idleness in a more ambivalent or even affectionate light—describing not only the languid drifting of time ([5], [6]) but also the trivial chatter and unhurried moments that punctuate life ([7], [8]). In a broader sense, “idle” may also be used to highlight the contrast between purposeful activity and the wasteful squandering of talent or time, adding a rich layer of critique or introspection to the work’s thematic fabric ([9], [10], [11]).
- You wouldn’t be bored if you had something to do; but all you young men are too idle.
— from The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1 by Henry James - Thus you see that there are no idle persons among them, nor pretences of excusing any from labour.
— from Utopia by Saint Thomas More - There are far too many idle men in London as it is.
— from The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People by Oscar Wilde - There is neither morality nor logic in my being a doctor and your being a mental patient, there is nothing but idle chance.”
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - Am down here a few days for a change, to bask in the Autumn sun, to idle lusciously and simply, and to eat hearty meals, especially my breakfast.
— from Complete Prose Works by Walt Whitman - In silence and in dread I stood by the [Pg 133] sweep, holding the jack-plane in my hand, not knowing what to do, and not daring to be idle.
— from Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup - So that’s idle talk, my buckie,” says he.
— from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson - This must be the gossip of idle tongues.
— from A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle - That things should have a nature in themselves, quite apart from interpretation and subjectivity, is a perfectly idle hypothesis : it would presuppose
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV by Nietzsche - Moreover, many bees have to remain idle for many days during the process of secretion.
— from On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin - If man clearly discerned his own nature, his imagination would remain idle, and would have nothing to add to the picture.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 2 by Alexis de Tocqueville
