Top 100 Idly Quotes
#1. Sig idly stuck her index finger in her cup of steaming-hot coffee and stirred it. I couldn't decide it it was mildly erotic or mildly disgusting.
Elliott James
#2. I watched him playing with the long blades of grass, weaving them into patterns as he hummed an unfamiliar song, a waltz.
"What are you doing?" I asked him.
"I'm letting you get used to the idea of me," he said idly. "I'm pretending to be harmless. Is it working?"
"Until you smile," ( ... )
Delilah S. Dawson
#3. The meaning of these discoveries has not yet been sorted out, but it is certainly now impossible to regard the prehistoric Europeans as savages idly
Michael Crichton
#4. Socrates: I'm afraid that it might actually be sacrilegious to stand idly by while morality is being denigrated and not try to assist as long as one has breath in one's body and a voice to protest with.
Plato
#6. When a caterpillar bursts from its cocoon and discovers it has wings, it does not sit idly, hoping to one day turn back. It flies.
Kelseyleigh Reber
#7. Sometimes I feel this summer as if I were walking through the green meadow again, idly, aimlessly, unthinking and unguided.
Kate Chopin
#8. A man was leaning idly against an elm ... The man, who towered over the poet even at his slanting angle, too old for a student and too worn for a faculty member, stared at him with the familiar, insatiable gleam of the literary admirer.
Matthew Pearl
#9. A society that does not defend itself is doomed. A system that remains passive in the face of attack deserves to go under. Those unwilling to defend freedom will become unfree. To stand idly by is to commit suicide.
Brian Crozier
#10. I had been chipping at the world idly, and had by accident uncovered vast and labyrinthine further worlds within it.
Annie Dillard
#11. Yes, Manila had its slums; one saw them on the drive from the airport: vast districts of men in dirty white undershirts lounging idly in front of auto-repair shops - like a poorer version of the 1950s America depicted in such films as Grease.
Mohsin Hamid
#12. Idly he toyed with the notion of ripping Leybrook's head off his shoulders. It would be a very pleasant, extremely satisfying project, but Virginia would probably not approve.
Amanda Quick
#13. I consider myself perfectly normal, and I don't know of any part of my life that would be so unusual as to interest the idly curious.
George Harrison
#14. Chris was in the rocker, fully clothed, and was strumming idly on
Cory's guitar. "Dance, ballerina, dance," he softly chanted, and his
singing voice wasn't bad at all. Maybe we could work as musicians
a
trio -if Carrie ever recovered enough to want a voice again.
V.C. Andrews
#15. Joph talked idly with them, all the while silently making a list of names. He'd share that list with Princess Leia soon. Might come in handy, someday. You never knew. -
Claudia Gray
#16. Somewhere, everywhere, now hidden, now apparent in what ever is written down, is the form of a human being. If we seek to know him, are we idly occupied
Virginia Woolf
#17. Never stand idly while people commit what you know to be an injustice! Injustice only leads to more injustice!
Robert Kiyosaki
#18. The sweetness that all longed for night and day. Some tragedy might be idly guessed at-loss or illness. She had the luminosity of those about to die.
Shirley Hazzard
#19. My eyes are dim with childish tears, My heart is idly stirred, For the same sound is in my ears Which in those days I heard.
William Wordsworth
#20. Without time as a reference, the mind sits idly by and wanders into the ways of dark imaginings and evil works
~Hecate
M.L. Stephens
#21. I wonder idly how long i can go without sleep before I flip my shit and start running down the street in my underwear, hallicinating purple spiders.
Lauren Oliver
#22. Alone!-that worn-out word, So idly spoken, and so coldly heard; Yet all that poets sing and grief hath known Of hopes laid waste, knells in that word ALONE!
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
#23. When you meet a man, don't you always idly wonder what he'd be like in bed? I do.
Helen Gurley Brown
#24. Authentic leaders are often accused of being "controlling" by those who idly sit by and do nothing
John Paul Warren
#25. he cursed the malevolent Gods for the black day when idly, for their amusement, they had spawned men.
Michael Moorcock
#26. Respectability had its uses. I wondered idly how many spymasters had thought of using elderly ladies? You didn't hear about old women as spies - but then again, that might merely indicate how good they were at it.
Diana Gabaldon
#27. There are worse things to be than a disease," she said, idly thoughtful. "When you have one, it reminds you that you're alive. Makes you fight for what you have. When the disease has run its course, normal healthy life seems wonderful by comparison.
Brandon Sanderson
#28. It's a matter of ABC: When we encounter ADVERSITY, we react by thinking about it. Our thoughts rapidly congeal into BELIEFS. These beliefs may become so habitual we don't even realize we have them unless we stop to focus on them. And they don't just sit there idly; they have CONSEQUENCES.
Martin Seligman
#29. I listened idly to the voices of the couple working in the back bedroom.
Charlaine Harris
#30. What reason is there that he which laboreth much, and, sparing the fruits of his labor, consumeth little, should be more charged than he that, living idly, getteth little and spendeth all he gets, seeing the one hath no more protection from the commonwealth than the other?
Thomas Hobbes
#31. Seated one day at the organ, I was weary and ill at ease, and my fingers wandered idly over the noisy keys. It seemed the harmonious echo from our discordant life.
Adelaide Anne Procter
#32. A newspaper, not having to act on its descriptions and reports, but only to sell them to idly curious people, has nothing but honor to lose by inaccuracy and non-veracity.
George Bernard Shaw
#33. I will not stand idly when anyone gets in the way of the national interest and tries to block the national vision. From where I sit, I can tell you, a president is always as strong as she wants to be.
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
#34. Hardin, as he sat at the foot of the table, speculated idly as to just what it was that made physical scientists such poor administrators. It might be merely that they were too used to inflexible fact and far too unused to pliable people.
Isaac Asimov
#35. It comes in many forms. Idly dreaming about the future. Plotting our revenge. Finding refuge in distraction. Refusing to consider that our choices are a reflection of our character. We'd rather do basically anything else.
Ryan Holiday
#36. We cannot sacrifice our safety to the murderous greed of drug cartels. We cannot stand idly by as drop houses, kidnappings and violence compromise our quality of life.
Jan Brewer
#37. Whatever the adversity, if a man is on hand to provide ease to a lady's cause, I think he's a shitheel if he stands idly by when she could use an umbrella, a handkerchief, or a steady arm.
Nick Offerman
#38. The house is made up of the spirits of our ancestors. Did you think they would lie idly by while we were under attack?
'Cuz, yeah, didn't everybody's ancestors rise up and destroy enemies.
Christine Feehan
#39. She rolled toward him, nestling close and throwing her arm over his chest. Her fingers toyed idly with the hair there, sifting
Tessa Dare
#40. We will receive not what we idly wish for but what we justly earn. Our rewards will always be in exact proportion to our service.
Earl Nightingale
#41. I have never even idly thought for a single passing second that it might make my life nicer to have a small rude incontinent person follow me around screaming and making me buy them stuff for the rest of my life.
Tim Kreider
#42. [Christian Grey] didn't want me as a girlfriend. I turn on to my side. Idly, I wonder if perhaps he's celibate.
E.L. James
#43. Ask any rich man of common prudence to which of the two sorts of people he has lent the greater part of his stock, to those who, he thinks, will employ it profitably, or to those who will spend it idly, and he will laugh at you for proposing the question.
Adam Smith
#44. Our humanity has been compromised by those who use Gestapo tactics in our war. The longer we stand idly by while they do so, the more we resemble those 'good Germans' who professed ignorance of their own Gestapo.
Frank Rich
#45. I spend a lot of time idly. I go to sporting events, play my clarinet. I practise. But if you work every day, a certain amount on a steady basis, the work accumulates.
Woody Allen
#46. If we stand idly by while states legalize bigotry, we are responsible for allowing it to happen.
Dannel Malloy
#47. Oh, well," Mat said idly, "she's just the Dragon Reborn's woman."
(about Min)
Robert Jordan
#48. Happy, thrice happy, every one Who sees his labor well begun, And not perplexed and multiplied, By idly waiting for time and tide!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#49. The House of Representatives was not designed to sit idly by and rubberstamp every piece of legislation sent their way by the Senate, especially legislation passed on a straight party line vote under the spurious policy of reconciliation.
Neal Boortz
#50. Imagine foreign troops sitting idly, laughing as hooligans trashed the Smithsonian, stole the gold from Fort Knox and burned down the Department of the Interior. That was us in Iraq.
Ted Rall
#51. As a culture, we've become upset by the tobacco companies advertising to children, but we sit idly by while the food companies do the very same thing. And we could make a claim that the toll taken on the public health by a poor diet rivals that taken by tobacco.
Michael Moss
#53. My digestion is not mocked!" boomed the Russian. "Nor will I stand idly while Miss Larouche is insulted! You are banished, hedgehog! My digestion has spoken-BEGONE!
James Kennedy
#54. A penis has never been something that you pick up and put down and put away idly without consideration.
Larry Kramer
#55. After making love there is nothing like making love, slowly, idly, like walking without a destination, or swimming in a warm sea.
Chloe Thurlow
#56. Knowing the secret of happiness to be freedom, and the secret of freedom a brave heart, not idly to stand aside from the enemy's onset.
Thucydides
#57. As we sit here and idly chat, there are woman, female human beings, rolling around in strange beds with strange men, and we are making money from that.
Henry Winkler
#58. This figure, which I had so vaguely, idly, noticed before was now utterly changed in my eyes. The whole world was its background. And between me and it there hovered, perhaps for the last time, the vision of a slim long-legged girl with gleaming thighs. I ran.
Iris Murdoch
#59. She idly wonders which is crueler, man or nature. She determines it must be man. Nature has no remorse, but neither does it have malice.
Neal Shusterman
#60. I might have starved to death. I would be mud-slick, stuffed to the guts with cold and hopelessness, and my body might know it was doomed and give up on its own. That would be better than idly winding wool on a snowy day, waiting for someone to kill me.
Hannah Kent
#61. The apothegm is the most portable form of Truth ... It is thus that the proverb answers where the sermon fails, as a well-charged pistol will do more execution than a whole barrel of gunpowder idly expended in the air.
William Gilmore Simms
#62. I know something about that war, and I never want to see that history repeated. But, my fellow Americans, it certainly can be repeated if the peace-loving democratic nations again fearfully practice a policy of standing idly by while big aggressors use armed force to conquer the small and weak.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
#63. I dislike the word 'victim.' I dislike being told that I 'lost' my husband - as if I had idly abandoned you by the side of the railway track like an unwanted pair of old shoes.
Nina Bawden
#64. If one has no earnest daily intention, does not consider what it is to be a warrior even in his dreams, and lives through the day idly, he can be said to be worthy of punishment.
Tsunetomo Yamamoto
#65. As in a theatre, the eyes of men, after a well-graced actor leaves the stage, are idly bent on him that enters next.
William Shakespeare
#66. A father who denies a child of his attention is no better than a fully-equipped medic who watches idly as a soldier bleeds to death.
Wes Fesler
#67. One might open the book idly, but one never knows what treasures one might find.
Julie Klassen
#68. Time takes no holiday. It does not roll idly by, but through our senses works its own wonders in the mind. Time came and went from one day to the next; in its coming and its passing it brought me other hopes and other memories. [quoted in Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo, p. 54]
Augustine Of Hippo
#69. I walked across the polished marble floor and sat on a red velvet lounging couch. I idly wondered how exactly one was supposed to lounge. I couldn't remember ever doing it myself. After a moment's consideration, I decided lounging was probably similar to relaxing, but with more money in your pocket.
Patrick Rothfuss
#70. When others stood idly by, you and your families gave your all, in defence of a risen people and in pursuit of Irish freedom and unity.
Gerry Adams
#71. Perhaps Mr. Grey insists on all his employees being blonde. I'm wondering idly if that's legal.
E.L. James
#72. While reading Kasparov's book How Life Imitates Chess on my Kindle, I idly clicked on "popular highlights" to see what passages other readers had found interesting - and wound up becoming fascinated by a section on chess strategy I'd only lightly skimmed myself.
Clive Thompson
#73. Many are idly busy; Domitian was busy, but then it was in catching flies.
Jeremy Taylor
#74. So when you didn't mention marriage again I assumed that you had been talking idly, the way men do when they're feeling romantic.
Andrew Davidson
#75. He murdered my Tristian. He stole my drudge away from me. Innocent, sweet Tristian. And you would have me sit idly by while he toast to his kill? This is madness!
Vikas
#76. Omission to do what is necessary Seals a commission to a blank of danger; And danger, like an ague, subtly taints Even then when we sit idly in the sun.
William Shakespeare
#77. They but appear a solemn People, - worshipping Laughter, rather, as a serious, indeed holy, Force in Nature, never to be invok'd idly.
Thomas Pynchon
#78. Idly, I switch the mean machine on and fire up the e-mail program.
E.L. James
#79. So Americans understand the costs of war. Yet as a country, we will never tolerate our security being threatened, nor stand idly by when our people have been killed. We will be relentless in defense of our citizens and our friends and allies. We will be true to the values that make us who we are.
Barack Obama
#80. I really can't stress this enough. If you want to make an impact, don't simply sit idly by and 'hope' for courage. Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the decision made in determining what is more important than fear.
M.B. Dallocchio
#81. Big? Sure. But, he can't catch mice! So for your big tree. No use? Then plant it in the wasteland - in emptiness. Walk idly around it and rest under it's shadow. No axe or saw prepares its end. No one will ever cut it down. Useless? You should worry!.
Zhuangzi
#82. But what do I care, for love will be over so soon,
Let my heart have its say and my mind stand idly by,
For my mind is proud and strong enough to be silent,
It is my heart that makes my songs, not I.
Sara Teasdale
#83. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham.
Martin Luther King Jr.
#84. I would consider all of the legislation which I have supported meaningless if I were to sit idly by, silent, during a period which may go down in history as an era when we permitted the curtailment of our liberties.
Dennis Chavez
#85. Tendai remembered his last birthday. It seemed one shouldn't make wishes idly. Who knew which spirits were listening. He considered a moment and then thought, I wish for courage. Because with courage, you weren't afraid to look at the truth. You weren't afraid to ask questions or do the right thing.
Nancy Farmer
#86. Because our hearts are frivolous and because we ignore our faults we never discover the sickness in our souls, but idly we laugh when we have full reason to weep.
Thomas A Kempis
#87. I rarely exercise at all, except I have some hand weights that I'll lift idly while I'm watching TV. I did do some push-ups last week and somehow hurt my shoulder.
Nick Antosca
#89. He that spends a Groat a day idly, spends idly above 6 l. a year, which is the Price of using 100 l.
Benjamin Franklin
#90. Idly, Wick wondered if he should feel insulted. Then he decided there really wasn't any room for considering an insult with all the fear running rampant in his mind. Maybe he was quiet on the outside, but he knew he was running around screaming inside his thoughts.
Mel Odom
#91. Do not allow a trivial misunderstanding to wither the blossoms of spring, which, once put forth and blighted, cannot be renewed ... The gushing fountains which sparkle in the sun must not be stopped in mere caprice; the oasis in the desert of Sahara must not be plucked up idly.
Charles Dickens
#92. The devil doesn't sit idly by while you seek God. If you're pursuing Christ, the enemy is pursuing you.
Mark Hart
#93. Oh! the suspense, the fearful, acute suspense, of standing idly by while the life of one we dearly love, is trembling in the balance!
Charles Dickens
#94. Maybe if I smiled more when I made jokes, he thought idly, leaning against the side of the barricade. Then they'd understand what I meant. That, of course, raised the question: Did he want people to understand? It was often more amusing the other way. Besides, smiling was so garish.
Robert Jordan
#95. It is easy to blame the person responsible for the crime, to hate them and despise them, but when we sit idly by and watch evil happen right before our very eyes and become bound to the person by hate, we become co-conspirators of the wrong.
E.J. Squires
#96. Abiding does not mean sitting idly by. It means resting in the work, resting in the moment, resting in the truth, resting in the confidence that God is your provision.
Robin Bertram
#97. I would find myself staring resentfully at people on buses merely going home at the end of their day. How could they sit there so idly and unknowingly, their indifferent profiles on display, when the world was about to be changed?
Julian Barnes
#98. The kiss was yours, Dalinar,' she said idly, pulling open the door and entering his antechamber.
'You seduced me to it.'
'What? Seduced?' She glanced back at him. 'Dalinar, I've never been more open and honest in my life.'
'I know,' Dalinar said, smiling. 'That was the seductive part.
Brandon Sanderson
#99. Now he turned the radio on to the news. As we did our separate chores, we listened and commented idly to each other on what we heard - the politics, the plane crashes and crimes, the large disasters of the day, which we all use to keep the smaller, more long-term sorrows at bay.
Sue Miller
#100. Many thousands of youth have been deprived of the benefit of education thereby, their morals ruined, and talents irretrievably lost to society, for want of cultivation: while two parties have been idly contending who should bestow it.
Joseph Lancaster
