He that is busy is tempted but by one devil, he that is idle by a legion.
Related quotes
He that is busy is tempted by but one devil; he that is idle, by a legion.
Thomas Fuller in Gnomologia (1732)
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
He that labours is tempted by one devil; he that is idle is tempted by a thousand.
The busy man is troubled with but one devil, the idle man by a thousand.
Consolation
Little's the good to sit and grieve
Because the serpent tempted Eve.
Better to wipe your eyes and take
A club and go out and kill a snake.
What do you gain by cursing Nick
For playing her such a scurvy trick?
Better go out and some villain find
Who serves the devil, and beat him blind.
But if you prefer, as I suspect,
To philosophize, why, then, reflect:
If the cunning rascal upon the limb
Hadn't tempted her she'd have tempted him.
poem by Ambrose Bierce
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
If I'm alone too long I think too much, and I'm not interested in doing that. That won't lead anywhere good, I'm sure. If I'm busy I tend to stay out of trouble. An idle mind is the devil's playground.
quote by Lisa Marie Presley
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Busy
I am busy
you are busy
we are busy
but the old woman needs help
to find her way home.
I am busy
you are busy
we are busy
but the dove is too slow
to fly out of the way.
I am busy
you are busy
we are busy
but the children crossing the street
are too many.
I am busy
you are busy
we are busy....
I am busy
you are busy
we are...
busy.
poem by Marites C. Cayetano
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Busy Bodies
So you think that you have seen her
When youre lying in between her
And you tell me that you dont care
Busy bodies getting nowhere
Evrybodys getting meaner
Busy bodies
Caught in the concertina
You check her outline
Break her regulations
You watch her legs through several
Service stations
Busy bodies
Very busy
Getting nowhere
Nowhere, nowhere, nowhere
Now youre ready for the merger
With the company youre part of
And you do the dirty business
With your latest sleeping partner
Youre becoming
Automatic
Busy bodies
Out playing with the traffic
You want attention
You try my patience
With the best intentions you are nothing but a nuisance
Busy bodies
Busy busy
Getting nowhere
Nowhere, nowhere, nowhere
Now youve given your performance
Though the matinee was idle
And you find that a wave of her right hand
Could seem so tidal
Just a second
Satisfaction
Busy bodies
Temporarily out of action
You wash and brush up
You want to dress up
You want to kiss her
But shes busy with her makeup
Busy bodies
Very busy
Getting nowhere
Nowhere (x6)
song performed by by Elvis Costello
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Elisha Cook was a darling, and full of the devil. A wired - up little fellow who was always busy, busy, busy.
quote by Marie Windsor
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Stanzas
Often rebuked, yet always back returning
To those first feelings that were born with me,
And leaving busy chase of wealth and learning
For idle dreams of things which cannot be:
To-day, I will seek not the shadowy region;
Its unsustaining vastness waxes drear;
And visions rising, legion after legion,
Bring the unreal world too strangely near.
I'll walk, but not in old heroic traces,
And not in paths of high morality,
And not among the half-distinguished faces,
The clouded forms of long-past history.
I'll walk where my own nature would be leading:
It vexes me to choose another guide:
Where the grey flocks in ferny glens are feeding;
Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side.
What have those lonely mountains worth revealing?
More glory and more grief than I can tell:
The earth that wakes one human heart to feeling
Can centre both the worlds of Heaven and Hell.
poem by Emily Brontë from Selections from the literary remains of Emily and Anne Brontë (1850)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!
An Old Twenty-Third Man
“Is that the Three-and-Twentieth, Strabo mine,
Marching below, and we still gulping wine?”
From the sad magic of his fragrant cup
The red-faced old centurion started up,
Cursed, battered on the table. “No,” he said,
“Not that! The Three-and-Twentieth Legion’s dead,
Dead in the first year of this damned campaign—
The Legion’s dead, dead, and won’t rise again.
Pity? Rome pities her brave lads that die,
But we need pity also, you and I,
Whom Gallic spear and Belgian arrow miss,
Who live to see the Legion come to this,
Unsoldierlike, slovenly, bent on loot,
Grumblers, diseased, unskilled to thrust or shoot.
O, brown cheek, muscled shoulder, sturdy thigh!
Where are they now? God! watch it struggle by,
The sullen pack of ragged ugly swine.
Is that the Legion, Gracchus? Quick, the wine!”
“Strabo,” said Gracchus, “you are strange tonight.
The Legion is the Legion; it’s all right.
If these new men are slovenly, in your thinking,
God damn it! you’ll not better them by drinking.
They all try, Strabo; trust their hearts and hands.
The Legion is the Legion while Rome stands,
And these same men before the autumn’s fall
Shall bang old Vercingetorix out of Gaul.”
poem by Robert Graves
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The devil tempts all men, but idle men tempt the devil.
Idle men tempt the devil; the devil tempts all others.
The devil tempts all, but the idle tempt the devil.
The devil tempts all other men, but idle men tempt the devil.
Here is true immorality: ignorance and stupidity; the devil is nothing but this. His name is Legion.
quote by Gustave Flaubert
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Often rebuked, yet always back returning
Often rebuked, yet always back returning
To those first feelings that were born with me,
And leaving busy chase of wealth and learning
For idle dreams of things which cannot be:
To-day, I will seek not the shadowy region;
Its unsustaining vastness waxes drear;
And visions rising, legion after legion,
Bring the unreal world too strangely near.
I'll walk, but not in old heroic traces,
And not in paths of high morality,
And not among the half-distinguished faces,
The clouded forms of long-past history.
I'll walk where my own nature would be leading:
It vexes me to choose another guide:
Where the gray flocks in ferny glens are feeding;
Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side
What have those lonely mountains worth revealing?
More glory and more grief than I can tell:
The earth that wakes one human heart to feeling
Can centre both the worlds of Heaven and Hell.
Harold Bloom calls this Emily Brontë's finest poem; however, C.W. Hatfield, who edited her poems, speculates that Charlotte wrote or revised this poem. It first appeared in the 1850 edition of Emily's novel and poems; no manuscript version of this poem is known.
poem by Emily Jane Brontë
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
A woman of thirty is not tempted by the devil.
devil tempted the fasted Jesus
be alert always
to ward off temptations
quote by by John Celes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
When the Writing Devil Strikes
When the writing devil strikes I write
Inspired by an overpriced candy bar
Or earth’s arc at 40,000 feet
It does not matter
A kind clerk who lends her only pen
When I have a legion beyond reach
Is all it takes.
poem by Bill Grace
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!