How these curiosities would be quite forgot, did not such idle fellows as I am put them down.

-Aubrey,John
  Brief Lives (published1813),'Venetia Digby'.

And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them,Why stand ye here all the day idle?

-Bible (NewTestament)
St Matthew 20:6.

Be not solitary, be not idle.

-Burton, Robert pseudonym DemocritusJunior
Anatomy of Melancholy, closing words.

As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.

-Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
  'The Rime of the  Ancient Mariner', pt.2.

There's many a one who would be idle if hunger didn't pinch him; but the stomach sets us to work.

-Eliot, George pseudonym of  MaryAnn Evans
  Felix Holt, ch.30.

To the University of Oxford I acknowledge no obligation; and she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son, as I am willing to disclaim her for a mother. I spent fourteen months at Magdalen College: they proved the fourteen months the most idle and unprofitable of my whole life.

-Gibbon, Edward
Memoirs of My Life (published1796), ch.3.

Anti-classic art, if it may even be called an art, is merely theart oftheidle.It isthe doctrine ofthosewho desireto produce without working, to know without learning.

-Ingres,Jean Auguste Dominique
  Quoted in Henri Delaborde Ingres, sa vie, ses travaux, sa doctrine (1870).

We would all be idle if we could.

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
 Remark, 3  Apr. Quoted in  James Boswell  The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.3.

If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle.

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
  Letter toBoswell, 27 Oct. Quoted in James Boswell TheLife of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.3.

Most 'scruciating idle.

-Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard
  Just So Stories,'How the Camel Got His Hump'.

It is, we believe, Idle to hope that the simple stirrup-pump Can extinguish hell.

-Reed, Henry
  'ChardWhitlow (Mr Eliot's Sunday Evening Postscript)'.

I am happiest when I am idle. I could live for months without performing any kind of labour, and at the expiration of that time I should feel fresh and vigorous enough togo right on inthesame way for numerous more months.

-Ward, Artemus pseudonym of  Charles Farrar Browne
  ArtemusWard in London, and Other Papers,'Pyrotechny', 3.