To an active mind, indolence is more painful than labor.
Interpretation
An active mind finds idleness more distressing than being busy.
This quote suggests that for individuals who have a propensity for thinking and engaging in mental activities, being idle and unproductive can be more uncomfortable than the effort of hard work or labor. It highlights the idea that mental engagement is essential for fulfillment, and inactivity can lead to a sense of unease or dissatisfaction.
In practice
This quote would be perfect in a motivational speech aimed at students to encourage them to stay engaged with their studies.
It was Rome, on the fifteenth of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.
I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and, perhaps, the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind, by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that whatsoever might be the future date of my History, the life of the historian must be short and precarious.
And the winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
The first and indispensable requisite of happiness is a clear conscience.
In discussing Barbarism and Christianity I have actually been discussing the Fall of Rome.
Many a sober Christian would rather admit that a wafer is God than that God is a cruel and capricious tyrant.
Everything you do is right, nothing you do is wrong, yet you must still make ceaseless effort.
From forty to fifty a man must move upward, or the natural falling off in the vigor of life will carry him rapidly downward.
What you end up seeing when you look at history is that people who have been good at pushing the boundaries of possibility, and exploring those frontiers of good ideas and innovations, have rarely done it in moments of great inspiration. They don't just have a brilliant breakthrough idea out of nowhere and leap ahead of everyone else.
Disobey n:To celebrate with an appropriate ceremony the maturity of a command
I find, the older I get, the more surprised I am about how hesitant people are to say what they really want, what they really dream about, what really drives them. It's as if sometimes we're sort of embarrassed, as we get older, to be transparent about that. But you save so much time if you're transparent about what you want.
Make peace with silence, and remind yourself that it is in this space that you'll come to remember your spirit. When you're able to transcend an aversion to silence, you'll also transcend many other miseries. And it is in this silence that the remembrance of God will be activated.
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