“It seems to me so shocking to see the precious hours of a man's life - the priceless moments that will never come back to him again - being wasted in a mere brutish sleep.”

“If he were a man of strong mind, it only gave him fits; but a person of mere average intellect it usually sent mad.”

“Being poor is a mere trifle. It is being known to be poor that is the sting.”

“It is so pleasant to come across people more stupid than ourselves. We love them at once for being so.”

“I like idling when I ought not to be idling; not when it is the only thing I have to do. Thatis my pig-headed nature. The time when I like best to stand with my back to the fire, calculating how much I owe, is when my desk is heaped highest with letters that must be answered by the next post. When I like to dawdle longest over my dinner is when I have a heavy evening's work before me. And if, for some urgent reason, I ought to be up particularly early in the morning, it is then, more than at any other time, that I love to lie an extra half-hour in bed.Ah! how delicious it is to turn over and go to sleep again: "just forfive minutes." Is there any human being, I wonder, besides the hero ofa Sunday-school "tale for boys," who ever gets up willingly?”

“It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.”

“George goes to sleep at a bank from ten to four each day, except Saturdays, when they wake him up and put him outside at two.”