Idle Talk Quotes & Sayings

According to a hadith, the tongue is the "interpreter of the heart." Hypocrisy is wretched because the hypocrite says with his tongue what is not in his heart. He wrongs his tongue and oppresses his heart. But if the heart is sound, the condition of the tongue follows suit. We are commanded to be upright in our speech, which is a gauge of the heart's state. According to a prophetic tradition, each morning, when the limbs and organs awaken in the spiritual world, they shudder and say to the tongue, "Fear God concerning us! For if you are upright, then we are upright; and if you deviate, we too deviate." Engaging in the regular remembrance of God (dhikr) safeguards the tongue and replaces idle talk with words and phrases that raise one in honor. The tongue is essential in developing courtesy with God, which is the whole point of existence. — Hamza Yusuf

Many persons seek community because they are afraid of loneliness...those who take refuge in community while fleeing from themselves are misuing it to indulge in empty talk and distraction, no matter how spiritual this idle talk and distraction may appear...it is precisely such misuse of community that creates deadly isolation of human beings. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I have spoken to no one, not even my mother or Ray. I don't have the capacity for idle talk now. No, I want none of it. I have become my own island state. A ravaged, war-torn land where nothing grows and the horizons are bleak. Yes, that's me. I can interact impersonally at work, but that's it. If I talk to mum, I know I will break even further - and I have nothing left to break. — E.L. James

Unless man has the wit and the grit to build his civilization on something better than material power, it is surely idle to talk of plans for a stable peace. — Francis Bowes Sayre, Sr.

It could be disastrous to speak your mind while you are deep in thought. — C.J. Langenhoven

True, I talk of dreams; which are children of the idle brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy; which is as thin of substance as air and more inconstant than the wind. — William Shakespeare

It was only in South Africa that I got over this shyness, though I never completely overcame it. It was impossible for me to speak impromptu. I hesitated whenever I had to face strange audiences and avoided making a speech whenever I could. Even today I do not think I could or would even be inclined to keep a meeting of friends engaged in idle talk. — Mahatma Gandhi

For the normative self-understanding of modernity, Christianity has functioned as more than just a precursor or catalyst. Universalistic egalitarianism, from which sprang the ideals of freedom and a collective life in solidarity, the autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, the individual morality of conscience, human rights and democracy, is the direct legacy of the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love. This legacy, substantially unchanged, has been the object of a continual critical reappropriation and reinterpretation. Up to this very day there is no alternative to it. And in light of the current challenges of a post-national constellation, we must draw sustenance now, as in the past, from this substance. Everything else is idle postmodern talk. — Jurgen Habermas

That peril is that the human intellect is free to destroy itself. Just as one generation could prevent the very existence of the next generation, by all entering a monastery or jumping into the sea, so one set of thinkers can in some degree prevent further thinking by teaching the next generation that there is no validity in any human thought. It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, "Why should anything go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic? They are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape?" The young sceptic says, "I have a right to think for myself." But the old sceptic, the complete sceptic, says, "I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all." There — G.K. Chesterton

With men one could have clever, uplifting conversations, and men understood the work of an artist; but everything else-idle talk, tenderness, playfulness, love, contentment unmarred by thought-did not flourish among men; for that there had to be women and new places and constantly new impressions. — Hermann Hesse

Curiosity, for which nothing is closed off, and idle talk, for which everything is supposedly understood, provide persons with the guarantee of a 'life' which, supposedly, is genuinely 'lively'. — Steven Foulds

True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air,
And more inconstant than the wind, who woos
Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
Turning his side to the dew-dropping south. — William Shakespeare

I never notice what is said about me. I am credited with things I have never done, and abused for them. It would be idle to attempt to contradict newspaper talk and street rumors. — Jay Gould

The slothful are always ready to engage in idle talk of what will be done tomorrow, and every day after. — John Lyly

Thou talk'st of nothing." "True, I talk of dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasty; Which is as thin of substance as the air; And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes Even now the frozen bosom of the north, And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence, Turning his face t the dew-dropping south. — William Shakespeare

I talk of dreams, which are the children of an idle brain'. — William Shakespeare

The conceptions of idle talk, of superfluities, and of vain ostentation, all designations of an irrational attitude without objective purpose, thus — Max Weber

Every dollar and every moment of care devoted to increasing the individual importance of people, all skill and training, all fine organization to humanize work, every increase of political expression, is a protection against idle use of our military power, against any attempt to convert legitimate and necessary preparation for defense into an instrument of conquest. It may be said with justice that the man is dangerous who talks loudly about military preparation and is uninterested in social reform. It is the people engaged in adding to the values of civilization who have earned the right to talk about its defense. — Franklin Foer

Flag committee chairman Miles did not agree with that sentiment. He opposed adoption of this design and wrote:"There is no propriety in retaining the ensign of a government which, in the opinion of the States composing this Confederacy, had become so oppressive and injurious to their interests as to require their separation from it.It is idle to talk of 'keeping' the flag of the United States when we have voluntarily seceded from them. — Clint Johnson

My idea of absolute happiness is to sit in a hot garden all, reading, or writing, utterly safe in the knowledge that the person I love will come home to me in the evening. Every evening.'
'You are a romantic, Edith,' repeated Mr Neville, with a smile.
'It is you who are wrong,' she replied. 'I have been listening to that particular accusation for most of my life. I am not a romantic. I am a domestic animal. I do not sigh and yearn for extravagant displays of passion, for the grand affair, the world well lost for love. I know all that, and know that it leaves you lonely. No, what I crave is the simplicity of routine. An evening walk, arm in arm, in fine weather. A game of cards. Time for idle talk. Preparing a meal together. — Anita Brookner

If one is content to freely speak trash about another, it is probably more correct to judge them as the one of ill repute and refuse the load of garbage they offer you. — Richelle E. Goodrich

The evils of the body are murder, theft, and adultery; of the tongue, lying, slander, abuse and idle talk; of the mind, covetousness, hatred and error. — Gautama Buddha

Gossip is an idle talk that makes you look worse than the person you are talking about, and people tend to have more confidence in the person you talked about when they get tired of your gossip. Speak with love and kindness or don't speak at all. — Uzoma Nnadi

It is idle to talk of civil liberties to adults who were systematically taught in adolescence that they had none; and it is sheer hypocrisy to call such people freedom loving. — Edgar Friedenberg

O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, faintheartedness, lust of power, and idle talk.
"But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience and love to your servant.
"Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own sin and not to judge my brother, for You are blessed from all ages to all ages. Amen — Ephrem The Syrian

Loss of time through sociability, idle talk, luxury, even more sleep than is necessary for health, six to at most eight hours, is worthy of absolute moral condemnation. It — Max Weber

It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, "Why should ANYTHING go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic? They are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape?" The young sceptic says, "I have a right to think for myself." But the old sceptic, the complete sceptic, says, "I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all. — G.K. Chesterton

To such idle talk it might further be added: that whenever a certain exclusive occupation is coupled with specific shortcomings, it is likewise almost certainly divorced from certain other shortcomings. — Carl Friedrich Gauss

I end up discussing the weather when the weather is all around us and both I and whoever the stranger might be must surely have noticed it. We would be better off asking each other if our faces are still there. — A. L. Kennedy

As a rule it will listen to neither a dull speaker nor a bright one. It refuses all persuasion. The dull speaker wearies it and sends it far away in idle dreams; the bright speaker throws out stimulating ideas which it goes chasing after and is at once unconscious of him and his talk. You cannot keep your mind from wandering, if it wants to; it is master, not you.
**About the mind — Mark Twain

P68- when a word is deprived of its dimension of action,reflection automatically suffers as well and the word is changed into idle chatter, into verbalism,into an alienated and alienating "blah". It becomes an empty word that cant denounce the world. — Paulo Freire

Do not listen to vain and empty talk, in which the majority of world-loving people spend their time, and do not take pleasure in it. For the law says: 'You shall not raise false reports' (Ex. 23:1). Solomon says: 'Remove far from me vanity and lies' (Prov. 30:8). The Lord said: 'But I say to you, every idle word that men shall speak they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment' (Mt. 12:36). — Lorenzo Scupoli

But who are we, where do we come from When all those years Nothing but idle talk is left And we are nowhere in the world? = MEETING = — Boris Pasternak

What? he would say, practically snapping to attention. What I had thought to be of passing interest would now take on profound fascination as I read it aloud, and Pat would inhale it. A few hours or a few days later, he would give it back, in talk or as gifts - books, records, tickets to a performance. I would like to tell Joe what a peculiar and suffocating feeling it got to be, to be attended to so closely, to have every idle remark sucked up and transformed into a theory, to be made relentlessly significant, oneself and an enlarged model of oneself, the Visible Woman, always being told what she was like and what it meant. — Jane Smiley

As long as this deliberate refusal to understand things from above, even where such understanding is possible, continues, it is idle to talk of any final victory over materialism. — C.S. Lewis