Unproductive Quotes & Sayings

Man is by nature restless. When left too long in one place he will inevitably grow bored, unmotivated, and unproductive. — Ricardo Semler

The prospects are dim for a society that makes mascots out of the unproductive and condemns the productive. — Walter E. Williams

Other people's views and troubles can be contagious. Don't sabotage yourself by unwittingly adopting negative, unproductive attitudes through your associations with others. — Epictetus

Henry Ford has several times sneered at unproductive stockholders ... Well, now. Let's see. Who made Henry Ford's own automobile company possible? The stockholders who originally advanced money to him. Who makes it possible for you and me to be carried to and from business by train or street car? Stockholders ... Who made our vast telephone and telegraph service possible? Stockholders ... Were stockholders all over the country to withdraw their capital from the enterprises in which they are invested, there would be a panic ... on a scale never before known. — B.C. Forbes

As work weeks get longer and leisure time shrinks, people are becoming sicker, more distracted, absent, unproductive, and less innovative. — Brigid Schulte

A life filled with excuses is defeated, unproductive, and miserable. — Stephanie Lahart

Of course, being angry is pointless. Unproductive. They don't understand yet. That they are all waiting for that one phone call that will change everything. That every one of them will feel like me eventually. Because someone they love will die. It's one of life's cruel certainties. — Cynthia Hand

This particular May morning begins with the appearance of a procession on the corner of Pancake and Rosa Luxemburg Streets. The procession is evidently religious: it consists of eight clerical personages, well known to the entire town. But instead of censers, the clerical personages are swinging brooms, which transfers the entire action from the plane of religion to the plane of revolution. These personages are now simply unproductive elements of society performing their labor duty for the benefit of the people. Instead of prayers, golden clouds of dust rise to the heavens. ("X") — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Be disciplined enough to choose your network and be willing to sacrifice the circles that reduce your effectiveness and make you unproductive. — Archibald Marwizi

The received image of a writer is that of an unproductive sensitive who suffers from the vapors, is enslaved by his gonads, falls victim to romantic swoons and passes out at deadlines. — George V. Higgins

Wilderness has been characterized as barren and unproductive; little can be grown in its sand and rock. But the crops of wilderness have always been its spiritual values - silence and solitude, a sense of awe and gratitude - able to be harvested by any traveler who visits. — David Douglas

... now a Chinese Fire Drill is just mildly offensive slang denoting a chaotic and unproductive situation like most police calls handled by more than two cops. Those I really try to avoid. Hey, screw it. I'm no hero. — A.J. Hoover

Daydreaming does not enjoy tremendous prestige in our culture, which tends to regard it as unproductive thought. Writers perhaps appreciate its importance better than most, since a fair amount of what they call work consists of little more than daydreaming edited. Yet anyone who reads for pleasure should prize it too, for what is reading a good book but a daydream at second hand? Unlike any other form of thought, daydreaming is its own reward. — Michael Pollan

If I discover a manure which will enable me to make a piece of land produce 20 per cent more corn, I may withdraw at least a portion of my capital from the most unproductive part of my farm. — David Ricardo

The experience of the past lives little doubt that every economic system must sooner or later rely upon some form of the profit motive to stir individuals and groups to productivity. Substitutes like slavery, police supervision, or ideological enthusiasm prove too unproductive, too expensive, or too transient. — Will Durant

Weakness The Lovers Upright Romance, Love, Honor, Optimism, a Harmonious Partnership Reverse Separation, Untrustworthy, Fickleness, Unreliability The Chariot Upright Perseverance, Seeking Justice, Strong in the face of Adversity Reverse Defeat, Failure, Unproductive Justice Upright Righteousness, Equality, Integrity, Honor, Fairness Reverse Unfairness, Falsely Accused, Mistreatment, Biased The Hermit Upright Withdrawal, Independent, Inner Strength, Carefulness, Observant Reverse Impulsiveness, Immaturity, Recklessness, Stupidity Wheel of Fortune Upright Unexpected Surprises, Progress, Fate, Fortune — Kathleen Rao

Even if a life has traveled down an unproductive path, you can find your faith again; pure faith, which is loyalty to God himself. Dark seasons of trial can also become the backdrop for an even greater revelation of truth. — Beverly Crawford

[Y]ou are here to learn something. Don't try to figure out what it is. This can be frustrating and unproductive. — Steven L. Peck

As you release the things you no longer love or use, you call back to yourself the parts of your spirit that have been attached to them, and attached to the emotional needs and memories associated with those objects. In so doing, you bring yourself powerfully into present time. Your energy, instead of being dispersed in a thousand different, unproductive directions, becomes more centered and focused. You feel more spiritually complete and more at peace with yourself. — Karen Kingston

Sumer, the land which came to be known in classical times as Babylonia, consists of the lower half of Mesopotamia, roughly identical with modern Iraq from north of Baghdad to the Persian Gulf. It has an area of approximately 10,000 square miles, somewhat larger than the state of Massachusetts. Its climate is extremely hot and dry, and its soil, left to itself, is arid, wind-swept, and unproductive. The land is flat and river-made, and therefore has no minerals whatever and almost no stone. Except for the huge reeds in the marshes, — Samuel Noah Kramer

We have now well established the fact in our own nation that one can do more work in six days, even in five, than in seven. A run-down person is an unproductive person. — Charles L. Allen

Obviously, approximately 1/3 of Republican voters do have a perfectly reasonable grasp on reality. Like myself, they accept that the planet is more than 5,000 years old, that Iraq was not behind 9/11; they accept that bigotry is unproductive and usually caused by ignorance, and they prefer facts to myth. But they still vote Republican. — Patrick Andendall

Without proper rest during the weekend our new week could be unproductive. — Sunday Adelaja

The unproductive tillage of human cattle takes that which of right belongs to free labor, and which is necessary for the support and happiness of our own race. — David Wilmot

A person whom works exclusively for money places a price tag on his or her soul. A person whom labors to attain fame seeks a false form of adulation. The writer ignores the lure of a glamorous life by seeking to penetrate the darkness of their own being and meditate the larger issues that frame existence. A seeker knowingly follows a path that is barren, bleak, desolate, and unproductive in terms of attaining recognition and exulted social and financial status. — Kilroy J. Oldster

A majority of young people seem to develop mental arteriosclerosis forty years before they get the physical kind. Another question: why do some people remain open and elastic into extreme old age, whereas others become rigid and unproductive before they're fifty? — Aldous Huxley

Napping is too luxurious, too sybaritic, too unproductive, and it's free; pleasures for which we don't pay make us anxious. Besides, it seems to be a natural inclination ... Fighting off natural inclinations is a major Puritan virtue, and nothing that feels that good can be respectable. — Barbara Holland

I realized in 1988 that my life as a spy specializing in secrets was not only unproductive, it was in sharp opposition to what we actually need: full access to true information, and consequently, the ability to create Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT). — Robert David Steele

Where are we to look for the consumption required but among the unproductive labourers of Adam Smith? ... — Thomas Malthus

priority. FIG. 23 In business, profit and productivity are also driven by priority and purpose. Personal productivity is the building block of all business profit. The two are inseparable. A business can't have unproductive people yet magically still have an immensely — Gary Keller

In his life, after all, he had achieved nothing, had been totally unproductive. He couldn't make anyone else happy, and, of course, couldn't make himself happy. Happiness? He wasn't even sure what that meant. — Haruki Murakami

On the whole it may be observed, that the specific use of a body of unproductive consumers, is to give encouragement to wealth by maintaining such a balance between produce and consumption as will give the greatest exchangeable value to the results of the national industry. — Thomas Malthus

During the times we think we're being "unproductive," the seeds of new worlds are germinating within us, and they need peace to grow. — Martha Beck

Politics is the conspiracy of the unproductive but organized against the productive but unorganized. — Joseph Sobran

Being overwhelmed is often as unproductive as doing nothing, and is far more unpleasant. Being selective - doing less - is the path of the productive. — Timothy Ferriss

All observations point to the fact that the intellectual woman is masculinized; in her, warm, intuitive knowledge has yielded to cold unproductive thinking. — Helene Deutsch

Unproductive worry - like Parkinson's proverbial law - tends to expand to fill the time available. — Neal A. Maxwell

Neglecting passion blocks creative flow. When you're passionate, you're energized. Likewise, when you lack passion, your energy is low and unproductive. Energy is everything when it comes to being successful. — Gabrielle Bernstein

I write all day every day, so when I feel unproductive, it magnifies everything else. — Blake Butler

You should break away from unproductive routines that do not positively benefit you or make your life better. — Tasha Hoggatt

By a sarcasm of law and phrase they were freemen. Seven-tenths of the free population of the country were of just their class and degree: small "independent" farmers, artisans, etc.; which is to say, they were the nation, the actual Nation; they were about all of it that was useful, or worth saving, or really respectworthy, and to subtract them would have been to subtract the Nation and leave behind some dregs, some refuse, in the shape of a king, nobility and gentry, idle, unproductive, acquainted mainly with the arts of wasting and destroying, and of no sort of use or value in any rationally constructed world. — Mark Twain

Today when the public thinks of the products of science it is likely to think about environmental problems, an unproductive armament industry, careless or dishonest 'scientific' reports, Livermore cheers for 'nukes forever' and a huge amount of self-serving noise on every subject from global warming to 'the face of God'. — Leo Kadanoff

Productivity = creating value and delivering it to people. All other busywork is unproductive fluff and should be minimized. — Steve Pavlina

But my point is not just that the psychological theory is inadequate; it is that the practice is unproductive. If we do not address the ultimate cause of a problem, the problem will not get solved. This is not to say — Alfie Kohn

Until it had acquired the strength to create in my mind a fresh example of absolute, unproductive beauty ... — Marcel Proust

I wanted to say two further things to you today: irony: Do not let yourself be governed by it, especially not in unproductive moments. In productive ones try to make use of it as one more means of seizing life. Used purely, it is itself pure, and one need not be ashamed of it; and when you feel too familiar with it, when you fear the growing intimacy with it, then turn towards great and serious subjects, before which it becomes small and helpless. Seek for the depth of things: there irony never descends - and when you have thus brought it to the edge of greatness, test at the same time whether this mode of perception springs from a necessity of your being. — Rainer Maria Rilke

If you want to understand the nature of something, to find out the truth, that is one thing. If you want to play semantics, make up wild thought 'experiments', that is another thing. I am not so interested in the latter, though I do appreciate that it can be fun, however unproductive. — Patricia Churchland

The most boring and unproductive question one can ask of any religion is whether or not it is true. — Alain De Botton

Rest and comfort are two different things. Rest is a planned temporary time to refresh and refocus the leader. Comfort is when you settle into unproductive routines and accept satisfactory or unsatisfactory results. — Gary Rohrmayer

By elevating the dictum of the market to the role of the sole criterion of rationality and efficiency, economics denies even all "respectability" to the distinction between essential and non-essential consumption, between productive and unproductive labor, between actual and potential surplus. — Paul A. Baran

You all know that even when women have full rights, they still remain fatally downtrodden because all housework is left to them. In most cases housework is the most unproductive, the most barbarous and the most arduous work a woman can do. It is exceptionally petty and does not include anything that would in any way promote the development of the woman. — Vladimir Lenin

British colonists promoted a dual agenda: one involved reducing poverty back in England, and the other called for transporting the idle and unproductive to the New World. After — Nancy Isenberg

But reflection without action is ultimately as unproductive as action without reflection. — Robert Kegan

The bourgeois thinkers of the eighteenth century thus turned Aristotle's formula on its head: satisfactions which the Greek philosopher had identified with leisure were now transposed to the sphere of work, while tasks lacking in any financial reward were drained of all significance and left to the haphazard attentions of decadent dilettantes. It now seemed as impossible that one could be happy and unproductive as it had once seemed unlikely that one could work and be human. — Alain De Botton

Never has the divide between the iPhone world and the politics world been so clear: I saw a bunch of people very well-served by their computers and telephones (very often Apple products) but undeniably shortchanged by our government-run cartel education system. And the tragedy for them - and for us - is that they will spend their energy trying to expand the sphere of the ineffective, hidebound, rent-seeking, unproductive political world, giving the ... politicians ... an even stronger whip hand over the Steve Jobses and Henry Fords - and we will be the poorer for it. — Kevin Williams

Promising paradise or threatening hell-fire is, we assumed, generally admitted to be unproductive. It is based upon a fundamental fraud which, when discovered, turns the individual against society and nourishes the very thing it tries to stamp out. What Jesus offered in return of loving one's enemies was heaven on earth, better known as peace of mind. — B.F. Skinner

A computer can be a useful and indispensable tool. But if we allow it to devour our time with vain, unproductive, and sometimes destructive pursuits, it becomes an entangling net. — Joseph B. Wirthlin

My gift to you will be to take away your freedom of choice for a while. Freedom can be very unhealthy and unproductive. Instead, you'll have freedom from choice. — Amanda Filipacchi

The U.S. and Iraq will work together next year to shift Iraqi resources from unproductive subsidies to productive uses that enable Iraqis to earn livelihoods. — Zalmay Khalilzad

I don't want to do something unproductive with my time, so I decided to do something musical. So it felt good to say, 'Yeah, I'm producing.' It gave me a fresh vibe - inspiring in a different way. — Sean Paul

God's grace does not make you lazy and unproductive. On the contrary, it makes you labor more abundantly for His glory. — Joseph Prince

An unproductive truth is none. But there are products which cannot be weighed even in patent scales, nor brought to market. — John Sterling

Not rarely, and this is especially true of wives and mothers, the motive behind assuming a disproportionate share of work and responsibility is completely unselfish. We want to protect, to spare those of whom we are fond. We forget that, regardless of the motive, the results of such action are almost always destructive and unproductive. — Hortense Odlum

Well, I'm nothing if not strangely beautiful but a little unproductive. — Bella Forrest

No slave system has ever been able to continue to function on the slaves provided by its own biological reproduction because the rate of human reproduction is too slow and the expense from infant mortality and years of unproductive upkeep of the young make this prohibitively expensive. This relationship is one of the basic causes of the American Civil War, and was even more significant in destroying ancient Rome. — Carroll Quigley

I wonder why the Ramsay estate is so unproductive?" Amelia mused as the carriage traveled alongside lush pastures. "The land in Hampshire is so fertile, one almost has to try not to grow something here."
"But our land is cursed, isn't it?" Poppy asked with mild concern.
"No," Amelia replied, "not the estate itself. Just the titleholder. Which would be Leo."
"Oh." Poppy relaxed. "That's fine, then. — Lisa Kleypas

For was this transformation of sex into discourse not governed by the endeavor to expel from reality the forms of sexuality that were not amenable to the strict economy of reproduction: to say no to unproductive activities, to banish casual pleasures, to reduce or exclude practices whose object was not procreation? — Michel Foucault

Accordingly, we shall find angels and men to be dry, heaven to be empty, the earth to be unproductive, and, in short, all things to be of no value, if we wish to be partakers of the gifts of God in any other way than through Christ. — John Calvin

Historically, usury was defined as any interest whatever on an unproductive loan.Our whole banking system I have ever abhorred, I continue to abhor, and I shall die abhorring. — John Adams

Like a child at bedtime who insists she's not tired, Celia's provocation was all unproductive, almost self-negating. Sometimes I thought this was just her scorpion nature, but other times it seemed to me that she had settled on this pose purposefully, out of some dimly perceived, horribly misplaced idea that the job of an artist was to hide her light under the darkest bushel possible and wait for a dedicated acolyte to be drawn to it like a clairvoyant moth. — Rachel Pastan

Most meetings are too long, too dull, too unproductive - and too much a part of corporate life to be abandoned. — Lois Wyse

Invisible, repetitive, exhausting, unproductive, uncreative - these are the adjectives which most perfectly capture the nature of housework. — Angela Davis

When we saw a destitute-looking man trying to sell worn flip-flops, I vowed never to complain about a job again. When I considered the steady paycheck and quality of life it provided, most of my past gripes - primarily about unproductive meetings, back-biting office politics and panty hose - were just whining. — Kristine K. Stevens

The young knowledge worker whose job is too small to challenge and test his abilities either leaves or declines rapidly into premature middle age, soured, cynical, unproductive. — Peter Drucker

Currency trading is unnecessary, unproductive and totally immoral. It should be stopped. — Mahathir Mohamad

In 2001, the oil companies, the war contractors and the Neo-Con-Artists seized the economy and added $4 trillion of unproductive spending to the national debt. We now pay four times more for defence, three times more for gasoline and home-heating oil and twice what we payed for health-care. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, their homes, their health-care, their pensions; trillions of dollars for an unnecessary war payed for with borrowed money. Tens of billions of dollars in cash and weapons disappeared into thin air at the cost of the lives of our troops and innocent Iraqis, while all the President's oil men are maneuvering on Iraq's oil. Borrowed money to bomb bridges in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. No money to rebuild bridges in America. Borrowed money to start a hot war with Iran, now we have another cold war with Russia and the American economy has become a game of Russian roulette. — Dennis Kucinich

Generally I get up at around 7. But oftentimes, I'll be lolling in bed a little bit earlier - sometimes as early as 5:45 - filing in my mind all the things I have to get done. Which is, of course, totally unproductive. — Mo Rocca

Anger flared through him, but anger was unproductive so he twisted it into pragmatism while he searched for a flaw. — Victoria Schwab

Many people find that they frequently slip into negative, unproductive moods, and, once in these moods, it can be difficult to shift out of them. We suggest that this happens because most people have an interpretation of mood and emotion that limits their power to observe and change their moods. — Fernando Flores

Asian colleges would do well to use a broad range of criteria in selecting students and move beyond the unproductive "examination hell. " — Henry Rosovsky

In this day and age, there is a limitless plethora of readily available distractions just waiting to take your mind off what you were supposed to be doing, and instead keep you unproductive and unmotivated. With distractions so easy to come by, and society so geared towards instant gratification as opposed to "Hard graft" for results, it is little wonder that many people suffer from a condition most commonly referred to as laziness. — James Frankton

The probable accumulation of the surpluses of revenue beyond what can be applied to the payment of the public debt ... merits the consideration of Congress. Shall it lie unproductive in the public vaults? ... Or shall it rather be appropriated to the improvements of roads, canals, rivers, education, and other great foundations of prosperity and union — Thomas Jefferson

The older, thinner, and less productive grass lands, however, frequently can be made to produce much larger yields of feed in corn than if left, as they are, in unproductive grass. — David F. Houston

Straightway is a power word. Straightway is an action word. It means immediately, without delay or hesitation. It means at once. Also, it is associated with having no curve or turn-a straight course, track, or path. Procrastination would be the very opposite of straightway. To procrastinate is to put off intentionally and habitually something that should be done. Procrastination is unproductive delay. — Marvin J. Ashton

As a rule, panics do not destroy capital; they merely reveal the extent to which it has been destroyed by its betrayal into hopelessly unproductive works. — John Mills

If my boss knew how unproductive I am on Fridays, he wouldn't want me here either. — James Johnson

She described how Camus's aphorism "One must imagine Sisyphus happy" helps her fight back against unproductive feelings of meaninglessness.
If we consider, like Camus, Sisyphus at the foot of his mountain, we can see that he is smiling. He is content in his task of defying the Gods, the journey more important than the goal. To achieve a beginning, a middle, an end, a meaning to the chaos of creation - that's more than any deity seems to manage: But it's what writers do. So I tidy the desk, even polish it up a bit, stick some flowers in a vase and start.
As I begin a novel I remind myself as ever of Camus's admonition that the purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself. And even while thinking, well, fat chance! I find courage, reach for the heights, and if the rock keeps rolling down again so it does. What the hell, start again. Rewrite. Be of good cheer. Smile on, Sisyphus! — Fay Weldon

[T]hroughout the ages to be educated meant to be unproductive ... our word "school" - and its equivalent in all European languages - derives from a Greek word meaning "leisure. — Peter Drucker

How you wake up each day and your morning routine (or lack thereof) dramatically affects your levels of success in every single area of your life. Focused, productive, successful mornings generate focused, productive, successful days-which inevitably create a successful life-in the same way that unfocused, unproductive, and mediocre mornings generate unfocused, unproductive, and mediocre days, and ultimately a mediocre quality of life. By simply changing the way you wake up in the morning, you can transform any area of your life, faster than you ever thought possible. — Hal Elrod

It is time ... to end the long-standing and unproductive methodological debate over 'originalism' versus 'dynamism' or 'evolution' and focus instead on how, as a substantive matter, we should interpret the Constitution in the twenty-first century, and what it has to say on questions unimaginable to our eighteenth-century Framers. — Diane Wood

We spoke of ourselves as "emancipated" when we got the vote. Yet we are still slaves to the superficial and the superfluous. We are concerned with the length of our skirts, with the latest lipstick, with the newest thrill in hats. We are impressed by advertisements that insist we must be alluring; we must adopt a time-consuming coiffure, we must spend hours with the "beautician," we must attend fashion shows. As long as women are preoccupied with nonessentials we shall be afflicted with infantilism, passivity, and the eventual disillusionment that results from trivial, unproductive lives. — Mary Barnett Gilson

Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort. If you have a burning, restless urge to write or paint, simply eat something sweet and the feeling will pass. — Fran Lebowitz

Genetic selection for early egg production, to reduce time and money 'wasted' on feeding and housing unproductive birds for six months, results in eggs being formed that are often too big to be laid by the immature body of a small, five month old bird. Uteruses 'prolapse,' pushing through the vagina of the small, cramped birds forced to strain day after day to expel huge eggs. The uterus protrudes, hangs, and 'blows out,' inviting infection and vent picking by cell mates, from whom the prolapse victim, in severe pain, cannot escape except by dying. — Karen Davis

It is really hard for me to invest time into a relationship because I get kind of freaked out by the thought of doing something that part of my mind keeps telling me is "unproductive". — Reese Roper

At last the gardener arrived, mumbling something about rascals and country bumpkins, and took me out into the park, giving me a lengthy lecture as he did so. I was instructed to be sober and industrious, and not to wander about aimlessly or waste my time in unproductive activities: if I heeded this counsel, he said, I might in time achieve something. He gave me much other useful and well-phrased advice too, but I have since forgotten almost all of it. — Joseph Von Eichendorff

My two most unproductive days of the week have always been yesterday and tomorrow. Keeping that in mind, I try to focus majority of my attention on today. — Mark W. Boyer

You came here because we do this better than you and part of that is letting our creatives be unproductive until they are. — Don Draper

I'd become one of those mistakes you sometimes find in an office, a not unpleasant but mostly unproductive presence bobbing along on the energy tides of others, a walking reminder of somebody's error in judgement. — Sam Lipsyte

Humor is an excellent method of keeping a tight rein on unproductive displays of emotion. — Elizabeth Peters

I could see that making judgments about people so that they are tried and sentenced in your head, without asking them for their perspective, is both unethical and unproductive. So I learned to love real integrity and to despise the lack of it. — Ray Dalio