Why Loiter Quotes & Sayings

Men seem anxious to accomplish an orderly retreat through the centuries, earnestly rebuilding the works behind them, as they are battered down by the encroachments of time; but while they loiter, they and their works both fall prey to the arch enemy. — Henry David Thoreau

Everybody has noticed the way cats stop and loiter in a half-open door. Hasn't everyone said to a cat: "For heaven's sake, why don't you come in?" With opportunity half-open in front of them, there are men who have a similar tendency to remain undecided between two solutions, at the risk of being crushed by fate abruptly closing the opportunity. The overprudent, cats as they are, and because they are cats, sometimes run more danger than the bold. — Victor Hugo

The theories and speculations of men concern us more than their puny accomplishment. It is with a certain coldness and languor that we loiter about the actual and so-called practical. — Henry David Thoreau

Dearest I cannot loiter here
in lather like a polar bear. — Robert Lowell

Wherefore, brethren, let us be careful neither to out-go our guide, nor yet loiter behind him; since he that makes haste, may miss his way, and he that stays behind, lose his guide. — William Penn

Asking isn't what I had in mind," Sicarius said.
"Yes, I can see that." Amaranthe planted a hand on his chest, fingers splayed. "Why don't you give Yara and me a few minutes alone to discuss this? I'll brief you on whatever we decide to do before we do it. And you can loiter nearby in case anything goes wrong."
His face didn't soften exactly - and he gave that hand a long look before meeting Amaranthe's eyes - but the hostility he'd been oozing did seem to lessen. "Assassins don't loiter," he said.
The comment startled Evrial, and she wondered if she'd heard it correctly. The man hadn't uttered much that could be classified as humor, not with her around anyway. Maybe he was simply feeling indignant.But Amaranthe smiled. "What do you call it?"
"Standing. Purposefully. — Lindsay Buroker

Yet, even for us, there is left some loveliness of environment, and the dullness of tutors and professors matters very little when one can loiter in the grey cloisters at Magdalen, and listen to some flute-like voice singing in Waynfleete's chapel, or lie in the green meadow, among the strange snakespotted fritillaries, and watch the sunburnt noon smite to a finer gold the tower's gilded vanes, or wander up the Christ Church staircase beneath the vaulted ceiling's shadowy fans, or pass through the sculptured gateway of Laud's building in the College of St. John. — Oscar Wilde

Beginning my studies the first step pleas'd me so much, The mere fact consciousness, these forms, the power of motion, The least insect or animal, the senses, eyesight, love, The first step I say awed me and pleas'd me so much, I have hardly gone and hardly wish'd to go any farther, But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs. — Edward Hirsch

The Seconds that tick as the clock moves along
Are Privates who march with a spirit so strong.
The Minutes are Captains. The Hours of the day
Are Officers brave, who lead on to the fray.
So, remember, when tempted to loiter and dream
You've an army at hand; your command is supreme;
And question yourself, as it goes on review
Had it helped in the fight with the best it could do? — Philander Chase Johnson

There's lots to do; we have a very busy schedule - "At 8 o'clock we get up, and then we spend "From 8 to 9 daydreaming. "From 9 to 9:30 we take our early midmorning nap. "From 9:30 to 10:30 we dawdle and delay. "From 10:30 to 11:30 we take our late early morning nap. "From 11:30 to 12:00 we bide our time and then eat lunch. "From 1:00 to 2:00 we linger and loiter. "From 2:00 to 2:30 we take our early afternoon nap. "From 2:30 to 3:30 we put off for tomorrow what we could have done today. "From 3:30 to 4:00 we take our early late afternoon nap. "From 4:00 to 5:00 we loaf and lounge until dinner. "From 6:00 to 7:00 we dillydally. "From 7:00 to 8:00 we take our early evening nap, and then for an hour before we go to bed at 9:00 we waste time. "As you can see, that leaves almost no time for brooding, lagging, plodding, or procrastinating, and if we stopped to think or laugh, we'd never get nothing done. — Norton Juster

Loiter in the neighborhood of a problem. After a while a solution strolls by. — Harold Rosenberg

Um, hello?" I raised a hand. "Not a traitor, and the Queen told us where to find you. Or do you think that we're such major badasses that we fought our way through the knowe to come and loiter at you in an imposing fashion? Because I've got to say I'm flattered. — Seanan McGuire

Sometimes writing has to be forced. In starting out, the shape and timbre and texture of what is to come is an uncertain chimera shimmering from behind a veil. You must not wait, loiter, dilly-dally. You must force your way painfully through. — Cynthia Ozick

Opportunities loiter in every corner. Everyone may see them, but it's only great leaders that stop by to give them lifts! — Israelmore Ayivor

By hook or by crook, I hope that you will possess yourselves of money enough to travel and to idle, to contemplate the future or the past of the world, to dream over books and loiter at street corners and let the line of thought dip deep into the stream — Virginia Woolf

I'm king of the dead and I make my throne On a monument slab of marble cold; And my scepter of rule is the spade I hold: Come they from cottage or come they from hall, Mankind are my subjects, all, all, all! Let them loiter in pleasure or toilfully spin I gather them in, I gather them in! — Benjamin

She imagined Jack standing among the bins of nails and tool belts and the ranks of crowbars, unspoken to beyond the ordinary courtesies, seeming unaware of their awareness of him, watching flickering television in that cave full of the smells of leather and wood and oily metal, idle among all those implements of force and purpose, citified among the steel-toed boots and the work shirts. An odd place for a man to loiter who was so alive to embarrassment, so predisposed to sensing even the thought of rebuke. — Marilynne Robinson

Oh that I may never loiter on my heavenly journey. — David Brainerd

Make philosophy thy journey, theology thy journey's end: philosophy is a pleasant way, but dangerous to him that either tires or retires; in this journey it is safe neither to loiter nor to rest, till thou hast attained thy journey's end; he that sits down a philosopher rises up an atheist. — Francis Quarles

My object is merely to give the reader a general introduction into an abode where, if so disposed, he may linger and loiter with me day by day until we gradually become familiar with all its localities. — Washington Irving

There pass the careless people
That call their souls their own:
Here by the road I loiter,
How idle and alone.
Ah, past the plunge of plummet,
In seas I cannot sound,
My heart and soul and senses,
World without end, are drowned.
His folly has not fellow
Beneath the blue of day
That gives to man or woman
His heart and soul away.
There flowers no balm to sain him
From east of earth to west
That's lost for everlasting
The heart out of his breast.
Here by the labouring highway
With empty hands I stroll:
Sea-deep, till doomsday morning,
Lie lost my heart and soul. — A.E. Housman

Marvelously clear-fretted in the unsmoked air, the Abbey rose, silver-grey. It stood detached by the serenity of age from the ephemeral growths around it. It was solid on a foundation of centuries, destined, perhaps, for centuries yet to preserve within it the monuments to those whose work was now all destroyed. I did not loiter there. In years to come I expect some will go o look at the old Abbey with romantic melancholy. But romance of that kind is an alloy of tragedy with retrospect. I was too close. — John Wyndham

We loiter in winter while it is already spring. — Henry David Thoreau

[I]f thou loiter when thou shouldst labour, thou wilt lose the crown. O fall to work then speedily and seriously, and bless God that thou hast yet time to do it; and though that which is past cannot be recalled, yet redeem the time now by doubling thy diligence (260). — Richard Baxter

Are you placed where others are sitting down idly, doing nothing? Rise to the work with all your powers; and when the sweat stands upon your brow, and you are tempted to loiter, cry, No, I cannot stop, for I am Christ's. If I were not purchased by blood, I might be like Issachar, crouching between two burdens; but I am Christ's, and cannot loiter. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

The following "Rules for Female Teachers" were posted by the school board of one town in Massachusetts: Do not get married. Do not leave town at any time without permission of the school board. Do not keep company with men. Be home between the hours of 8 P.M. and 6 A.M. Do not loiter downtown in ice cream stores. Do not smoke. Do not get into a carriage with any man except your father or brother. Do not dress in bright colors. Do not dye your hair. Do not wear any dress more than two inches above the ankle. — Howard Zinn

He who has acquired the ability, may wait securely the occasion of making it felt and appreciated, and know that it will not loiter. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

You bring a traitor here, unbound? Is this a joke? Or have you elected to join her in her treasons?" "Um, hello?" I raised a hand. "Not a traitor, and the Queen told us where to find you. Or do you think that we're such major badasses that we fought our way through the knowne to come and loiter at you in an imposing fashion? Because I got to say I'm flattered. — Seanan McGuire

Instead of imitating me, you simply loiter. — Dejan Stojanovic

If thou rememberest that thou art going to heaven, thou wilt not sleep on the road. If thou thinkest that hell is behind thee, and the devil pursuing thee, thou wilt not loiter. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

It is better to go forward without an aim than loiter without an aim, and with surety much better than to retreat without an aim. — Andrzej Sapkowski

Loser"
"Father directed choir. When it paused on a Sunday,
he liked to loiter out morning with the girls;
then back to our cottage, dinner cold on the table,
Mother locked in bed devouring tabloid.
You should see him, white fringe about his ears,
bald head more biased than a billiard ball
he never left a party. Mother left by herself
I threw myself from her car and broke my leg ...
Years later, he said, 'How jolly of you to have jumped.'
He forgot me, mother replaced his name, I miss him.
When I am unhappy, I try to squeeze the hour
an hour or half-hour smaller than it is;
orphaned, I wake at midnight and pray for day
the lovely ladies get me through the day — Robert Lowell

Therefore I would ask you to write all kinds of books, hesitating at no subject however trivial or however vast. By hook or by crook, I hope that you will possess yourselves of money enough to travel and to idle, to contemplate the future or the past of the world, to dream over books and loiter at street corners and let the line of thought dip deep into the stream. For I am by no means confining you to fiction. If you would please me - and there are thousands like me - you would write books of travel and adventure, and research and scholarship, and history and biography, and criticism and philosophy and science. By so doing you will certainly profit the art of fiction. For books have a way of influencing each other. Fiction will be much the better for standing cheek by jowl with poetry and philosophy. — Virginia Woolf