135 Best Quotes about Laziness to Inspire Action (Lazy Quotes List)

We all have days when our motivation levels dip.

…When getting out of bed feels like an awful idea.

…When going to the gym seems utterly unappealing.

…Or when you just can’t face sitting down at the desk to do your work.

It’s to be expected!

The real problem comes when you a) start feeling this way all the time and b) get into a habit of letting yourself off the hook!

That’s when it crosses over into laziness.

And it’s dangerous territory.

If comparison’s the thief of joy, then laziness is the thief of ambition. Allow it to take hold and you can end up doing nothing with your days.

Know the struggle and want some help getting out of the funk?

Quotes about laziness could hold the key!

Fun, inspiring, and insightful, quotes on laziness can show us the error of our ways, rekindling motivation and compelling us to take action.

If that sounds good, keep reading for 135 of the best lazy people quotes I could find.

---

---

Interested in Laziness Quotes? You might also like these…

• 100 Inspiring Quotes about Inner Strength
• 110 I Don’t Care Quotes
• 10 Tips on How to Encourage Someone
• 150 Quotes and Captions about Eyes
• 100 Quotes about Good Vibes
• 200+ Quotes about Attitude for Instagram
• 125 Epic Quotes & Captions About Hiking
• 150 Inspirational Mountain Quotes & Captions
• 200 Quotes About Travelling Friends

---

135 Awesome Quotes about Laziness

Let’s get into it then: here’s a long list of quotes on laziness to inspire action when you’re low on motivation!

My Favourite Quotes on Laziness

1. “Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.” – Tchaikovsky

2. “Idleness is the Dead Sea that swallows all virtues.” – Benjamin Franklin

3. “Folks who never do any more than they get paid for, never get paid for any more than they do.” – Elbert Hubbard

4. “Man ought not, like a mushroom, to spring up and rot upon the ground that nourished him, leaving no trace of life-like energy!” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

5. “Of all the cankers of human happiness, none corrodes it with so silent, yet so baneful, a tooth, as indolence.” ― Thomas Jefferson

6. “The pillow is that devil thing to give us dreams at night so we don’t have to follow our real ones in the day. The blanket is that ghost who gives us a glimpse of what it’s like to be dead—peaceful, but too early. So run away. Turn left. Shiver in the arctic. Burn in the Sahara. Sweat in a subway. Anything, but the sheets.” – Karl Kristian Flores

7. “Kill the darlings in your life. Laziness, wishful thinking, procrastination; kill them.” – Bangambiki Habyarimana

8. “Tomorrow is the only day in the year that appeals to a lazy man.” – Jimmy Lyons

9. “Time is a created thing. To say, ‘I don’t have time,’ is to say, ‘I don’t want to.’” – Lao Tzu

10. “Indolence is a delightful but distressing state. We must be doing something to be happy.” – William Hazlitt

11.

“It is easier to move from failure to success than from excuses to success.”

12. “Laziness is a luxurious mindset that I cannot afford to own.” – Nakia R. Laushaul

13. “The generality of mankind is lazy. What distinguishes men of genuine achievement from the rest of us is not so much their intellectual powers and aptitudes as their curiosity, their energy, their fullest use of their potentialities. Nobody really knows how smart or talented he is until he finds the incentives to use himself to the fullest.” – Sydney J. Harris

14. “A year from now you may wish you had started today.” – Karen Lamb

15. “Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.” – Pablo Picasso

16. “Diligence is the mother of good fortune, and the goal of a good intention was never reached through its opposite, laziness.” – Miguel de Cervantes

17. “We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.” – Nelson Mandela

18. “We often miss opportunity because it’s dressed in overalls and looks like work” – Thomas A. Edison

19. “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” – Abraham Lincoln

20. “Luck is always the last refuge of laziness and incompetence.” – James Cash Penney

Short Lazy Quotes

21. “Idle hands are the devil’s playthings.” – Benjamin Franklin

22. “Luck never brings luxury to the lazy.” – Amit Kalantri

23. “There is a great volcano sleeping in every laziness!” – Mehmet Murat ildan

24. “Lazy begets poverty every time!” – Mark Dawson

25. “One must avoid that wicked temptress, Laziness.” – Horace

26. “Pessimism is a primary source of passivity.” – Barbara W. Tuchman

27. “With work misery is relieved, with laziness misery is multiplied.” – Abhijit Naskar

28. “One excuse, could destroy a multitude of chances.” – Anthony Liccione

29. “Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.” – Robert A. Heinlein

30. “Laziness demands misery.” – Bryant McGill

31.

“Try making a good attempt not a good excuse.”

32. “Where there is less pain, there is also less pay.” – Auliq Ice

33. “I was trained to turn loneliness into laziness.” – Bill Callahan

34. “Don’t put off until tomorrow what can be done today.” – Benjamin Franklin

35. “Laziness builds walls and fences that keep the mind under control.” – Auliq Ice

36. “Laziness is a devastating disease.” – K.P. Kelly

37. “Lazy people live lonely lives.” – Habeeb Akande

38. “Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” – Charles Dickens

39. “Someday is not a day of the week.” – Janet Dailey

40. “Time slips away like grains of sand never to return again.” Robin Sharma

Funny Quotes about Laziness

41. “The only time a lazy man ever succeeds is when he tries to do nothing.” – Evan Esar

42. “Lazy people fact: #2347827309018287. You were too lazy to read this number.” – Skylar Blue

43. “The world is full of willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.” – Robert Frost

44. “Reclined legs don’t get fed, they get limp like boiled spaghetti. Walk it out!” – T.F. Hodge

45. “Some folks can look so busy doing nothing that they seem indispensable.” – Kim Hubbard

46. “The shortest distance from point A to point B is a straight line. But because going from point A to point A is even shorter, it’s never not rush hour.” – Craig D. Lounsbrough

47. “Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves; some turn up their noses; some don’t turn up at all.” – Sam Ewing

48. “Too many people itch for what they want without scratching for it.” – Thomas Taylor

49. “Shahid was the free spirit of the Kamal family: a dreamer, an idealist, a wanderer on the face of the earth- or, as Ahmed would put it, a lazy fuckwit.” – John Lanchester

50. “The trouble with the world is that laziness is seldom curable and never fatal.” – Evan Esar

51.

“Tomorrow (n): a mystical land where 99% of all human productivity, motivation and achievement is stored.”

52. “You can’t teach people to be lazy. Either they have it or they don’t.” – Dagwood Bumstead

53. “Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired.” – Jules Renard

54. “The path of least resistance makes all rivers, and some men, crooked.” – Napolean Hill

55. “Laziness grows on people; it begins in cobwebs and ends in iron chains.” – Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton

56. “Obsessed is a word the lazy use to describe the dedicated.” – Unknown

57. “Lazy people enjoy doing absolutely nothing and then following it up with a rest.” – Unknown

58. “The only exercise lazy people do? Diddly squats.” – Unknown

59. “My only hobby is laziness, which naturally rules out all others.” – Granni Nazzano

60. “Lazy people are always anxious to be doing something.” – Luc de Clapiers

Inspiring Lazy People Quotes

61. “Stop sleeping, Get to work! You will have much time to sleep when you die.” – Michael Bassey Johnson

62. “Take a war to make you spend. Take a jam to make you think. Take a challenge to make you great. Rest of the time you sit around lazy, you. Pigs, you! All right, God damn you! I challenge you, me. Die or live and be great.” – Alfred Bester

63. “We wake up to be alive and to revive our lives; we don’t wake up to keep sleeping! We wake up not just to be alive, but also to keep our works alive and mind the business of the day! When you wake up, revive your work!” – Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

64. “I can’t relate to lazy people. We don’t speak the same language. I don’t understand you; I don’t want to understand you.” – Kobe Bryant

65. “The greatest amount of wasted time is the not getting started.” – Dawson Trotman

66. “Success is not an easy thing! Success is allergic to laziness! However, it is amenable to intelligence and diligence.” – Enock Maregesi

67. “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration. The rest of us just get up and go to work.” – Stephen King

68. “Make it your aim today to be a “champion” in the making. You are not going to be hoisted up on the podium this afternoon, but inch by inch, small but meaningful decision multiplied will get you to where you want to be and beyond. Don’t you dare despise small beginnings.” – Chris J. Gregas

69. “I’d be more frightened by not using whatever abilities I’d been given. I’d be more frightened by procrastination and laziness.” – Denzel Washington

70. “When you are willing to replace mundane excuses with hard work and your laziness with determination, nothing can prevent you from succeeding.” – Dr Prem Jagyasi

71.

“Uncomplicate it. Don’t make excuses. Some of life’s biggest heartaches come from missed opportunities and lame excuses. Don’t miss out on what could be the best chapter in your life because you’re too busy rereading the last one.”

72. “Run away from laziness; work hard. Touch intuition and listen to the heart, not marketing directors. Dream.” – Alber Elbaz

73. “Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back.” – Harvey Mackay

74. “You are only as lazy or lacking in willpower as you think you are.” – Ken Christian

75. “You can have the results you want, or you can have excuses. You can’t have both.” – Clyde Lee Dennis

76. “We must be diligent today. To wait until tomorrow is too late. Death comes unexpectedly. How can we bargain with it?” – Buddha

77. “If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.” – Bruce Lee

78. “Laziness is the one common deficiency in mankind that blocks the establishment of a perfect world in which everyone leads a happy life.” – William Feather

79. “If you are going to quit anything, quit being lazy, quit making excuses and quit waiting for the right time.” – Unknown

80. “The really happy people are those who have broken the chains of procrastination, those who find satisfaction in doing the job at hand. They’re full of eagerness, zest, productivity. You can be, too.” – Norman Vincent Peale

Insightful Lazy Day Quotes

81. “Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction.” – Anne Frank

82. “Procrastination is not Laziness”, I tell him. “It is fear. Call it by its right name, and forgive yourself.” – Julia Cameron

83. “Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a portion of mankind, after nature has long since discharged them from external direction, nevertheless remains under lifelong tutelage, and why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as their guardians.” – Immanuel Kant

84. “It is the man who has hammered his laziness out of the stubborn material of life for whom we chant praise and halleluiah.” – Christopher Morley

85. “But your laziness leads you astray; your greed makes you dumb; your gluttony makes enemies for you.” – Miriam Lichtheim

86. “Somebody has said that dust is matter in the wrong place. The same definition applies to nine-tenths of those called lazy. They are people gone astray in a direction that does not answer to their temperament nor to their capacities. In reading the biography of great men, we are struck with the number of “idlers” among them. They were lazy so long as they had not found the right path; afterwards they became laborious to excess. Darwin, Stephenson, and many others belonged to this category of idlers.” – Pyotr Kropotkin

87. “Laziness is when you accede to the misconception that work is unnecessary.” – Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

88. “Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry all easy; and he that riseth late must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night; while laziness travels so slowly, that poverty soon overtakes him.” – Benjamin Franklin

89. “I seem to be allergic to diligence, and Lola said, Ha. What you’re allergic to is trying.” – Junot Díaz

90. “It was only one of a dozen or twenty vocations which he had taken up at various times, only to drop them again as soon as he made the discovery that they one and all entailed months and even years of hard work if he was ever to fulfil his ambitious desire of doing and being something great in the world.” – William Henry Hudson

91.

“As we become soft and lazy in our bodies, we tend to become soft and lazy spiritually.”

92. “One can be deceived by three types of laziness: the laziness of indolence, which is the wish to procrastinate; the laziness of inferiority, which is doubting your capabilities; and the laziness that is attachment to negative actions, or putting great effort into non-virtue.” – Dalai Lama XIV

93. “His idleness was his refuge, and in this he was like many others in [occupied] France in that period; laziness became political.” – Iain Pears

94. “Lack of self-confidence is not overcome by faith, but by action. It is a lack, not of certainty, but of effort. Too often we are certain that we can’t before we give ourselves a fair chance.” – Laurence G. Boldt

95. “If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it.” – Olin Miller

96. “It is insanity for any man to wish for a different life to the one he has. Such wishes are based upon the demented idea that cowardice or laziness, or both, are honourable pursuits.” – Théun Mares

97. “Laziness erodes a person of his enthusiasm and energy. As a result the person loses all opportunities and finally becomes dejected and frustrated. The worst thing is that he stops believing in himself.” – Sam Veda

98. “People who are in the habit of enjoying the comfort of inaction often pay a high price in the end.” – Dr. T.P. Chia

99. “This process of experiencing laziness directly and nonverbally is transformative. It unlocks a tremendous energy that is usually blocked by our habit of running away. This is because when we stop resisting laziness, our identity as the one who is lazy begins to fall apart completely.” – Pema Chödrön

100. “Ignorance is a matter of laziness, indifference, and apathy.” – Tom Tancredo

Memorable Quotes about Lazy People

101. “Most criminals in prison can trace their crime to their first murderous act- that of killing time.” – Wyatt Allen

102. “Procrastination is my sin. It brings me naught but sorrow. I know that I should stop it. In fact, I will…tomorrow.” – Gloria Pitzer

103. “If you wait for the mango fruits to fall, you’d be wasting your time while others are learning how to climb the tree.” – Michael Bassey Johnson

104.  “Like many lazy people, once I started work I could not stop; perhaps that is why we avoid it.” – Cyril Connolly

105. “Laziness will stop your progress in your spiritual practice.” – Renuka Singh

106. “Georgiana, a more vain and absurd animal than you was certainly never allowed to cumber the earth. You had no right to be born; for you make no use of life.” – Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

107. “Laziness is a habit which makes you fall in the pit, lazy people don’t act but prefer to sit, they delay action with some excuse, laziness is of no use.” – Ron Sen

108. “We may regard certain days as free days. Free days are however fee days. We will pay later.” – Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

109. “If you ask me which is the real hereditary sin of human nature, do you imagine I shall answer pride, or luxury, or ambition, or egotism? No; I shall say indolence. Who conquers indolence will conquer all the rest. Indeed all good principles must stagnate without mental activity.” – Johann Zimmerman

110. “Laziness is always your fault. It is the sign that a man has persevered in uselessness for too long.” – Idries Shah

111.

“Laziness is a secret ingredient that goes into failure. But it’s only kept a secret from the person who fails.”

112. “When we hold back out of laziness, that is when we tie ourselves into knots of boredom.” – Walter Annenberg

113. “When there is a hill to climb, don’t think that waiting will make it smaller.” – Unknown

114. “Lazy people tend not to take chances, but express themselves by tearing down other’s work.” – Ann Rule

115. “In doing nothing men learn to do evil.” – Marcus Porcius Cato

116. “A lazy person, whatever the talents with which he starts out, has condemned himself to second-rate thoughts, and to second-rate friends.” – Cyril Connolly

117. “A young man idle, and old man needy.” – Danish Proverb

118. “The Devil often finds work for them who find none for themselves.” – Benjamin Whichcote

119. “Hell is paved with good intentions, and roofed with lost opportunities.” – Portuguese Proverb

120. “Habitual procrastinators will readily testify to all the lost opportunities, missed deadlines, failed relationships and even monetary losses incurred just because of one nasty habit of putting things off until it is often too late.” – Stephen Richards

The Benefits of Laziness Quotes

121. “If there’s an easier, more efficient way to do something, trust a lazy person to find it.” – Marty Rubin

122. “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” – Bill Gates

123. “Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.” – Robert Heinlein

124. “I’m lazy. But it’s the lazy people who invented the wheel and the bicycle because they didn’t like walking or carrying things.” – Lech Walesa

125. “Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.” – Marthe Troly-Curtin

126. “I don’t think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention…arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble.” – Agatha Christie

127. “But I’m really enjoying my retirement. I get to sleep in every day. I do crossword puzzles and eat cake.” – Derek Landy

128.

“Sometimes, being lazy is much favorable than labouring without a purpose.”

129. “Laziness is the embodiment of self-control.” – Raheel Farooq

130. “Laziness is the first step towards efficiency.” – Patrick Bennett

131. “Mathematics is being lazy. Mathematics is letting the principles do the work for you so that you do not have to do the work for yourself.” – George Pólya

132. “Whoever says sleep equals laziness is probably a bitter insomniac.” – Joyce Rachelle

133. “Young, I was ambitious. Now I only want to be lazy and take long, slow walks in the sun.” – Marty Rubin

134. “Laziness in doing stupid things can be a great virtue…” – James Hilton

135. “The self can watch itself becoming lazy, or non-watchful; this is an asset that can make both for humor and profound well-being.” – Eli Siegel

---

Don’t Forget These Laziness Quotes!

Quality quotes about laziness can be an amazing way to turn the situation around when you’re feeling unmotivated.

Whether they remind you of the dangers of procrastination or the value of hard work, these “lazy quotes” can compel you to get off the sofa and back to work!

If that’s the sort of inspiration you’ve been looking for, then I hope the quotes on laziness in this post have made a difference.

Were there any in particular that hit home? Drop a comment below to let me know!

And be sure to click here if you’d like to read more inspiring quotes!

---