It is rather hard to be accused of shiftlessness and idleness when the accuser closes the avenue of labour and industrial pursuits to us.

Avenue Q

Certainly work is not always required of a man. There is such a thing as a sacred idleness - the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected.

It has been said that idleness is the parent of mischief, which is very true; but mischief itself is merely an attempt to escape from the dreary vacuum of idleness

…for when men labor they keep out of mischief. You remember the old proverb--An idle mind is the Devils workshop...

A man who has no office to go to--I don't care who he is--is a trial of which you can have no conception.