Laziness is commonly associated with timidity.
Either fear originally prohibits endeavours by infusing despair of
success; or the frequent failure of irresolute struggles, and the
constant desire of avoiding labour, impress by degrees false terrours on
the mind. But fear, whether natural or acquired, when once it has full
possession of the fancy, never fails to employ it upon visions of
calamity, such as, if they are not dissipated by useful employment, will
soon overcast it with horrours, and embitter life not only with those
miseries by which all earthly beings are really more or less tormented,
but with those which do not yet exist, and which can only be discerned
by the perspicacity of cowardice.
Among all who sacrifice future advantage to present inclination,
scarcely any gain so little as those that suffer themselves to freeze in
idleness. Others are corrupted by some enjoyment of more or less power
to gratify the passions; but to neglect our duties, merely to avoid the
labour of performing them, a labour which is always punctually rewarded,
is surely to sink under weak temptations. Idleness never can secure
tranquillity; the call of reason and of conscience will pierce the
closest pavilion of the sluggard, and though it may not have force to
drive him from his down, will be loud enough to hinder him from sleep.
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