As busy as a bee. [ Lyly ]
In the busy haunts of men. [ Mrs. Hemans ]
One chick keeps a hen busy. [ Proverb ]
How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower. [ Watts ]
To be too busy gets contempt. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Towered cities please us then,
And the busy hum of men. [ Milton ]
As busy as a hen with one chick. [ Proverb ]
Busy-bodies never want a bad day. [ Proverb ]
Oh, may I with myself agree,
And never covet what I see.
Content me with an humble shade,
My passions tamed, my wishes laid;
For, while our wishes wildly roll.
We banish quiet from the soul.
It is thus the busy beat the air,
And misers gather wealth and care. [ Dyer ]
Error is always more busy than truth. [ Hosea Ballou ]
Some are very busy and yet do nothing. [ Proverb ]
To contemplation's sober eye.
Such is the race of man;
And they that creep, and they that fly.
Shall end where they began.
Alike the busy and the gay,
But flutter through life's little day. [ Gray ]
Sweet sleep be with us, one and all!
And if upon its stillness fall
The visions of a busy brain.
We'll have our pleasure over again.
To warm the heart, to charm the sight,
Gay dreams to all! good night, good night. [ Joanna Baillie ]
Let Observation, with extensive view,
Survey mankind from China to Peru;
Remark each anxious toil, each eager strife,
And watch the busy scenes of crowded life. [ Dr. Johnson ]
And to hie him home, at evening's close.
To sweet repast, and calm repose.
* * *
From toil he wins his spirits light.
From busy day the peaceful night;
Rich, from the very want of wealth,
In heaven's best treasures, peace and health. [ Gray ]
The soul shut up in her dark room,
Viewing so clear abroad, at home sees nothing;
But, like a mole in earth, busy and blind,
Works all her folly up, and casts it outward
To the world's open view. [ John Dryden ]
The world's busy man is the grand impertinent. [ Proverb ]
Who more busy than they that have least to do? [ Proverb ]
The devil is a busy bishop in his own diocese. [ Proverb ]
Towards evening the lazy man begins to be busy. [ German Proverb ]
To be idle is the ultimate purpose of the busy. [ Dr. Johnson ]
Trade hardly deems the busy day begun,
Till his keen eye along the sheet has run;
The blooming daughter throws her needle by.
And reads her schoolmate's marriage with a sigh;
While the grave mother puts her glasses on.
And gives a tear to some old crony gone.
The preacher, too, his Sunday theme lays down,
To know what last new folly fills the town;
Lively or sad, life's meanest, mightiest things.
The fate of fighting cocks, or fighting kings. [ Sprague ]
The busy brain, that sows not corn, sows thistles. [ Proverb ]
Dreams, which, beneath the hov'ring shades of night.
Sport with the ever-restless minds of men.
Descend not from the gods. Each busy brain
Creates its own. [ Thomas Love Peacock ]
The fool is busy in every one's business but his own. [ Proverb ]
Too busy with the crowded hour to fear to live or die. [ Emerson ]
Love is the business of the idle, but the idleness of the busy. [ Bulwer Lytton ]
Science is busy with the hither-end of things, not the thither-end. [ C. H. Parkhurst ]
He that is busy is tempted but by one devil, he that is idle by a legion. [ Proverb ]
And to tired limbs and over-busy thoughts,Inviting sleep and soft forgetfulness. [ Wordsworth ]
He that is too busy in mending and judging of others, will never be good himself. [ Proverb ]
The more we do, the more we can do: the more busy we are, the more leisure we have. [ William Hazlitt ]
Remembrance wakes, with all her busy train, swells at my heart, and turns the past to pain. [ Goldsmith ]
Love is the occupation of the idle man, the amusement of a busy one, and the shipwreck of a sovereign. [ Napoleon I ]
The coming spring would first appear, and all this place with roses strew, if busy feet would let them grow. [ Waller ]
There are persons who do not know how to waste their time alone, and hence become the scourge of busy people. [ De Bonald ]
Night is the astronomer's accepted time; he goes to his delightful labors when the busy world goes to its rest. [ E. Everett ]
The pains we take in books or arts which treat of things remote from the necessaries of life is a busy idleness. [ Fuller ]
Love is ever busy with his shuttle, is ever wearing into life's dull warp bright gorgeous flowers and scenes Arcadian. [ Longfellow ]
O this itch of the ear, that breaks out at the tongue! Were not curiosity so over-busy, detraction would soon be starved to death. [ Douglas Jerrold ]
Our wrangling lawyers are so litigious and busy here on earth, that I think they will plead their clients' causes hereafter, some of them in hell. [ Burton ]
Error is always more busy than ignorance. Ignorance is a blank sheet on which we may write; but error is a scribbled one from which we must first erase. [ Colton ]
Busy not yourself in looking forward to the events of tomorrow; but whatever may be those of the days Providence may yet assign you neglect not to turn them to advantage. [ Horace ]
Happy the man who, remote from busy life, is content, like the primitive race of mortals, to plough his paternal lands with his own oxen, freed from all borrowing and lending. [ Horace ]
Luck is ever waiting for something to turn up. Labor, with keen eyes and strong will, will turn up something. Luck lies in bed, and wishes the postman would bring him the news of a legacy. Labor turns out at six o'clock, and with busy pen or ringing hammer lays the foundation of a competence. Luck whines. Labor whistles. Luck relies on chance. Labor on character. [ Cobden ]
Man little knows what calamities are beyond his patience to bear till he tries them; as in ascending the heights of ambition, which look bright from below, every step we rise shows us some new and gloomy prospect of hidden disappointment; so in our descent from the summits of pleasure, though the vale of misery below may appear, at first, dark and gloomy, yet the busy mind, still attentive to its own amusement, finds, as we descend, something to flatter and to please. Still as we approach, the darkest objects appear to brighten, and the mortal eye becomes adapted to its gloomy situation. [ Goldsmith ]