"For Satan always finds some mischief still for idle hands to do"
About this Quote
A line this neat doesn’t just warn against laziness; it recruits fear as a productivity hack. “For Satan always finds some mischief still for idle hands to do” turns unstructured time into moral risk, dramatizing boredom as a doorway through which evil casually strolls. The genius is in “still”: even when everything seems fine, even when you think you’re merely resting, trouble is waiting with a spare task.
Watts, a dissenting minister best known for hymns and moral verse (not a politician), was writing in a Protestant culture that treated discipline as both spiritual hygiene and social glue. In that world, idleness isn’t a private preference; it’s a civic hazard. “Idle hands” are visible, legible signs of disorder in a community: the poor not working, youth not supervised, bodies not governed. Satan here functions less as a literal horned villain than as a narrative shortcut for what institutions fear most - appetites unpoliced, time unaccounted for, people slipping out of the routine that keeps them compliant.
The subtext is classed and managerial. It implies that vice is not primarily an ideological choice but a scheduling problem. Give someone empty hours and they will fill them with “mischief” - a word that’s almost coy, softening the accusation while widening its net. Mischief can mean sin, crime, gossip, sex, dissent. The line’s rhetorical power comes from its certainty (“always”) and its outsourcing of causality: if wrongdoing happens, blame the idleness, blame the devil, not the conditions producing it. That’s how a pious maxim doubles as social policy.
Watts, a dissenting minister best known for hymns and moral verse (not a politician), was writing in a Protestant culture that treated discipline as both spiritual hygiene and social glue. In that world, idleness isn’t a private preference; it’s a civic hazard. “Idle hands” are visible, legible signs of disorder in a community: the poor not working, youth not supervised, bodies not governed. Satan here functions less as a literal horned villain than as a narrative shortcut for what institutions fear most - appetites unpoliced, time unaccounted for, people slipping out of the routine that keeps them compliant.
The subtext is classed and managerial. It implies that vice is not primarily an ideological choice but a scheduling problem. Give someone empty hours and they will fill them with “mischief” - a word that’s almost coy, softening the accusation while widening its net. Mischief can mean sin, crime, gossip, sex, dissent. The line’s rhetorical power comes from its certainty (“always”) and its outsourcing of causality: if wrongdoing happens, blame the idleness, blame the devil, not the conditions producing it. That’s how a pious maxim doubles as social policy.
Quote Details
| Topic | Work Ethic |
|---|---|
| Source | Line from Isaac Watts' children's poem "Against Idleness and Mischief" (commonly quoted as "For Satan finds some mischief still, For idle hands to do"). |
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