"It is idleness that creates impossibilities; and where people don't care to do anything, they shelter themselves under a permission that it cannot be done"
About this Quote
Idleness, in South's hands, isn't a harmless lack of activity; it's a moral technology for manufacturing excuses. The line skewers a familiar human maneuver: we rename unwillingness as impossibility, then treat that label as an alibi. "It cannot be done" sounds like a sober assessment of reality, but South hears the softer, more self-serving subtext: "I don't care to try, and I'd like credit for prudence."
The sentence is engineered like a sermon with teeth. "Creates impossibilities" flips the usual logic. Obstacles don't simply appear; they are produced by a certain posture of the will. South is not offering productivity advice so much as a diagnosis of vice. Idleness becomes culpable because it doesn't merely waste time; it corrodes responsibility. The phrase "shelter themselves" makes the excuse feel architectural: a little roof built out of permission, where the idle can hide from judgment. That word "permission" is crucial. It suggests that impossibility is socially negotiated, a story we authorize when effort would be inconvenient or costly.
Context matters. A seventeenth-century Anglican theologian is speaking from a culture preoccupied with duty, discipline, and the moral peril of sloth. South preached in an England of religious conflict and political reordering, where public life demanded justification and private life demanded rectitude. His target isn't just laziness; it's the pious counterfeit of humility that says, "Who am I to attempt this?" He punctures that with bracing clarity: impossibility is often just the conscience, looking for cover.
The sentence is engineered like a sermon with teeth. "Creates impossibilities" flips the usual logic. Obstacles don't simply appear; they are produced by a certain posture of the will. South is not offering productivity advice so much as a diagnosis of vice. Idleness becomes culpable because it doesn't merely waste time; it corrodes responsibility. The phrase "shelter themselves" makes the excuse feel architectural: a little roof built out of permission, where the idle can hide from judgment. That word "permission" is crucial. It suggests that impossibility is socially negotiated, a story we authorize when effort would be inconvenient or costly.
Context matters. A seventeenth-century Anglican theologian is speaking from a culture preoccupied with duty, discipline, and the moral peril of sloth. South preached in an England of religious conflict and political reordering, where public life demanded justification and private life demanded rectitude. His target isn't just laziness; it's the pious counterfeit of humility that says, "Who am I to attempt this?" He punctures that with bracing clarity: impossibility is often just the conscience, looking for cover.
Quote Details
| Topic | Work Ethic |
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