Absence of occupation is not rest.
A mind quite vacant is a mind distress'd.
—Cowper.
God giveth quietness at last.—Whittier.
Of all our loving Father's gifts
I often wonder which is best,
And cry: Dear God, the one that lifts
Our soul from weariness to rest,
The rest of silence—that is best.
—Mary Clemmer.
The word "rest" is not in my vocabulary.—Horace Greeley.
Retirement.—How much they err who, to their interest blind, slight the calm peace which from retirement flows!—Mrs. Tighe.
Nature I'll court in her sequester'd haunts,
By mountain, meadow, streamlet, grove or cell;
Where the poised lark his evening ditty chaunts,
And health, and peace, and contemplation dwell.
—Smollett.
O, blest retirement! friend to life's decline—
How blest is he who crowns, in shades like these,
A youth of labor with an age of ease!
—Goldsmith.
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
—Gray.
Depart from the highway, and transplant thyself in some enclosed ground; for it is hard for a tree that stands by the wayside to keep her fruit till it be ripe.—St. Chrysostom.