70 Lazy People Quotes about Motivation and Procrastination

These lazy people quotes will make you laugh, but they might also get your brain going.

What does it mean to be lazy?

Is being lazy a bad thing or a good thing?

You might ask yourself these questions as you scroll through these quotes from influential and famous people.

What exactly does it mean to be lazy?

Well, being lazy is defined as being able to do an activity that you should do, but being disinclined to do so because of the effort involved.

A lazy person might instead complete the activity carelessly or choose another less strenuous or boring activity.

They might also just not do it at all.

Basically, if your motivation to avoid work and effort is stronger than your motivation to complete an activity that you know you should, you might be lazy.

It is important to know that being lazy is not the same as procrastinating.

Keep reading to learn more about how being lazy and procrastinating are not the same thing!

Don’t forget to also check out these procrastination quotes that will help you steal your time back.

If you like this article, we suggest you explore our most popular quotes article, a list of short inspirational quotes for daily encouragement. 

Look through our complete collection of inspirational quotes here.

Lazy people quotes from influential and famous people

1. “If you get lazy when you’re onstage, it shows.” — Usher

2. “Human nature is above all things lazy.” — Harriet Beecher Stowe

3. “As crazy as it sounds, my generation is very lazy.” — Luke Combs

4. “Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction.” — Anne Frank

5. “The word lucky is how a lazy person describes someone who works hard.” — Monroe Mann

6. “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” — Bill Gates

7. “Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.” — Albert Einstein

8. “Leisure is the time for doing something useful. This leisure the diligent person will obtain the lazy one never.” — Benjamin Franklin

9. “I can’t relate to lazy people. We don’t speak the same language. I don’t understand you. I don’t want to understand you.” — Kobe Bryant

10. “I have nothing in common with lazy people who blame others for their lack of success. Great things come from hard work and perseverance. No excuses.” — Kobe Bryant

Check out our collection of sloth quotes if you enjoy this article.

Thought-provoking lazy people quotes

11. “Lazy people live lonely lives.” — Habeeb Akande

12. “When people are successful, they usually become lazy.” — Nani

13. “Lazy people are always anxious to be doing something.” — Luc de Clapiers

14. “An excuse is simply a way for a lazy person to feel better.” — Monroe Mann

15. “Blame is just a lazy person’s way of making sense of chaos.” — Douglas Coupland

16. “Offer the lazy an egg, and they’ll want you to peel it for them.” — Lithuanian Proverb

17. “You can’t teach people to be lazy—either they have it, or they don’t.” — Dagwood Bumstead

18. “Lazy people tend not to take chances, but express themselves by tearing down other’s work.” — Ann Rule

19. “I’m lazy. But it’s the lazy people who invented the wheel and the bicycle because they didn’t like walking or carrying things.” — Lech Walesa

20. “A lazy person, whatever the talents with which he starts out, have condemned himself to second-rate thoughts, and to second-rate friends.” — Cyril Connolly

If you enjoy this article, check out our collection of complacency quotes for completing higher goals.

Funny lazy people quotes

21. “Towards evening the lazy person begins to get busy.” — Proverb

22. “I’m so easy to deceive, lazy people choose to be blind.” — Shuvit

23. “People are lazy, and they want their fast food via the television.” — Dean Winters

24. “If I won the award for laziness, I would send somebody to pick it up for me.” — Unknown

25. “I think fortune tellers are for lazy people who let the world dictate who they are.” — Taylor Brogan

26. “In the company of lazy people, quietness becomes a pretence.” — Chukwuemeka E. Onyejinduaka

27. “People think New York is crazy and busy, but it’s actually a great place for lazy people to live.” — Vanessa Bayer

28. “Laziness is a disease created by humans but ironically, it comes in a beautiful, addictive form that prisons you.” — Unknown

29. “Even a foolish old woman like me knows that lazy people don’t think for themselves; they only think about themselves.” — Terry Goodkind

30. “Painting is a field that attracts a lot of lazy people. You can just sort of sit and wait for things to come to you. I know a lot of painters who’ll sit and chat it up all night. But God, I just can’t do that.” — Jamie Wyeth

Inspiring quotes for lazy people

31. “Either you run the day, or the day runs you.” — Jim Rohn

32. “If the plan doesn’t work, change the plan, but never the goal.” — Unknown

33. “You are only as lazy or lacking in willpower as you think you are.” — Ken Christian

34. “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” — Albert Einstein

35. “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” — Abraham Lincoln

36. “Failure is not our only punishment for laziness; there is also the success of others.” — Jules Renard

37. “You can have the results you want, or you can have excuses. You can’t have both.” — Clyde Lee Dennis

38. “People are not lazy. They simply have impotent goals—that is, goals that do not inspire them.” — Tony Robbins

39. “My advice is to never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time.” — Charles Dickens

40. “The biggest problem in America is most people believe poor people are poor because they are lazy.” — Neal Brennan

Lazy people quotes about life

41. “I don’t want to waste my life by being lazy.” — Mawra Hocane

42. “If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.” — Bruce Lee

43. “Kill the darlings in your life. Laziness, wishful thinking, procrastination; kill them.” — Bangambiki Habyarimana

44. “All life demands struggle. Those who have everything given to them become lazy, selfish, and insensitive to the real values of life.” — Pope Paul VI

45. “Laziness is the one common deficiency in mankind that blocks the establishment of a perfect world in which everyone leads a happy life.” — William Feather

46. “If you wake up whenever you want, and you slept for 10 hours, and you’re lazy getting out of bed, then I believe that affects your whole life in a negative way.” — Jocko Willink

47. “I like to be lazy. I do like to be busy and really active, but when that’s done, you can be sure I will be a lazy boy. I like to take time and relax and enjoy life.” — Olivier Theyskens

48. “Because of the wonderfully positive response to ‘Life’s That Way,’ I am considering writing some more autobiographical stuff – maybe another book. I don’t know. It doesn’t help that I’m lazy.” — Jim Beaver

49. “There was a time in my life when I wasn’t sure I’d ever write a short story again because I had started writing novels, and I am fundamentally a lazy person, and the fact is that a novel is a lazy person’s form, really.” — Elizabeth McCracken

50. “I met Magnus Lidehall about two years ago, and the beat that I originally wrote ‘Younger’ on was one of the first ones that he sent me. I must have been around 21 at that time, feeling a bit lazy and disappointed with myself and my life.” — Seinabo Sey

Inspirational Lazy People Quotes To Work Hard

51. “Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.” ― Tchaikovsky

52. “A lazy man is that man that runs away from battles and never comes back, but a wise man fights to live and continues wherever he needs to be.” — Chukwuemeka E. Onyejinduaka

53. “The lazy man gets round the sun as quickly as the busy one.” — R. T. Wombat

54. “Lazy folks take the most pain.” — J. W. Monette

55. “Work is the law of the modern world, which has no place for lazy people.” — Mihai Eminescu

56. “If a lazy man desires gold, he will die without realizing his dreams, because every dream of a lazy man ends at night.” — Chukwuemeka E. Onyejinduaka

57. “Depression is just a word that lazy and weak people invented to justify their unwillingness or incapacity to evolve.” — Robin Sacredfire

58. “Idleness for me is not a giving up on life but a spirited grabbing hold of it.” — Tom Hodgkinson

59. “The only time a lazy man ever succeeds is when he tries to do nothing.” — Evan Esar

60. “A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. There will be enough sleeping in the grave.” — Benjamin Franklin

Lazy People Quotes To Inspire Action

61. “Folks who never do any more than they get paid for, never get paid for any more than they do.” — Elbert Hubbard

62. “Tomorrow is the only day in the year that appeals to a lazy man.” — Jimmy Lyons

63. “Time is a created thing. To say, ‘I don’t have time,’ is to say, ‘I don’t want to.’” — Lao Tzu

64. “Laziness is a luxurious mindset that I cannot afford to own.” — Nakia R. Laushaul

65. “Diligence is the mother of good fortune, and the goal of a good intention was never reached through its opposite, laziness.” — Miguel de Cervantes

66. “We often miss opportunity because it’s dressed in overalls and looks like work” — Thomas A. Edison

67. “Luck is always the last refuge of laziness and incompetence.” — James Cash Penney

68. “Luck never brings luxury to the lazy.” — Amit Kalantri

69. “Lazy begets poverty every time!” — Mark Dawson

70. “One must avoid that wicked temptress, Laziness.” — Horace

The root of laziness and procrastination

The definition of procrastination is to postpone a task in favor of other tasks.

These tasks are perceived as easier or more pleasurable and are typically less urgent.

Laziness and procrastination both involve a lack of motivation.

However, there is a big difference between the two.

Someone who is procrastinating intends to complete the task they are putting off.

And they typically get it done.

To procrastinate comes at a higher cost to a person than laziness because the procrastinator often ends up feeling guilty about putting it off.

Then stresses until it is complete.

Instinctually, people are more prone to conserve energy.

This is because our ancestors were focused more on survival than on using energy for things that didn’t provide immediate gratification.

People who are more self-confident are better at working on things with an unsure or longer-term payoff because they believe it will happen.

Many people we think are lazy are not truly lazy—they simply haven’t found something that motivates them enough.

What are some of your favorite lazy people quotes and sayings?

Let us know in the comment section below.