ProverbPerseverance
English origin1732
English origin1732An idle brain is the devil's workshop.
Meaning: Unoccupied minds naturally drift toward mischief and destructive thoughts rather than productive or virtuous pursuits.
Origin: An old warning that idleness invites mischief. Isaac Watts put it in a hymn for children in 1715 — "Satan finds some mischief still / For idle hands to do" — Thomas Fuller's Gnomologia (1732) has "Idle brains are the devil's workhouses," and the wording used here was collected in the 19th century.
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