A dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford Paperback Reference)

IDLENESS is the root of all evil
The idea is attributed to St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Cf. early 14th-cent. Fr. oiseusetё atrait viches, idleness attracts vices; c 1390 CHAUCER Second Nun’s Prologue 1.1 The ministre and the norice [nurse] unto vices, which that men clepe [call] in Englissh ydlenesse.

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  1422 J. YONGE in Secreta Secretorum (1898) 158 Idylnysse is the.. rote of vicis. 1538 T. BECON Governance of Virtue B8^V Idleness.. is the well-spring and root of all vice. 1707 G. FARQUHAR Beaux’ Stratagem I. i. Idleness is the Root of all Evil; the World’s wide enough, let ’em bustle. 1850 DICKENS David Copperfield x. ‘The boy will be idle there,’ said Miss Murdstone, looking into a pickle-jar, ‘and idleness is the root of all evil.’ 1874 TROLLOPE Phineas Redux II. xxxvi. I much prefer down-right honest figures. Two and two make four; idleness is the root of all evil.. and the rest of it. 1966 Gleaner (Kingston, Jamaica) 2 Aug. 22/7 We too can help by our behaviour and our industry and by working harder and spending less time in idleness. There is a well-known adage that idleness is the root of all evil. “good and evil; idleness
  

If IFS and ands were pots and pans, there’d be no work for tinkers’ hands
Used as a humorous retort to an over-optimistic conditional expression. ands: the conjunction and’if’, of which an is a weakened form, is employed irregularly here as a noun to denote ‘an expression of condition or doubt’.

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  1850 C. KINGSLEY Alton Locke I. x. ‘If a poor man’s prayer can bring God’s curse down.’.. ‘If ifs and ans were pots and pans.’ 1886 Notes & Queries 7th Ser. I. 71 There is also the old doggerel—If ifs and ands Were pots and pans Where would be the work for Tinkers’ hands? 1981 J. ASHFORD Loss of Culion xvi. As my old aunt used to say, ‘If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there’d be no work for tinkers’ hands.’ 2002 Washington Times 14 Aug. B5 A reader signed ‘Desperate in Ohio’ reported that a verse her aunt told her many years ago was rattling around in her head, but she couldn’t remember the last line. It went, ‘If “ifs” and “ans” were pots and pans.. ‘ My column yesterday was filled with letters from readers eager to provide the missing line, ‘..there’d be no work for tinkers.’ ^wanting and having