In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays

[…] Human beings have organized their lives in such a way that some never work, while forcing others to work for them. Consequently they become bored because they don’t know what to do, and they think up all kinds of stupid and repellent activities to keep themselves occupied, whereas the others work night and day, and suffer because they have to w

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The original conception of leisure, as it arose in the civilized world of Greece, has, however, become unrecognizable in the world of planned diligence and “total labor”; and in order to gain a clear notion of leisure we must begin by setting aside the prejudice—our prejudice—that comes from overvaluing the sphere of work. In his well-known study o

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