And happiness is thought to depend on leisure; for we are busy that we may have leisure, and make war that we may live in peace.
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Book X, 1177.b4Aristotle
Work is the antonym of free time. But not of leisure. Leisure and free time live in two different worlds. We have got into the habit of thinking them the same. Anybody can have free time. Free time is a realizable idea of democracy. Leisure is not fully realizable, and hence an ideal not alone an idea. Free time refers to a special way of calculating a special kind of time. Leisure refers to a state of being, a condition of man, which few desire and fewer achieve.
Sebastian de Grazia
Suppose that, at a given moment, a certain number of people are engaged in the manufacture of pins. They make as many pins as the world needs, working (say) eight hours a day. Someone makes an invention by which the same number of men can make twice as many pins: pins are already so cheap that hardly any more will be bought at a lower price. In a sensible world, everybody concerned in the manufacturing of pins would take to working four hours instead of eight, and everything else would go on as before. But in the actual world this would be thought demoralizing. The men still work eight hours, there are too many pins, some employers go bankrupt, and half the men previously concerned in making pins are thrown out of work. There is, in the end, just as much leisure as on the other plan, but half the men are totally idle while half are still overworked. In this way, it is insured that the unavoidable leisure shall cause misery all round instead of being a universal source of happiness. Can anything more insane be imagined?
Bertrand Russell
Cato tells us that Publius Scipio, who was called Africinus, used to say that he was never less at leisure than when at leisure, or less alone than when alone.
Scipio Africanus
The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.
William Hazlitt
The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.
Dag Hammarskjold
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