In Praise of Idleness (1932)
&gt; It will be said that while a little leisure is pleasant, men would not know how to fill their days if they had only four hours’ work out of the twenty-four. In so far as this is true in the modern world it is a condemnation of our civilization; it would not have been true at any earlier period.<p>I would think the relevance of this today would be in terms of COVID lockdowns. Many have had a big dose of leisure and it&#x27;s been an interesting test for many. When we&#x27;re busy, leisure looks so appetising, but sometimes too much leisure removes the very institutional structures that put meaning in our lives and that motivated us in the first place. My sister retired to do all her hobbies and immediately lost interest in them. Sometimes when your moods and energy are good, you don&#x27;t realise what underlies them. Then we get what we want but lose what we had.<p>Maybe the moral of the story is all things in moderation