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In favor of the idle. An indication that esteem for the meditative life has decreased is that scholars today compete with active men in a kind of hasty enjoyment, so that they seem to value this kind of enjoying more than the kind that actually befits them and, in fact, offers much more enjoyment. Scholars are ashamed of otium. But leisure and idleness-32 are a noble thing.
If idleness is really the beginning of all vices,33 it is at least located in the closest vicinity to all the virtues: the idle man is still a better man than the active man.
You don't think that by leisure and idling I'm talking about you, do you, you lazybones?
32. Musse and Müssiggehen
33. "Müssigang ist alter Laster Anfang" (idleness is the beginning of all vices), German saying.
33. "Müssigang ist alter Laster Anfang" (idleness is the beginning of all vices), German saying.
