February 20, 2009: Tolstoy on Idleness - 0 Comments

A secret voice tells us that we should feel guilty for being idle. If man could find a condition in which, while idle, he felt that he was being useful and was fulfilling his duty, he would have found one side of primordial blessedness. And this state of obligatory and irreproachable idleness is enjoyed by an entire class--the military.

- Tolstoy, War & Peace, 1868.