"Leisure is the time for doing something useful. This leisure the diligent person will obtain the lazy one never"
About this Quote
Franklin turns "leisure" from a soft luxury into a moral instrument, then snaps the trap shut on anyone tempted to confuse free time with idleness. The first sentence is bait: leisure sounds like rest, ease, maybe even pleasure. Then he redefines it as the proper hour for "something useful" - a word Franklin wields like a civic cudgel. Usefulness, in his worldview, is not merely personal improvement; its the currency of a functioning republic.
The second line is the real sermon, built on a clean, punitive symmetry: the diligent will obtain leisure, the lazy never will. Its a Puritan equation dressed up as common sense. Notice the inversion: leisure isnt the reward of doing nothing; its the byproduct of discipline. Franklin is teaching time management as social philosophy. Work buys freedom, and freedom should be reinvested into self-making: reading, inventing, learning, organizing. The subtext is almost austere: you dont deserve downtime unless youve earned the capacity to use it well.
Context matters. Franklin is speaking from the logic of an emerging commercial society where reputations are made through reliability and where the young American project needs citizens who treat their lives as enterprises. Its also a subtle rebuke to aristocratic leisure - inherited time, unearned comfort - recast as morally suspect. He isnt anti-pleasure so much as anti-waste. Leisure becomes a test: not of how little you can do, but of what you choose to do when no one is watching.
The second line is the real sermon, built on a clean, punitive symmetry: the diligent will obtain leisure, the lazy never will. Its a Puritan equation dressed up as common sense. Notice the inversion: leisure isnt the reward of doing nothing; its the byproduct of discipline. Franklin is teaching time management as social philosophy. Work buys freedom, and freedom should be reinvested into self-making: reading, inventing, learning, organizing. The subtext is almost austere: you dont deserve downtime unless youve earned the capacity to use it well.
Context matters. Franklin is speaking from the logic of an emerging commercial society where reputations are made through reliability and where the young American project needs citizens who treat their lives as enterprises. Its also a subtle rebuke to aristocratic leisure - inherited time, unearned comfort - recast as morally suspect. He isnt anti-pleasure so much as anti-waste. Leisure becomes a test: not of how little you can do, but of what you choose to do when no one is watching.
Quote Details
| Topic | Work Ethic |
|---|---|
| Source | Poor Richard's Almanack , attributed to Benjamin Franklin: "Leisure is the time for doing something useful; this leisure the diligent person will obtain, the lazy one never." |
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