The price for absolute freedom from necessity is, in a sense, life itself, or rather the substitution of vicarious life for real life. […] The human condition is such that pain and effort are not just symptoms which can be removed without changing life itself; they are the modes in which life itself, together with the necessity to which it is bound, makes itself felt. For mortals, the “easy life of the gods” would be a lifeless life.

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
The Human Condition, Part 3 “Labor,” ch. 16 (1958)
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Added on 8-Apr-10 | Last updated 20-Jan-26
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