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About this quote

What does it mean?
While labor is necessary for survival, it does not mean life should be entirely consumed by work.
In plain terms
You have to work to live, but don't work your whole life.
What can you take from it?
Life is too short to spend all of it working.

Where it applies

  • career planning
  • labor disputes
  • work-life balance

Putting it to work

  • setting boundaries
  • valuing leisure

Questions to consider

  • What is the purpose of work?
  • How should we spend our time?

Another view

Economic reality forces some to work constantly just to survive.

More from Rudyard Kipling

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  2. It's like a book, I think, this bloomin' world, Which you can read and care for just so long, But presently you feel that you will die Unless you get the page …

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  3. There's a Legion that never was 'listed, That carries no colours or crest, But, split in a thousand detachments, Is breaking the road for the rest.

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