More and more, work enlists all good conscience on its side; the desire for joy already calls itself a "need to recuperate" and is beginning to be ashamed of itself. "One owes it to one’s health"—that is what people say when they are caught on an excursion into the country. ... Formerly it was the other way around: it was work that was afflicted with the bad conscience. A person of good family used to conceal the fact that he was compelled to work. Slaves used to work, oppressed by the feeling that they were doing something contemptible: "doing" itself was contemptible. "Nobility and honour are attached solely to otium and bellum," that was the ancient prejudice.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "More and more, work enlists all good conscience on its side; the desire for joy already calls itself a "need to recuperate" and is beginning to be ashamed of itself. "One owes it to one’s health"—that is what people say when they are caught on an excursion into the country. ... Formerly it was the other way around: it was work that was afflicted with the bad conscience. A person of good family used to conceal the fact that he was compelled to work. Slaves used to work, oppressed by the feeling that they were doing something contemptible: "doing" itself was contemptible. "Nobility and honour are attached solely to otium and bellum," that was the ancient prejudice." in the context of "Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, W. Kaufmann, trans. (New York: 1974), § 329" to mean that wisdom is timeless.