Relaxation

Relaxation is a remission or abatement of rigor.

Whatever tends to lighten one's burden must be examined carefully. For although such alleviation is sometimes justified and reasonable, it is most often a deceitful prescription of the evil inclination, and must, therefore, be subjected to much analysis and investigation. ~ Moshe Chaim Luzzatto

To relax from ceaseless aspiration is sin. ~ Meister Eckhart

Quotes

• Arcum intensio frangit; animum, remissio.

• Much bending breaks the bow. Much unbending, the mind.

• Francis Bacon, Ornamenta Rationalia

Compare:

• Tension weakens the bow; the want of it, the mind.

• The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus #59

• Culture is at once the expression and the reward of an effort, and any system of civilization which tends to relax effort will suffer a corresponding depreciation of culture.
  • Georges Duhamel, In Defense of Letters (1937), E. Bozman, trans. (1939), p. 22

• As the peculiar faculty of the eye is to see form and color, and of the ear to hear sweet tones and voices, so is aspiration peculiar to the soul. To relax from ceaseless aspiration is sin.
  • Meister Eckhart, Sermons, Sermon 7, "Outward and Inward Morality"

• Whatever tends to lighten one's burden must be examined carefully. For although such alleviation is sometimes justified and reasonable, it is most often a deceitful prescription of the evil inclination, and must, therefore, be subjected to much analysis and investigation.
  • Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, Mesillat Yesharim (1738)

• ... that Jesuitry of mediocrity, which spontaneously works for the destruction of the uncommon man and seeks to break every arched bow or—even better!—to relax it.
  • Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, I. Johnston, trans., § 206

See also

• Leisure
• Repose
• Rest
• Tension