Play is the resource of none but men whose time hangs heavy on their hands.
 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Confessions (1782). copy citation

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Author Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Source Confessions
Topic time resource
Date 1782
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by Samuel William Orson
Weblink https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Confessions_(Rousseau)

Context

“All these gentlemen had their wives, female friends, or mistresses: the latter were most of them women of talents, at whose apartments there were balls and concerts. There was but little play; a lively turn, talents, and the theatres rendered this amusement incipid. Play is the resource of none but men whose time hangs heavy on their hands. I had brought with me from Paris the prejudice of that city against Italian music; but I had also received from nature a sensibility and niceness of distinction which prejudice cannot withstand. I soon contracted that passion for Italian music with which it inspires all those who are capable of feeling its excellence.” source