The end of labor is to gain leisure.

Aristotle makes this remark in the context of his political and ethical reflections on the proper aims of civic life. In discussing education, work, and the organization of the polis, he distinguishes between activities pursued as means (necessary labor and “useful” occupations) and activities pursued as ends (the good life, including cultivated leisure). The line comes from his argument that a well-ordered community should not treat work as the highest human purpose; rather, work is instrumental, undertaken so that citizens may have the leisure required for virtue, education, and contemplation.

The sentence frames labor as instrumental rather than ultimate: we work in order to be free for higher human goods. For Aristotle, “leisure” (scholē) is not mere idleness but the condition that makes possible education, civic participation, and especially the contemplative life—activities valued for their own sake. The quote therefore challenges a purely productivity-centered view of human flourishing. It implies that a society that cannot convert necessary work into genuine leisure for its members has missed the point of economic and political organization: enabling people to live well, not simply to live busily.