A life spent in constant labor is a life wasted, save a man be such a fool as to regard a fulsome obituary notice as ample reward.

Nathan’s aphorism attacks the moral prestige often granted to ceaseless work. He suggests that “constant labor” can become an end in itself—crowding out pleasure, reflection, relationships, and the cultivation of taste—so that the worker’s life is “wasted” despite outward productivity. The sting of the closing clause is aimed at vanity and social approval: if the only payoff for a lifetime of toil is a flattering obituary, then the bargain is absurd. In typical Nathan fashion, the line is both cynical and corrective, urging readers to distrust public pieties about industriousness and to measure a life by lived experience rather than posthumous praise.