It is in his pleasure that a man really lives; it is from his leisure that he constructs the true fabric of self.

Repplier contrasts the public, instrumental side of life (work, duty, social roles) with the private realm of chosen activity. “Pleasure” and “leisure” here are not mere idleness but the time in which a person acts from inclination—reading, conversation, contemplation, art—rather than necessity. In that voluntary space, character becomes visible and is actively shaped: what one seeks for delight, and how one uses unclaimed hours, reveals values and forms habits of mind. The “true fabric of self” suggests identity as something woven over time from freely selected experiences, implying that selfhood is constructed less by external demands than by the inner life cultivated in leisure.