The time to relax is when you don't have time for it.

The remark turns a common excuse—“I’m too busy to relax”—into a warning: the moments of greatest pressure are precisely when rest is most necessary. Harris suggests that relaxation is not a reward reserved for after work is finished (since it never truly is), but a practical discipline that prevents overload, poor judgment, and burnout. The aphorism also critiques a culture that equates constant activity with virtue; it implies that the inability to pause is a symptom of disordered priorities. In effect, relaxation becomes a form of maintenance and self-governance, not indulgence.