“It is a great and deplorable error to believe that the aim of work is the formation of the mind.”Charles Baudelaire · Inima mea dezgolită · 1887 · XII
Work doesn't make you wiser, just too busy to feel the void.
The aphorism dismantles the morality of work as character-building. For Baudelaire, work is an anesthetic: the hard worker does not become wiser, merely too busy to feel his own emptiness. It is a cousin of his observation that entertainment and daily business spare man the horror of passing time. The concrete example is his own biography: hounded by debts, he worked frantically all his life, and knew exactly what anesthesia he was buying.
Why it matters Useful for anyone who suspects that professional busyness is also a flight; it helps you distinguish between meaningful work and work as anesthesia.