“All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quiet in a room alone”

The expression “All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quiet in a room alone” appears in a discussion of how women may regard men’s activity outside family life. Attributed to Pascal, it serves as a humorous lens on a gendered conflict: the wish to keep a man at home is set against his drive to pursue work and enterprises that do not directly benefit the household.

Meaning and Context

The aphorism is presented as an attitude a woman might readily adopt toward male enterprise. In the surrounding argument, she values life and the flesh over existence and the spirit, and prefers a man as passive flesh rather than as a body expressing subjectivity. The saying gives comic form to that perspective: men’s miseries are framed not as unavoidable, but as the result of their inability to remain quietly by themselves.

Domestic Life and Male Enterprise

The passage connects this outlook to hostility toward activity that does not directly serve family life. It illustrates the conflict through Bernard Palissy’s wife, who is indignant when he burns furniture while working to invent a new enamel—an invention the passage pointedly says the world had managed without. Mme Racine similarly directs her husband’s attention toward her red currants and refuses to read his tragedies. In both examples, domestic priorities meet work whose value lies beyond the immediate household.

Literary Work and Material Value

The passage extends the pattern to Élise, whose view of her husband’s writing frustrates Jouhandeau in The Bold Chronicle of a Strange Marriage. She stubbornly treats his literary work as merely a source of material profit. The example adds a further consequence to the conflict: activity outside family life is not only discouraged, but can be judged according to its practical household return. Pascal’s aphorism thus frames a recurring tension between domestic utility and the independent claims of creative or inventive work.