For if no other test but the experience of being active, no other measure but the extent of sheer activity were to be applied to the various activities within the vita activa., it might well be that thinking as such would surpass them all.

Whoever has any experience in this matter will know how right Cato was when he said: Numquam se plus agere quam nihil cum agent, numquam minus solum esse quam cum solus esset—”Never is he more active than when he does nothing, never is he less alone than when he is by himself.”

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Excerpts from H. Arendt, “The Human Condition”, p. 320 ff.