Afamous Persian king once called around him all the wisest men in his kingdom, and put the following question to them: 'What is the hardest work in the world?'

Some answered one thing and some another, but it was thought that still harder work might exist.

At last a sage came forward and said, 'I have lived many years and seen a great many things. I have come to the conclusion that the hardest work in the world is to be forced to do nothing at all; and no one can spend the whole day without doing something or other.'

The king, anxious to prove the truth of it, tried his best to find out whether this were so or not, as did also his courtiers, but they were obliged to own that what the sage had stated was the truth. Hence the proverb: 'No work, the hardest work.'