Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another.

One of the saddest things is that the only thing that a man can do for eight hours a day, day after day, is work. You can’t eat eight hours a day, nor drink for eight hours a day, nor make love for eight hours.

I am a friend of the workingman, and I would rather be his friend than be one.

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.

The workers are the saviors of society, the redeemers of the race.

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

Man must be doing something, or fancy that he is doing something, for in him throbs the creative impulse; the mere basker in the sunshine is not a natural, but an abnormal man.

He that would eat the nut must crack the shell.

The best augury of a man’s success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world.

Sick, irritated, and the prey to a thousand discomforts, I go on with my labor like a true workingman, who, with sleeves rolled up, in the sweat of his brow, beats away at his anvil, not caring whether it rains or blows, hails or thunders.

Hang work! I wish that all the year were holiday; I am sure that Indolence—indefeasible Indolence—is the true state of man.

It is shameful and inhuman to treat men like chattels to make money by, or to regard them merely as so much muscle or physical power.