A man is not idle, because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labor and there is an invisible labor.

God sells us all things at the price of labor.

The most fitting occupation for a civilized man is to do nothing.

To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.

I began to realize how simple life could be if one had a regular routine to follow with fixed hours, a fixed salary, and very little original thinking to do.

In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: they must be fit for it; they must not do too much of it; and they must have a sense of success in it.

Man is a tool-using animal. Nowhere do you find him without tools; without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all.

Labor disgraces no man; unfortunately, you occasionally find men who disgrace labor.

A human being must have occupation, if he or she is not to become a nuisance to the world.

Toil is man’s allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief that’s more than either, the grief and sin of idleness.

Eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, eight hours for what we will.

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

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