Every man is worth just so much as the things he busies himself with.

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.

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

I hate the present modes of living and getting a living. Farming and shopkeeping and working at a trade or profession are all odious to me. I should relish getting my living in a simple, primitive fashion.

God sells us all things at the price of labor.

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

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.

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

I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.

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

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

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

You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation.