If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper that did his job well.

God sells us all things at the price of labor.

“Work” does not exist in a nonliterate world. The primitive hunter or fisherman did no work, any more than does the poet, painter, or thinker of today. Where the whole man is involved there is no work.

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.

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

He that would eat the nut must crack the shell.

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

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

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

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

The three little sentences that will get you through life. Number 1: Cover for me. Number 2: Oh, good idea, Boss! Number 3: It was like that when I got here.

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.

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