God sells us all things at the price of labor.

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

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

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.

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

Labor is no disgrace.

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

He that would eat the nut must crack the shell.

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.

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.

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

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.

A tremendous number of people in America work very hard at something that bores them. Even a rich man thinks he has to go down to the office everyday. Not because he likes it but because he can’t think of anything else to do.