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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Plough deep while sluggards sleep.

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.

Labor is no disgrace.

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.