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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

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

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.

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.