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.

A human being must have occupation, if he or she is not to become a nuisance to the world.

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

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.

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

“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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

He that would eat the nut must crack the shell.