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

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.

The workers are the saviors of society, the redeemers of the race.

Eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, eight hours for what we will.

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.

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.

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

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