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.
—Nell Scovell, 1991Quotes
A human being must have occupation, if he or she is not to become a nuisance to the world.
—Dorothy L. Sayers, 1947It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
—Upton Sinclair, 1935In 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.
—John Ruskin, 1850The most fitting occupation for a civilized man is to do nothing.
—Théophile Gautier, c. 1835Man 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.
—Henry George, 1879Toil 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.
—Herman Melville, 1849Man is a tool-using animal. Nowhere do you find him without tools; without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all.
—Thomas Carlyle, 1836