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

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.

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.

One of the saddest things is that the only thing that a man can do for eight hours a day, day after day, is work. You can’t eat eight hours a day, nor drink for eight hours a day, nor make love for eight hours.

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

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

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

God sells us all things at the price of labor.