You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation.

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.

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

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

The best augury of a man’s success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world.

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

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