“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.

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

I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.

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

Man 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.

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

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

Labor is no disgrace.