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.
—Billie Holiday, 1956Quotes
Labor disgraces no man; unfortunately, you occasionally find men who disgrace labor.
—Ulysses S. Grant, 1877I 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.
—Henry David Thoreau, 1855Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
—Theodore Roosevelt, 1903The most fitting occupation for a civilized man is to do nothing.
—Théophile Gautier, c. 1835The best augury of a man’s success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world.
—George Eliot, 1876Man is a tool-using animal. Nowhere do you find him without tools; without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all.
—Thomas Carlyle, 1836It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
—Upton Sinclair, 1935