If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper that did his job well.

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.

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.

Plough deep while sluggards sleep.

In 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.

A human being must have occupation, if he or she is not to become a nuisance to the world.

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