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

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

A tremendous number of people in America work very hard at something that bores them. Even a rich man thinks he has to go down to the office everyday. Not because he likes it but because he can’t think of anything else to do.

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.

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

Sick, irritated, and the prey to a thousand discomforts, I go on with my labor like a true workingman, who, with sleeves rolled up, in the sweat of his brow, beats away at his anvil, not caring whether it rains or blows, hails or thunders.

Every man is worth just so much as the things he busies himself with.

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.