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.

To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.

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

Plough deep while sluggards sleep.

Toil is man’s allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief that’s more than either, the grief and sin of idleness.

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.

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.