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.

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.

Eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, eight hours for what we will.

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

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

Labor disgraces no man; unfortunately, you occasionally find men who disgrace labor.

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