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.

The three little sentences that will get you through life. Number 1: Cover for me. Number 2: Oh, good idea, Boss! Number 3: It was like that when I got here.

Plough deep while sluggards sleep.

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

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

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

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

God sells us all things at the price of labor.

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

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.

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

Labor is no disgrace.

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