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.

I began to realize how simple life could be if one had a regular routine to follow with fixed hours, a fixed salary, and very little original thinking to do.

Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another.

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

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

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

He that would eat the nut must crack the shell.

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.

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

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.

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

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

“Work” does not exist in a nonliterate world. The primitive hunter or fisherman did no work, any more than does the poet, painter, or thinker of today. Where the whole man is involved there is no work.