“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.

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.

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

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

The workers are the saviors of society, the redeemers of the race.

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.

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

He that would eat the nut must crack the shell.

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

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

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

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

One of the saddest things is that the only thing that a man can do for eight hours a day, day after day, is work. You can’t eat eight hours a day, nor drink for eight hours a day, nor make love for eight hours.