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

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.

Plough deep while sluggards sleep.

You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

I hate the present modes of living and getting a living. Farming and shopkeeping and working at a trade or profession are all odious to me. I should relish getting my living in a simple, primitive fashion.

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.

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.