“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.

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.

The most fitting occupation for a civilized man is to do nothing.

Labor is no disgrace.

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

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.

In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: they must be fit for it; they must not do too much of it; and they must have a sense of success in it.

Plough deep while sluggards sleep.

He that would eat the nut must crack the shell.

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

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.

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.