“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.

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

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

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

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.

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

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 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.

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

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

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.

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.