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

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

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

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.

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

To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.

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