In the unbending of the arm to do the deed there is experience worth all the maxims in the world.
That is mere sentimentality that lies abed by day and thinks itself white, far from the tan and callus of experience.
We ’ve wholly forgotten how to die. But be sure you do die nevertheless. Do your work, and finish it. If you know how to begin, you will know when to end.
One can hardly imagine a more healthful employment, or one more favorable to contemplation and the observation of nature.
There are many skillful apprentices, but few master workmen.
Steady labor with the hands, which engrosses the attention also, is unquestionably the best method of removing palaver and sentimentality out of one’s style, both of speaking and writing.
Though the hen should sit all day, she could lay only one egg, and, besides, would not have picked up materials for another.
The truth is, there is money buried everywhere, and you have only to go to work to find it.
A man may travel fast enough and earn his living on the road.
Verily, chemistry is not a splitting of hairs when you have got half a dozen raw Irishmen in the laboratory.
It is the art of mankind to polish the world, and every one who works is scrubbing in some part.
Men and boys are learning all kinds of trades but how to make men of themselves. They learn to make houses; but they are not so well housed, they are not so contented in their houses, as the woodchucks in their holes.
Are you in want of amusement nowadays? Then play a little at the game of getting a living. There was never anything equal to it. Do it temperately, though, and don’t sweat.
If thousands are thrown out of employment, it suggests that they were not well employed. Why don’t they take the hint? It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?
I have not earned what I have already enjoyed.
Cold and hunger seem more friendly to my nature than those methods which men have adopted and advise to ward them off.
A man had better starve at once than lose his innocence in the process of getting his bread.
All great enterprises are self-supporting.
It is remarkable that there are few men so well employed, so much to their minds, but that a little money or fame would commonly buy them off from their present pursuit.
You must get your living by loving. But as it is said of the merchants that ninety-seven in a hundred fail, so the life of men generally, tried by this standard, is a failure, and bankruptcy may be surely prophesied.