I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living. – John D. Rockefeller
“I have no more than twenty acres of ground,” he replied, “the whole of which I cultivate myself with the help of my children; and our labor keeps off from us the three great evils – boredom, vice, and want.” – Voltaire
Believe me, the man who earns his bread by the sweat of his brow, eats oftener a sweeter morsel, however coarse, than he who procures it by the labor of his brains. – Washington Irving, letter to Pierre Paris Irving (nephew), 1824 December 7th
People still retain the errors of their childhood, their nation, and their age, long after they have accepted the truths needed to refute them. – Condorcet, Progress of the Human Mind, 1794