"There will be little drudgery in this better ordered world. Natural power harnessed in machines will be the general drudge. What drudgery is inevitable will be done as a service and duty for a few years or months out of each life; it will not consume nor degrade the whole life of anyone."

"America has lost more than 12 million jobs in the last six months. An estimated 12 million people have lost their employer-sponsored health insurance during the worst pandemic in a century. Tens of millions report not having enough to eat. But one month ago, tens of millions of unemployed Americans lost... a $600 weekly federal unemployment insurance benefit that Congress failed to renew... How can this happen in a democracy? This is a question that everyone who works for a living... might want to consider on this Labor Day... If the facts of this political disaster were more widely known and understood, Republicans could lose not only the presidency but also the Senate in November. After all, millions of unemployed Republicans lost most of their income as a result of what their political party...did... Republican senators repeatedly expressed worries that the unemployment benefits created a "disincentive to work." But economists have found no evidence of this; on the contrary, millions of workers who were receiving these benefits returned to work in May through July, and there are more than 11 million more workers and there are more than 11 million more workers unemployed than there are job openings."

"Paul's ... no-work-no-eat doctrine was directed by him only against the poor. All around him were the rich, virginally innocent of toil, and yet who were gorged to the gullet."

"But when dread Sloth, the Mother of Doom, steals in, And reigns where Labour's glory was to serve, Then is the day of crumbling not far off."

"Ah, little recks the laborer, How near his work is holding him to God, The loving Laborer through space and time."

"Labor omnia vincit improbus."

"Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice and need."

"Thine to work as well as pray, Clearing thorny wrongs away; Plucking up the weeds of sin, Letting heaven's warm sunshine in."

"We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid."

"Too long, that some may rest, Tired millions toil unblest."

"The labourer is worthy of his reward."

"A workman that needeth not to be ashamed."

"With starving labor pampering idle waste; To tear at pleasure the defected land."

"Clamorous pauperism feasteth While honest Labor, pining, hideth his sharp ribs."

"If we expand the notion of work, which is something that a universal basic income would help us do, it would begin to compensate parents and caregivers; it would begin to recognize different forms of work."

"Nothing can be done at once hastily and prudently."

"Heaven is blessed with perfect rest but the blessing of earth is toil."

"Ah vitam perdidi operse nihil agendo."

"Ne laterum laves."

"A man who has no office to go to—I don't care who he is—is a trial of which you can have no conception."

"I am giving you examples of the fact that this creature man, who in his own selfish affairs is a coward to the backbone, will fight for an idea like a hero…. I tell you, gentlemen, if you can shew a man a piece of what he now calls God's work to do, and what he will later call by many new names, you can make him entirely reckless of the consequences to himself personally."

"What work's, my countrymen, in hand? where go you With bats and clubs? The matter? speak, I pray you."

"A day's work is a day's work, neither more nor less, and the man who does it needs a day's sustenance, a night's repose, and due leisure, whether he be painter or ploughman."

"Another lean, unwashed artificer."

"I have had my labour for my travail."

"Many faint with toil, That few may know the cares and woe of sloth."

"The labour we delight in physics pain."

"Der Mohr hat seine Arbeit gethan, der Mohr kann gehen."

"Hard toil can roughen form and face, And want can quench the eye's bright grace."

"When Adam dalfe and Eve spane So spire if thou may spede, Where was then the pride of man, That nowe merres his mede?"

"Why, universal plodding poisons up The nimble spirits in the arteries, As motion and long-during action tires The sinewy vigour of the traveller."

"[A universal basic income] would be one of the greatest catalysts to entrepreneurship and creativity we have ever seen, and I've worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs over the years. We have to put more Americans in position to do work that they value intrinsically, instead of as a necessary means to survival."

"Why, Hal, 'tis my vocation. Hal: 'tis no sin for a man to labour in his vocation."

"How many a rustic Milton has passed by, Stifling the speechless longings of his heart, In unremitting drudgery and care! How many a vulgar Cato has compelled His energies, no longer tameless then, To mould a pin, or fabricate a nail!"

"The day is short, the labor long, the workers are idle, and reward is great, and the Master is urgent."

"Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening."

"And all labour without any play, boys, Makes Jack a dull boy in the end."

"Many hands make light work."

"Dum vires annique sinunt, tolerate labores. Jam veniet tacito curva senecta pede."

"Nothing is impossible to industry."

"Labor is rest—from the sorrows that greet us; Rest from all petty vexations that meet us, Rest from sin-promptings that ever entreat us, Rest from the world-sirens that hire us to ill. Work—and pure slumbers shall wait on thy pillow; Work—thou shalt ride over Care's coming billow; Lie not down wearied 'neath Woe's weeping willow! Work with a stout heart and resolute will!"

"The uselessness of men above sixty years of age and the incalculable benefit it would be in commercial, in political, and in professional life, if as a matter of course, men stopped work at this age."

"Grex venalium."

"Study until twenty-five, investigation until forty, profession until sixty, at which age I would have him retired on a double allowance."