The highest pleasure to be got out of freedom, and having nothing to do, is labor

Avoid idleness, and fill up all the spaces of thy time with severe and useful employment: for lust easily creeps in at those emptinesses where the soul is unemployed and the body is at ease; no easy, healthful, idle person was ever chaste if he could

Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another

If we could all live solitary and without labor, we could all enjoy this ecstasy of independence; since we cannot, its delights are only available to madmen and dictators

No great achievement is possible without persistent work.

It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things