One must work and dare if one really wants to live.

As you read this chapter, you saw it clearly: To develop good character, work. To have good health, work. To win over yourself, work. To do the right thing because it is right, work. To rise from rags to riches, work. To fight your way back, work. To acquire knowledge, work. To acquire know-how, work.

Everyone must work to live, but the purpose of life is to serve and to show compassion and the will to help others. Only then have we ourselves become true human beings.

All the things that make life worth living take work.

Achieving the good life is more a matter of being than of doing or giving. It calls for intense self-scrutiny, a relentless honesty about one's motives, and a persistent feeling that we are no better — and perhaps worse — than those we are trying to help.

You must work and do good, not be lazy and gamble, if you wish to earn happiness. Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction.

Whatever your life's work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.

One can live magnificently in this world if one knows how to work and how to love.

We all live but we don't know the why or the wherefore. We all live with the object of being happy, our lives are all different and yet the same. We have the chance to learn, the possibility of attaining something, we have all reason to hope for much happiness, but we must earn it for ourselves. And that is never easy. You must work and do good, not be lazy and gamble, if you wish to earn happiness. Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction.

I could not endure life without work. All my life, as
long as I can remember, I have worked, and it has been my greatest
and only pleasure. But now I am quite alone in the world — my life
is so dreadfully empty and I feel so forsaken. There is not the
least pleasure in working for one's self. Nils, give me someone and
something to work for.

In order to lead a meaningful life, you need to cherish others, pay attention to human values and try to cultivate inner peace.

You need to get good in order to get good things in your working life.

Some people work to live, and other people live to work. Then some people, like me, are both unemployed and alive (at least at the time of this writing).

Any definition of a successful life must include service to others.