Genius begins great works; labor alone finishes them.

All wealth is the product of labor.

Work is the only thing that gives substance to life.

Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers: It is the only prayer that deserves an answer — good, honest, noble work.

By admitting that the only guarantee not to be robbed of the fruits of your labour is to possess the instruments of labour - which is true - the economists only prove that man really produces most when he works in freedom, when he has a certain choice in his occupations, when he has no overseer to impede him, and lastly, when he sees his work bringing in a profit to him and to others who work like him, but bringing in little to idlers. Nothing else can be deducted from their argumentation and this is what we maintain ourselves.

Man, like every other organism, can only live by the transformation of his environment to his own use. He must transform his environment from a condition where it is less to a condition where it is more subservient to his needs.
That special, conscious, and intelligent transformation of his environment which is peculiar to the peculiar intelligence and creative faculty of man we call the Production of Wealth.
Wealth is matter which has been consciously and intelligently transformed from a condition in which it is less to a condition in which it is more serviceable to a human need.
Without Wealth man cannot exist. The production of it is a necessity to him, and though it proceeds from the more to the less necessary, and even to those forms of production which we call luxuries, yet in any given human society there is a certain kind and a certain amount of wealth without which human life cannot be lived: as, for instance, in England to-day, certain forms of elaborately prepared food, clothing, fuel, and habitation.
Therefore, to control the production Of wealth is to control human life itself. To refuse man the opportunity for the production of wealth is to refuse him the opportunity for life; and, in general, the way in which the production of wealth is by law permitted is the only way in which the citizens can legally exist.

Man can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labor;
by the ceaseless application of his faculties to natural resources.
This process is the origin of property.
But it is also true that a man may live and satisfy his wants
by seizing and consuming the products of the labor of others.
This process is the origin of plunder.

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

He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.

The emancipation of the working class can only be achieved by the working class itself — without the assistance of governments.

The work is its own reward

The only
thing that matters my goal my reward my beginning my end is the work itself.
My work done my way.
A private personal selfish egotistical motivation. That’s the
only way I function. That’s all I am.

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

O lady! we receive but what we give And in our life alone does Nature live.