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Who first invented work, and bound the free
And holyday-rejoicing spirit down * * *
To that dry drudgery at the desk's dead wood? * * *
Sabbathless Satan!

— Charles Lamb

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Work

More quotes by Charles Lamb

The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident.

He might have proved a useful adjunct, if not an ornament to society.

How sickness enlarges the dimension of a man's self to himself!

Last Essays of Elia (1833)

Your absence of mind we have borne, till your presence of body came to be called in question by it.

Last Essays of Elia (1833)

Riches are chiefly good because they give us time.

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When we see a great man desiring power instead of his real goal we soon recognize that he is sick, or more precisely that his attitude to his work is sick.

Martin Buber What is Man? (1938)

The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.

Robert Frost A Boy's Will (1913)

In a society such as ours, it is almost impossible for a person to be responsible.

Jacques Ellul The Betrayal by Technology (1993)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Charles Lamb (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.