“A man is a worker. If he is not that he is nothing.”

“Now, on the contrary, when every one is to cultivate himself into man, condemning a man to machine-like labor amounts to the same thing as slavery. If a factory-worker must tire himself to death twelve hours and more, he is cut off from becoming man. Every labor is to have the intent that the man be satisfied. […] His labor is nothing taken by itself, has no object in itself, is nothing complete in itself; he labors only into another's hands, and is used (exploited) by this other.”

Max Stirner book The Ego and Its Own

“He measured all his fellow workers by the test of professionalism, and a professional is a man who can do his best work when he doesn't feel like it.”

Alistair Cooke (1908–2004) British journalist and broadcaster

“Man is nothing else but what he purposes, he exists only in so far as he realizes himself, he is therefore nothing else but the sum of his actions, nothing else but what his life is.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

“Man is a tool-using animal…Without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

“Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

“He who creates value works, and is a worker. A movement that wants to free labor is a workers’ party.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

“When a man says he does not want to speak of something he usually means he can think of nothing else.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

“He was a lovely man in many ways. But he kept on insisting on forgiving me when there was nothing to forgive.”

Angela Carter book Wise Children

“Man lives measuring, and he’s the measure of nothing. Not even of himself.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet