Labor Quotes

Division of labor is a justification for sloth.

Machines were, it may be said, the weapon employed by the capitalists to quell the revolt of specialized labor.

Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.

The entire so-called history of the world is nothing but the creation of man through human labor.

Constant labor of one uniform kind destroys the intensity and flow of a man's animal spirits, which find recreation and delight in mere change of activity.

The product of mental labor - science - always stands far below its value, because the labor-time necessary to reproduce it has no relation at all to the labor-time required for its original production.

The directing motive, the end and aim of capitalist production, is to extract the greatest possible amount of surplus value, and consequently to exploit labor-power to the greatest possible extent.

Labor, being itself a commodity, is measured as such by the labor time needed to produce the labor-commodity. And what is needed to produce this labor-commodity? Just enough labor time to produce the objects indispensable to the constant maintenance of labor, that is, to keep the worker alive and in a condition to propagate his race. The natural price of labor is no other than the wage minimum.

The values of commodities are directly as the times of labor employed in their production, and are inversely as the productive powers of the labor employed.

Property is the fruit of labor... Labor is superior to capital and deserves much the higher consideration.

Let there be no compromise on the question of extending slavery. If there be, all our labor is lost, and, ere long, must be done again.

I am glad to know that there is a system of labor where the laborer can strike if he wants to! I would to God that such a system prevailed all over the world.

No other human occupation opens so wide a field for the profitable and agreeable combination of labor with cultivated thought, as agriculture.

Free labor has the inspiration of hope; pure slavery has no hope.

Let minor differences, and personal preferences, if there be such; go to the winds. Let it be seen by the result, that the cause of free-men and free-labor is stronger in Chicago that day, than ever before.

It has so happened in all ages of the world, that some have labored, and others have, without labor, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits.

Let him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently to build one for himself

Half‑finished work generally proves to be labor lost.