The sure way of knowing nothing about life is to try to make oneself useful.

All professions are conspiracies against the laity.

When men are rightly occupied, their amusement grows out of their work, as the colour-petals out of a fruitful flower.

Every science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated and governed. Man cannot make principles; he can only discover them.

Every calling is great when greatly pursued.

The player envies only the player, the poet envies only the poet.

Every man has his own vocation. The talent is the call.

The professionals resemble and recognize each other by virtue of the stigmata that their trade has left upon them. They are like the dog in the fable, whose collar has made an indelible mark around his neck. The amateur is the shaggy wolf whom no dog had better trust too far.

Vocations which we wanted to pursue, but didn't, bleed, like colors, on the whole of our existence.

The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.

The artisan or scientist or the follower of whatever discipline who has the habit of comparing himself not with other followers but with the discipline itself will have a lower opinion of himself, the more excellent he is.

Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.