All is for all! If the man and the woman bear their fair share of work, they have a right to their fair share of all that is produced by all, and that share is enough to secure them well-being.

No more of such vague formulas as “The right to work,” or “To each the whole result of his labour.” What we proclaim is The Right to Well-Being: Well-Being for All!

— Peter Kropotkin,
The Conquest of Bread (chapter 1)

The “right to well-being” means the possibility of living like human beings, and of bringing up children to be members of a society better than ours, whilst the “right to work” only means the right to be always a wage-slave, a drudge, ruled over and exploited by the [bourgeoisie] of the future. The right to well-being is the Social Revolution, the right to work means nothing but the Treadmill of Commercialism. It is high time for the worker to assert his right to the common inheritance, and to enter into possession of it.

— Peter Kropotkin,
The Conquest of Bread (chapter 2)

“A day unemployed is like a bagel — even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.

I stayed home from work one day and never went back.”

— CrimethInc., Evasion (three)

“When Alexander addressed him with greetings, and asked if he wanted anything, Diogenes replied: ‘Yes, stand a little out of my sunshine.’”

— Plutarch, Alexander (§14. 4)

“It is said that Alexander was so struck by this, and admired so much the haughtiness and grandeur of the man who had nothing but scorn for him, that he said to his followers, who were laughing and jesting about the philosopher as they went away, ‘But verily, if I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.’”

— Plutarch, Alexander (§14. 5)

Diogenes supposedly replied thus: “If I were not Diogenes, I would also wish to be Diogenes.”

“Aristotle dines when it seems good to King Philip, but Diogenes when he himself pleases.”

— Plutarch, On Exile (§12)

“Diogenes [of Sinope] was seized and dragged off to King Philip, and being asked who he was, replied, ‘A spy upon your insatiable greed.’”

— Diogenes Laërtius,
Lives of Eminent Philosophers (VI. 43)

“Once Diogenes saw the officials of a temple leading away some one who had stolen a bowl belonging to the treasurers, and said, ‘The great thieves are leading away the little thief.’”

— Diogenes Laërtius,
Lives of Eminent Philosophers (VI. 45)

“The love of money he [Diogenes] declared to be the mother-city of all evils.​”

— Diogenes Laërtius,
Lives of Eminent Philosophers (VI. 50)

“Asked where he came from, Diogenes said, ‘I am a citizen of the world.’”

— Diogenes Laërtius,
Lives of Eminent Philosophers (VI. 63)

“Diogenes received an invitation to dine with one whose house was splendidly furnished, in the highest order and taste, and nothing therein wanting. Diogenes, hawking, and as if about to spit, looked in all directions, and finding nothing adapted thereto, spat right in the face of the master. He, indignant, asked why he did so? ‘Because,’ Diogenes, ‘I saw nothing so dirty and filthy in all your house. For the walls were covered with pictures, the floors of the most precious tessellated character — and ranged with the various images of gods, and other ornamental figures.’”

— Galen,
Exhortation to Study the Arts (8)

The philosopher Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper.

He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king.

Said Aristippus: “If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.”

Said Diogenes: “Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.”

— Anthony de Mello,
The Song of the Bird

“Virtue cannot dwell with wealth either in a city or in a house.”

— Diogenes, as quoted by Stobaeus in Anthology (IV. §31c. 88)

Haunted by the work ethic, our commitments remain difficult to defend; attempts to explain them often exhibit more the qualities of post hoc rationalizations than sufficient accounts of our motives. Yet the puzzle of our motivation would seem to be of little practical concern; when we have no memory or little imagination of an alternative to a life centered on work, there are few incentives to reflect on why we work as we do and what we might wish to do instead. Rather, our focus is generally confined to how “we shall set to work and meet the ‘demands of the day’”.

— Kathi Weeks,
The Problem with Work (chapter 1)

“The idea of duty in one’s calling prowls about in our lives like the ghost of dead religious beliefs.”

— Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (chapter 5)

‘Tis true, ‘tis day, what though it be?
O wilt thou therefore rise from me?

Why should we rise because ‘tis light?
Did we lie down because ‘twas night?

Love, which in spite of darkness brought us hither,
Should in despite of light keep us together.


Light hath no tongue, but is all eye;
If it could speak as well as spy,

This were the worst that it could say,
That being well I fain would stay,

And that I loved my heart and honour so,
That I would not from him, that had them, go.


Must business thee from hence remove?
Oh, that’s the worst disease of love,

The poor, the foul, the false, love can
Admit, but not the busied man.

He which hath business, and makes love, doth do
Such wrong, as when a married man doth woo.

— John Donne, Break of Day

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?—

No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

— William H. Davies, Leisure