There has been much talk about the alleged benefits of having millions more able-bodied people drop out of the labor force, following Congressional Budget Office analysis of Obamacare’s perverse incentives not to work.
Of course, if people bear the cost of their idleness, it really isn’t anybody else’s business what they do peacefully. But the issue becomes more complicated when some people are taxed to pay for other people’s idleness, particularly if the idle are able-bodied.
Apparently we need a little reminder that we’re able to enjoy liberty, prosperity and, yes, amazing advances in medicine – thanks to hard work, not idleness. Somebody has to develop the technologies, produce the goods, get them distributed and pay for everything.
Here are 70 insightful, often inspiring quotations about the glory of honest work and the folly of government policies that promote idleness.
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“Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.”
— Aristotle
“The poorest person on earth is not the person who has no job, no cars, no money and no house. The poorest person is the one who has no vision. Visionlessness is poverty in disguise.”
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