“I do not imagine I have talent save the talent for work. I have always found expression with the pen an easy mode of communicating my impressions and ideas.”

A modest account of talent that places particular value on work and expression · A Woman of the World, quoted letter

• Expression
• Work
• Writing

“I have always felt that if I could only get away from Cincinnati, I could do something.”

Reflecting her ambition and frustration with the limitations of her circumstances · Biographical reminiscence of Phoebe Cary

• Ambition
• Opportunity
• Work

“I have worked for these five years as perhaps no man has worked before. The fruits of this work are not in books, but in living hearts and spirits.”

Original: Przez te lat pięć pracowałem tak, jak może jeszcze żaden człowiek nie pracował. Skutki tej pracy nie w księgach są, ale w żywych sercach i duchach, w które je wrzuciłem i posiałem. — He measures creative achievement by its effect on people rather than by books or reputation. · Letter to Wojciech Stattler, 25 December 1848 (Polish)

• Achievement
• Influence
• Work

“The time has gone by when one man could sit down in his study and undertake to write a continuous history of England or France; and it will not come again in our days.”

On history becoming too vast for solitary mastery · Inaugural lecture, A Plea for the Historical Teaching of History, 1904

• Change
• Work

“If there is any kitchen in Parnassus, my Muse has surely officiated there as a woman of all work, and an aproned waiter.”

A wry, self-deprecating summary of a long working life spent turning domestic duty into verse · Autobiography, Letters of Life

• Craft
• Humility
• Work

“The best remedy for despair is work, for work gives the mind another direction in which to travel.”

Suggesting purposeful activity as a way of resisting despair. · Letter

• Despair
• Direction
• Work

“The record of their toil receives its final stamp of worth.”

Describing the importance of expert judgement in recognising difficult achievement. · Speech, The Verdict of Equals, 1912

• Achievement
• Recognition
• Work

“In other callings of life there exists a convention that what a man has made shall be his own and his children’s after him.”

Contrasting literary property with ordinary assumptions about ownership. · Speech, The Handicaps of Letters, 1908

• Property
• Work
• Writing

“The calling of letters carries with it disabilities from which these professions are free.”

Drawing attention to the particular difficulties faced by writers. · Speech, The Handicaps of Letters, 1908

• Difficulty
• Work
• Writing

“Being artists, these men must needs do the work that is laid upon them to do, and while they are doing it they are apt to overlook a number of important worldly considerations.”

Describing the tension between artistic vocation and practical worldly concerns. · Speech, The Claims of Art, 1907

• Art
• Creativity
• Work

“All I have to do for the next few minutes is to wish you prosperity. All you have to do for the next few years is to go out and get it.”

A brisk encouragement to turn good fortune into purposeful action. · Speech, Work in the Future, 1924

• Action
• Success
• Work

“A man is often influenced throughout the whole of his career by the events of his first commission.”

Reflecting on the lasting influence of early professional experience. · Speech, The Spirit of the Navy, 1908

• Experience
• Influence
• Work

“At any moment a man of letters may choose to pay, not only with his skin, but in cash and credit for leave to do his work.”

Capturing the personal and financial sacrifices sometimes demanded by writing. · Speech, The Handicaps of Letters, 1908

• Sacrifice
• Work
• Writing

“When his demon urges a man of letters to work, he may do so without any regard to wages or the sentiments of his fellow-workers.”

Describing the irresistible inner compulsion that can drive writers to create. · Speech, The Handicaps of Letters, 1908

• Creativity
• Work
• Writing

“If more wealth be necessary to you, for purposes not your own, use your left hand to acquire it, but keep your right for your proper work in life.”

Balancing practical earning with fidelity to one's real purpose. · Speech, Values in Life, 1907

• Money
• Purpose
• Work

“The Callings are unlike the Professions. No one embraces the career of Art, any more than one enters Science or the Services, with the direct idea of making money.”

Distinguishing vocation from occupations pursued primarily for financial reward. · Speech, The Claims of Art, 1907

• Art
• Money
• Work

“There is no anaesthesia so complete as man's absorption in his own job.”

Suggesting that complete engagement in work can temporarily shut out suffering and distraction. · Speech, Surgeons and the Soul, 1923

• Concentration
• Pain
• Work

“It has fed the tribes of mankind.”

Reducing civilisation's dependence on practical labour to a memorable image · Letter to William C. Winslow

• Civilization
• Necessity
• Work

“And this is my vacation after seven months’ lectures.”

A wry comment on how little respite his supposedly free periods actually provided · Letter concerning his professional duties

• Humour
• Rest
• Work

“I was not made for so much work as I have been having.”

A frank admission of the limits imposed by excessive work · Letter concerning his professional duties

• Health
• Rest
• Work

“Dobbin must be harnessed up just as much to carry one to visit his neighbors as to go on a long journey.”

Using the horse as a metaphor for the effort required even by apparently small obligations · Letter to M. A. De Wolfe Howe Jr, September 22, 1887

• Effort
• Humour
• Work

“For the first time since some early date, whether A. D. or A. Mundi I hardly know, I have got my harness off and am standing for a month or two in the stall.”

A comic metaphor for temporarily escaping literary labour · Letter to M. A. De Wolfe Howe Jr, September 22, 1887

• Humour
• Rest
• Work

“To me it seems very cold and cheerless about the threshold.”

Using the image of a cold threshold to describe an unwelcoming profession · Letter to Phineas Barnes

• Atmosphere
• Disillusionment
• Work

“I am devoted to my profession, and I wish to return second to no young man in it.”

Showing the seriousness of his early professional ambition · Letter from Europe, October 1834

• Ambition
• Professionalism
• Work