“Paris is the most retired place in the world to live in if a man is busy.”

An amusing observation on how intense occupation can make even a great city feel private · Letter from Europe, August 1833

• Place
• Solitude
• Work

“I think I may make a tolerable physician.”

A modest assessment of his emerging professional ambition · Letter to Phineas Barnes, 1830

• Ambition
• Humility
• Work

“I am determined to do as much as possible in a certain given time.”

A youthful declaration of practical determination despite his confessed procrastination · Letter to Phineas Barnes, January 31, 1828

• Action
• Discipline
• Work

“I know very well that I am a lazy fellow and a procrastinator.”

An early example of Holmes's willingness to laugh at his own shortcomings · Letter to Phineas Barnes, January 31, 1828

• Character
• Humour
• Work

“I believe in the spade. It has furnished the cheap defence, if not of nations, yet of beleaguered armies. It has fed the tribes of mankind.”

A playful but serious celebration of archaeology, agriculture and the practical usefulness of the spade · Letter to William C. Winslow

• Discovery
• Utility
• Work

“Do your best, and you will find your market value in due time.”

A concise piece of practical encouragement for an aspiring writer · Letter concerning literary prospects, 1882

• Patience
• Work
• Writing

“I cannot say that I think the trade of authorship quite adapted to this meridian.”

A youthful, ironic assessment of the prospects of making a living as a writer · Letter to Phineas Barnes

• Ambition
• Work
• Writing

“I am an inveterate lazybones.”

A self-deprecating glimpse of Holmes's characteristic humour about his own habits · Letter to Phineas Barnes, May 8, 1830

• Character
• Humour
• Work

“It is not good for a person to be alone, and particularly not to work alone; participation and stimulation are needed if anything is to succeed.”

Original: Es ist nicht gut, daß der Mensch alleine sei, und besonders nicht, daß er alleine arbeite; vielmehr bedarf er der Teilnahme und Anregung, wenn etwas gelingen soll. — Goethe sees collaboration and human encouragement as essential to successful work. · Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years (German)

• Community
• Companionship
• Work

“When one is old, one must do more than when one was young.”

Original: Wenn man alt ist, muß man mehr tun, als da man jung war. — Age is presented not as a reason for withdrawal but as a reason for greater purposeful effort. · Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years (German)

• Action
• Age
• Work

“The episode of Circe has changed me into an animal.”

Joyce turns exhaustion into comic self-transformation. · Letter concerning Ulysses, 1920

• Humour
• Work
• Writing

“I am working like a galleyslave, an ass, a brute. I cannot even sleep.”

A vivid description of the punishing effort Joyce devoted to his writing. · Letter to Valery Larbaud, 1920

• Endurance
• Work
• Writing

“No pen, no ink, no table, no room, no time, no quiet, no inclination.”

A compressed catalogue of the practical obstacles that could stand between Joyce and his writing. · Letter, Selected Letters of James Joyce

• Difficulty
• Work
• Writing

“To be wholly devoted to some intellectual exercise is to have succeeded in life.”

Defining fulfilment through sustained intellectual engagement · Essay, A College Magazine

• Learning
• Purpose
• Work

“I am a railman first, but my heart is ever bound to the simple songs of our Scottish soil and workers.”

Reflecting on his life as a surfaceman and his enduring commitment to folk poetry · Prefatory remark / correspondence

• Identity
• Poetry
• Work

“It is a routine of mine to work right through the night, as I find the quiet hours between midnight and six in the morning most conducive to creation.”

Describing his preferred working hours for creative concentration · Interview / memoir entry

• Creativity
• Habit
• Work

“There is no habit so difficult to break as that of being idle.”

Warning of the subtle trap and self-perpetuating nature of inactivity · Essay, Of Idleness

• Discipline
• Habit
• Work

“The utility of business is not to be compared with the pleasure and innocence of study.”

Reckoning the quiet joys of learning to be superior to commercial ambition · Essay, Of Agriculture

• Learning
• Pleasure
• Work

“If once we lose the opportunity of getting wealth by our own industry, we can never recover it.”

Reflecting on the fleeting nature of opportunity and the value of personal labor · Essay, Of Industry

• Opportunity
• Time
• Work

“Work is the finest medicine for a troubled mind.”

Original: Arbeid er den beste medisin mot et uroet sinn. — Praises focused labor as a means to find mental peace · Letter to a friend (Norwegian)

• Healing
• Mind
• Work

“You may wonder why I work so hard at a thing thus far so unprofitable.”

Self-aware admission about unrewarded labour · Letter concerning his play and consular duties

• Perseverance
• Work

“Three thousand dollars a year could not be gained by me by the extra time I could give to my literary work in losing my official position.”

Weighing literary ambition against steady income · Letter concerning his consular post

• Money
• Work

“It's time, too, that you began to work with a long aim.”

A call to sustained ambition in writing · Letter to Charles Warren Stoddard, April 24, 1870

• Ambition
• Work

“I work so slowly, and there is the perpetual weekly necessity to write something fresh.”

A candid confession of the pressures and pace of literary work · Letter to Miss Henderson, c.1910

• Discipline
• Work
• Writing