5 September—Here are some profound observations about work. Sure, they’re a day late. But what the hell:

“Work is a four-letter word.”

“Work is living death.”

“People who work sitting down get paid more than people who work standing up.”—Ogden Nash

“No man goes before his time—unless the boss leaves early.”—Groucho Marx

“You call yourself an entrepreneur when you won’t have a job.”

“It is better to have one person working with you than three people working for you.”—Dwight D. Eisenhower

“I am a friend of the workingman, and I would rather be his friend than be one.”—Clarence Darrow

“A person never comes closer to perfection than when he fills out a job application.”

“Doing nothing is harder than you may think, because you never know when you’re finished.”

“Behind every successful man is a woman. Behind her is his wife.”—Groucho Marx

“Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done.”—Peter Drucker

“They say that hard work never killed anybody. But why take a chance?”

“Getting paid to sleep is a dream job.”

“The reward for good work is more work.”

“The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one.”—Oscar Wilde

“If you think your boss is stupid, remember, you wouldn’t have a job if he was any smarter.”—John Gotti

“A good way to give 100 percent at work is 10 percent Monday, 23 percent Tuesday, 40 percent Wednesday, 22 Percent Thursday, and 5 percent Friday.”

“In spite of what you may have heard, people are still willing to do an honest day’s work. Problem is, they want a week’s pay for it.”

“Executive ability is getting somebody else to do the work and taking the credit.”

“By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.”—Robert Frost

“Pride, commitment, and teamwork are words used to get you to work for free.”

“An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.”—Niels Bohr

“When someone tells you he got rich from hard work, ask him whose.”

“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.”—Mark Twain

“A taxpayer is someone who works for the government but doesn’t have to take a civil service exam.”

“Early to bed and early to rise probably indicates unskilled labor.”—John Ciardi

“Coworkers are like Christmas lights: they hang together, half of them don’t work, and the other half aren’t so bright.”

“One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.”—Bertrand Russell

“A diamond is merely a lump of coal that did well under pressure.”—Henry Kissinger

“If you arrive late at the office, you can make up for it by leaving early.”

“If at first you don’t succeed, then skydiving definitely isn’t for you.”—Steven Wright

“After Monday and Tuesday, even the calendar says WTF.”

“The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it.”—Groucho Marx