The Love of Work

Often have you heard yourselves say, in your heedlessness, that he who works in marble, finding in his own soul a shape for the stone, is greater than he who plows the earth; and that he who seizes the rainbow to color garments with it, and gives it the likeness of man, is greater than he who makes shoes.

But I say to you, in my wakefulness at noonday and not in my slumber, that the wind speaks no more sweetly to the mighty oak than it does to the humblest of grasses.

And he alone is able who, by his love, turns the voices of the winds into sweeter melodies. Work is love embodied.

And if you cannot work with love — better that you leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple, begging alms of those who work with joy.

For if you bake bread without caring for it, your bread will come out bitter, feeding but half of man's hunger; and if you grumble as you press your vineyard, your grumbling will drip poison into the wine.

And if you sing with the melodies of angels and do not love the singing, you will deafen the ears of men to the voices of night and day.