Two of my favorite quotations. I remember finding these somewhere in my meanderings on the internet when I worked an agonizingly pointless job and spent most of my work days reading online. This was before Facebook so my use of the internet was actually pretty productive; I would read lots of articles, essays, opinions, poetry. I was trying to learn as much as possible to counteract the mind-numbing effects of my job.

The essence of all slavery consists in taking the product of another's labor by force. It it immaterial whether this force be founded on ownership of the slave or ownership of the money that he must get to live. - Tolstoy

All paid employments absorb and degrade the mind. - Aristotle