"As I have read in the newspapers, work is the greatest of all the virtues, not a punishment; laziness is the mother of vice, and work is a virtue.

Is it not so, Don Gabriel ?" The shoemaker looked at the master, watching for his words as a thirsty man looks for water.
"Work," said Gabriel, "is neither a punishment nor a virtue; it is a hard law to which we have to submit for self-preservation and for the welfare of the species.

Without work life could not exist." And with the same fervid enunciation with which he had in former times swayed the multitude at those meetings of protest against society, he explained to this half-dozen men and the quiet sewer, who stopped her machine to listen, the greatness of universal work, which every day laboured on the earth, to subdue it and force it to yield sustenance for man.
It was a struggle the whole twenty-four hours against the blind forces of Nature.

The army of work extended over the whole globe, exploring the continents, leaping to the islands, sailing the seas, and descending to the bowels of the earth.

How many were its soldiers?
No one could count them--millions and millions.