Remember, my son, you have to work. Whether you handle a pick or a pen, a wheel-barrow or a set of books, digging ditches or editing a paper, ringing an auction bell or writing funny things, you must work. If you look around you will see the men who are the most able to live the rest of their days without work are the men who work the hardest. Don't be afraid of killing yourself with overwork. It is beyond your power to do that on the sunny side of thirty. They die sometimes, but it is because they quit work at six in the evening, and do not go home until two in the morning. It’s the interval that kills, my son. The work gives you an appetite for your meals; it lends solidity to your slumbers, it gives you a perfect and grateful appreciation of a holiday.

There are young men who do not work, but the world is not proud of them. It does not know their names, even it simply speaks of them as “old So-and-So’s boy”. Nobody likes them; the great, busy world doesn’t know that they are there. So find out what you want to be and do, and take off your coat and make a dust in the world. The busier you are, the less harm you will be apt to get into, the sweeter will be your sleep, the brighter and happier your holidays, and the better satisfied will the world be with you.

By Robert Jones Burdette

謹記，我的年輕人，你們必須工作.不管你是使鋤頭還是用筆，也不管是推手推車還是編記賬簿，也不管你是種地還是編輯報紙，是拍賣師亦或是作家，都必須有一份工作，并為之努力奮斗.如果仔細觀察周圍的人，你就會發現，那些工作最努力的人最有可能安享晚年而無須去工作.不要害怕超負荷的工作會縮短你的壽命，不足三十歲的年齡，你的承受能力遠不止如此.如果說真的有人過早送命，那完全是因為他們在晚上六點結束工作，卻要在外流連到凌晨兩點才歸家.我的年輕人，正是晚上六點到凌晨兩點的這段時間的生活毀了他們自己.工作會增加你的食欲，工作會使你安然入睡，工作將會使你心滿意足地享受假日.

有的年輕人不工作，但世界并不會因他們自豪。它不知道他們的姓名，甚至簡單地將他們概括為“老令人討厭者的男孩 ” 。沒有人喜歡他們;偉大，繁忙的世界不知道他們在那里。因此，找出哪些你想成為和做的，脫下你的外衣，把粉塵拋在世界上。越是繁忙的你越是少受傷害，甜蜜將成為您的睡眠，光明和幸福著您的假期，更好地滿足你的意志世界。