Of all the types of labor, agricultural work is the most joyful.
And it will be found ultimately by all nations, as it was found long ago by those who have been leaders in human force and intellect, that the initial virtue of the race consists in the acknowledgment of their own lowly nature and submission to the laws of higher being. “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” is the first truth we have to learn of ourselves; and to till the earth out of which we were taken, our first duty: in that labour, and in the relations which it establishes between us and the lower animals, are founded the conditions of our highest faculties and felicities: and without that labour, neither reason, art, nor peace, are possible to man.
— John Ruskin
The one who buys bread at a market is like an orphaned infant: many wet nurses feed it, but the infant still remains hungry; the one who consumes his own bread is like an infant nourished by its mother’s breast.
— The Talmud
All the workers and artisans will ultimately return to agriculture, as is said in the scripture.
“All who handle the oars, the mariners and all the pilots of the sea, will come down from their ships; they will stand on the land…” (Ezekiel 27:29).
Truly, the best food is that which you yourself or your children have earned.
— Muhammad
“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.” This is an immutable law of physics. The law for woman is to bear children, for man to work. Woman cannot free herself from her law. If she adopts a child that is not her own, the child will still be another’s, and she will be deprived of the joy of motherhood. Likewise with man’s labor. If a man eats bread that he did not earn himself, he is deprived of the joy of labor.
— Bondarev
The one who lives by the labor of his hands deserves more respect than the one who boasts only of his fear of God.
It is shameful when a person is advised to imitate the industriousness of an ant; it is twice as shameful if he does not follow this advice.
— The Talmud
Agriculture is not one of a number of natural human activities. Agriculture is the only activity that is natural to all of humankind and which provides the most independence and good.
