“All professions are conspiracies against the laity.”
“The best augury of a man's success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world.”
“The bond between a man and his profession is similar to that which ties him to his country; it is just as complex, often ambivalent, and in general it is understood completely only when it is broken: by exile or emigration in the case of one's country, by retirement in the case of a trade or profession.”
“I hold every man a debtor to his profession.”
“The trouble with specialists is that they tend to think in grooves.”
“Professionalism is knowing how to do it, when to do it, and doing it.”
“Professional men, they have no cares; whatever happens, they get theirs.”
“And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero.”
“To depend upon a profession is a less odious form of slavery than to depend upon a father.”
“We forget that the most successful statesmen have been professionals. Lincoln was a professional politician.”
“Medicine is my lawful wife and literature my mistress; when I get tired of one, I spend the night with the other.”
“Through all the employments of life each neighbor abuses his brother; whore and rogue they call husband and wife: All professions be-rogue one another.”
“In all professions each affects a look and an exterior to appear what he wishes the world to believe that he is. Thus we may say that the whole world is made up of appearances.”
“The difference between a professional person and a technician is that a technician knows everything about his job except its ultimate purpose and his place in the scheme of things.”
“There is something tragic about the enormous number of young men there are in England at the present moment who start life with perfect profiles, and end by adopting some useful profession.”
“All things will be produced in superior quantity and quality, and with greater ease, when each man works at a single occupation, in accordance with his natural gifts, and at the right moment, without meddling with anything else.”