Labor Day will be here before you know it and it’s time to celebrate with a few great Labor Day quotes. After all, this is a holiday that people of all races and cultures can celebrate (as long as they’ve put in their fair share of hard work). Who wouldn’t want to rejoice in a holiday that can unite the masses? Get out the BBQ and gather your friends — let’s mark the end of summer and celebrate the toils of the American workforce with these 12 great Labor Day quotes.

1. “Labor was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labor, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.” ~ Adam Smith

2. “Heaven is blessed with perfect rest but the blessing of earth is toil.’ ~ Henry van Dyke

3. “Without labor nothing prospers.” ~ Sophocles

4. “A mind always employed is always happy. This is the true secret, the grand recipe, for felicity.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

5. “Labor Day is a glorious holiday because your child will be going back to school the next day. It would have been called Independence Day, but that name was already taken.” ~ Bill Dodds

6. “A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor.” ~ Victor Hugo

7. “He who labors diligently need never despair; for all things are accomplished by diligence and labor.” ~ Menander

8. “All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

9. “No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level–I mean the wages of decent living.” ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

10. “Labor disgraces no man; unfortunately, you occasionally find men who disgrace labor.” ~ Ulysses S. Grant

11. “Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

12. “Labor Day differs in every essential from other holidays of the year in any country. All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflict and battles of man’s prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Day is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race or nation.” ~ Samual Gempers

In a day and age where fewer and fewer people seem to understand the value of hard work and diligent labor, it’s more important than ever to rejoice in those who do. Let’s celebrate the hard-working labor force of America as Labor Day weekend draws near. The above twelve Labor Day quotes are a great place to start.