Authors:
  • At the age of five years to enter a spinning-cotton or other factory, and from that time forth to sit there daily, first ten, then twelve, and ultimately fourteen hours, performing the same mechanical labour, is to purchase dearly the satisfaction of drawing breath. But this is the fate of millions, and that of millions more is analogous to it.

    "The World as Will and Representation, Volume II (On the Vanity and Suffering of Life)". Book by Arthur Schopenhauer (1819), as translated by R. B. Haldane and J. Kemp in "The World as Will and Idea" (p. 389), 1886.