quote · Legacy record
Brother—there is no payment in the world! We work and pour our labor at the feet Of those who are around us and to come. We live and take our living at the hands Of those who are around us and have been. No one is paid. No person can have more Than he can hold. And none can do beyond The power that's in him. To each child that's born Belongs as much of all our human good As he can take and use to make him strong. And from each man, debtor to all the world, Is due the fullest fruit of all his powers, His whole life's labor, proudly rendered up, Not as return—can moments pay an age? But as the simple duty of a man. Can he do less—receiving everything?
Brother—there is no payment in the world! We work and pour our labor at the feet Of those who are around us and to come. We live and take our living at the hands Of those who are around us and have been. No one is paid. No person can have more Than he can hold. And none can do beyond The power that's in him. To each child that's born Belongs as much of all our human good As he can take and use to make him strong. And from each man, debtor to all the world, Is due the fullest fruit of all his powers, His whole life's labor, proudly rendered up, Not as return—can moments pay an age? But as the simple duty of a man. Can he do less—receiving everything?
Approximate author period: c. 1897 AD · industrial
Meaning not yet available
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Begin with source-checked readings and explanations ↗Attribution & collection notes
- Author or tradition
- Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin. - Historical period
- Approximate author period: c. 1897 AD · industrial
Approximate author-period evidence for Charlotte Perkins Gilman: life dates 1860 to 1935. Wikidata Q287752, inspected 2026-10-08. Not a quotation composition date or independent verification of attribution. Source: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q287752 (accessed 2026-10-08).
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken. - Recorded source
- The Optimist’s Good Morning (1911) (1911 AD)
Complete signed selection 164; printed byline: Charlotte Perkins Gilman; Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1911; printed copyright 1907
A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.