Meaning of “what is an artist but a workman who…”

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Part II, thirteen-virtue table: Resolution. Project Gutenberg #148 (Charles W. Eliot / Harvard Classics, 1909) preserves the represented wording; the reviewed direct locator is Wikisource Section Thirty Six.

The Master-Word in Medicine, address delivered October 1, 1903 at the opening of the new buildings of the University of Toronto Medical Faculty; reviewed against the represented 1903 John Murphy pamphlet, Internet Archive identifier b28060805. ‘The master-word is Work’ is Osler’s organizing refrain and is followed by his appeal to write the word on the heart and forehead. This remains historical professional rhetoric rather than an endorsement of unsafe working hours or workaholism.

Poor Richard’s Almanack; the maxim appears in Franklin’s collected Poor Richard material.

The Master-Word in Medicine, 1903. Osler immediately acknowledges that acquiring the work-habit can be a hard battle; the context therefore supports persistence without turning the passage into a modern workaholism prescription.

Men of Invention and Industry, Chapter IX, “Charles Bianconi: A Lesson of Self-Help in Ireland”; Project Gutenberg #725. This excerpt is Smiles’s narrative conclusion immediately after an anecdote about saving time.

The Art of Money Getting; Barnum places health before the business maxims that follow.