Meaning of “Whatever I have done I have honestly endeavored…”

Thrift, Chapter IV, “Means of Saving,” Project Gutenberg #14418. Smiles is arguing that working people should reject the idea that labour is degrading and use leisure for cultivation; the surrounding passage contains period class judgments that are not adopted as present-day social evidence.

Character Building, “What Is To Be Our Future?”, Project Gutenberg #60484. Washington asks whether Tuskegee will remain worthy of public confidence and answers by requiring each student and worker to put conscience and full effort into every kind of work.

Lecture “New England Reformers.”

Character Building, “What Is To Be Our Future?”, Project Gutenberg #60484. Washington offers the sentence as a standard students should be able to affirm about their own effort.

Character Building, “The Virtue of Simplicity,” Project Gutenberg #60484. The sentence refers specifically to students doing building work at Tuskegee.

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.