Torquato Tasso Quotes
Virtue's guard is labor; ease, her sleep.
Tasso, Torquato. Jerusalem Delivered. Translated by Edward Fairfax, Colonial Press, 1901, p. 347.
One of the major factors in the Chinese economic development is the traditional hard work ethic of the Chinese people. Many other people work hard because they have to in order to survive, but many other cultures support a norm of hard work as a virtue per se. The Han Chinese work ethic is like the Protestant work ethic in that successful, even wealthy, people work very hard. Many successful Americans work far longer than 40 hours a week and the Han Chinese are very similar.
Torquato Tasso was an Italian poet of the 16th century, known for his 1591 poem Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Delivered), in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the Siege of Jerusalem of 1099.