FakeNot in the source
High
Checked by the editor · 8 Oct 2026
Attributed to Confucius
Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.
No. The earliest known printing is 1982, and Confucius was not attached to the line until 1985.
Source line
Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.
Princeton Alumni Weekly (1982), Arthur Szathmary, quoting an old-timer; first linked to Confucius in Computerworld, June 1985
Explanation
No. Confucius did not say to choose a job you love so that you will never have to work a day in your life. The earliest known appearance is in 1982, in the Princeton Alumni Weekly, where the philosophy professor Arthur Szathmary quotes "an old-timer". The sentence was not linked to Confucius until June 1985, when it was printed as an epigraph in Computerworld. Quote Investigator traced that path, from an alumni magazine to a name the line had not carried at first.
The Analects have a great deal to say about study, conduct and office. They do not contain this piece of career advice. A gap from the classical book to a magazine of 1982 is not a small slip of translation. The line is modern prose. It picked up Confucius a few years after it was already in print, between 1982 and June 1985. Cite Szathmary's old-timer, or cite no one. Do not cite Confucius. If you want a real remark of his on knowledge, use Analects 2.17, which says something else.
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Not Confucius. Arthur Szathmary, quoting "an old-timer", in the Princeton Alumni Weekly (1982).
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