In this passage from Middlemarch, Caleb Garth is talking to young Fred Vincy about choosing a vocation. Reading it today, I was struck by how much it speaks to parenthood and keeping house as well.

“You must be sure of two things: you must love your work, and not be always looking over the edge of it, wanting your play to begin. And the other is, you must not be ashamed of your work, and think it would be more honorable to you to be doing something else. You must have a pride in your own work and in learning to do it well, and not be always saying, There’s this and there’s that—if I had this or that to do, I might make something of it. No matter what a man is—I wouldn’t give twopence for him”—here Caleb’s mouth looked bitter, and he snapped his fingers—”whether he was the prime minister or the rick-thatcher, if he didn’t do well what he undertook to do.”

—Middlemarch, chapter 56, by George Eliot