Leadership Quote by Félix Houphouët-Boigny

Work is framed here as a civic sacrament, a deliberate elevation of labor into a moral common ground. Houphouet-Boigny treats "sanctity" as a social adhesive: it blesses the sweat of those "who carry burdens" and the quieter exertion of those in "laboratories or offices". That pairing matters. By yoking the body to the mind, he flattens a hierarchy that postcolonial societies often inherit and amplify: manual labor as necessity, intellectual labor as prestige. The line argues, with a politician's finesse, that both are forms of service, both deserving of dignity, and both required to build a nation.

The subtext is governance. This is not an abstract meditation on vocation; it's a blueprint for legitimacy. In a newly independent state trying to knit together rural producers, urban workers, and an emerging professional class, the rhetoric of ennobling work functions like a pact: contribute, and you belong. It also subtly disciplines. If work is sacred, idleness becomes more than an economic problem; it becomes a moral lapse. "Give their task the best of their thoughts and their care" reads like encouragement, but it also sets a standard against which citizens can be judged.

Context sharpens the intent. As president of Cote d'Ivoire during a period of rapid modernization and a state-driven development ethos, Houphouet-Boigny needed a national story that dignified both the labor that fuels growth and the technocratic expertise that manages it. The phrase "heavy machines" is not poetic decoration; it's a signpost toward industrial ambition, presented as ethically uplifting rather than socially disruptive.