Vocation Quotes

He must become an apprentice to ordinary life.

~ Paul C. Nagel

I carry too much of the week into the Sabbath , and too little of the Sabbath into the week. John Quincy Adams

~ Paul C. Nagel

The horizons of man are incomparably narrower than that of the land on which he toils. Editor of the Nebraska journal

~ H.w. Brands

The tailor put on the girdle, and resolved to go forth into the world, because he thought his workshop was too small for his valor.

~ Jacob Grimm

Old fighters keep making comebacks. We are more alive when boxing than at almost any other time.

~ Davis Miller

He was one of the fortunate few for whom there simply was no discernible line between work and play, between creation and recreation.

~ George F. Will

What if followers of Christ stopped looking for work in places where the MOST number of Christians Christians lived and started looking for work places where the LEAST Christians lived?

~ David Platt

I believe the road to preeminent success in any line is to make yourself master IN THAT LINE. I have no faith in the policy of scattering one's resources. Andrew Carnegie

~ H.w. Brands

How much does a man's effort depend upon the age in which his work is cast? Pope Clement VII

~ Barbara W. Tuchman

He wasn't an especially charismatic or commanding individual, but what he lacked in personality he emphatically made up for in diligence.

~ Dan Jones

People need self-respect, that self respect must be earned – it cannot be self-respect if it's not earned – and the only way to earn anything is to achieve it in the face of the possibility of failing.

~ Charles Murray

The percentage of people qualifying for federal disability benefits because they are unable to work rose from 0.7 percent of the size of the labor force in 1960 to 5.3% in 2010.

~ Charles Murray

Toughened or coarsened by their worldly lives, the other dissenters could shrug and move on, but Souter couldn't. His whole life was being a judge.

~ Jeffrey Toobin

When he studied, it was not so much for a promotion as to EXCEL at his job.

~ David Halberstam

A husband's work as provider will be so difficult that it can only be fulfilled in the power of the Spirit and a transformed life.

~ John F. Macarthur Jr.

He saw the pleasure you took from your job every day of his life, and THAT was what he wanted.

~ David Halberstam

I choose me bristles with prideYes, I doA broom for the shaftAnd a broom for the flumeThough I'm covered with soot From me 'ead to me toesA sweep knows 'e's welcomeWherever 'e goes

~ Richard M. Sherman

Calling is connection: Uncovering our calling is a deliberate choice to serve others and to make a difference in the world. Our calling is made manifest in service to others...it is paradoxical but true; we are more likely to receive the meaning and fulfillment we seek when we enable others to achieve the meaning and fulfillment they seek, as well.

~ David Shapiro

The voice of Jacob will do a little good if the hands be the hands of Essau.

~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

The author says that theologian operates with windows open to the interest of the world, but also with a skylight that allows full awareness of prayer.

~ Karl Barth

The extraneous duties, in a sense, were the job.

~ Tom Clancy

You couldn't allow yourself to get bored. THAT would be a fight.

~ Tom Clancy

All professions have some element of theater to them.

~ David Halberstam

Hughes might discuss Calvinism ably, but he did not live it, he was—by Time corporate standards—just a little lazy.

~ David Halberstam

Christians ought to have a different approach to business. As believers, we should view work as both service and a form of worship.

~ Charles W. Colson

The curse of the fall didn't affect only manual work, as we often seem to think. Excessive ambiguity that prevent us from figuring out how to navigate is really a form of confusion. Overload is one of the forms that frustration takes. The inordinate challenges we face in knowledge work can be traced to the fall just as much as the challenges in manual work. Send it especially lies behind the villain of lack of fulfillment. The reason we lack fulfillment is because we aren't fulfilling our true purpose, that is because we have sinned and deviated from God's path.

~ Matt Perman

We feel unfulfilled when there is a gap between what is most important to us, the realm of personal leadership, and what we are actually doing with our time, the realm of personal management. You are satisfied with your day when there is a match between what you value and how you spend your time.

~ Matt Perman

Our task is to carry the Lord's peace into every situation, into every duty.

~ Davis Bunn

Shoddy work is not just shoddy work. It's a failure of love.

~ Matt Perman

I became an actor because it was my clumsy attempt to become myself.

~ Martin Sheen

A true Christian lives and labors on earth not for himself but for his neighbor. Therefore the whole spirit of his life him impels him to do even that which he needs not do, but which is profitable and necessary for his neighbor.

~ Martin Luther

If we are unfaithful to true self, we will extract a price from others. We will make promises we cannot keep, build houses from flimsy stuff, conjure dreams that devolve into nightmares, and other people will suffer - if we are unfaithful to true self.

~ Parker J. Palmer

Cause every task of your day to be a sacred ministry to the Lord. however mundane your duties, for you they are a sacrament.

~ Richard J. Foster

I always like to be in the presence of people who are good at and love their jobs, Irrespective of their jobs.

~ Geoff Dyer

Celebration comes when the common features of life are redeemed.

~ Richard J. Foster

It's a gift of tranquility when your adult desires mesh with your childhood background. I don't quite know why mine didn't, although I think books, again, are partly to blame.

~ Maureen Corrigan

Teddy Roosevelt had relished every hour of every day as president. Indeed, (he was) fearing the dull thud he would experience upon returning to private life.

~ Doris Kearns Goodwin

The rhythms of the game complemented the lifestyle he preferred.

~ Nicholas Dawidoff

Our problem as Americans -- at least, among my race and gender -- is that we resist the very idea of limits, regarding limits of all sorts as temporary and regrettable impositions on our lives.

~ Parker J. Palmer

The only Christian work is good work well done.

~ Dorothy L. Sayers