Work Quotes

We can say without exaggeration that the present national ambition of the United States is unemployment. People live for quitting time, for weekends, for vacations, and for retirement; moreover, this ambition seems to be classless, as true in the executive suites as on the assembly lines. One works not because the work is necessary, valuable, useful to a desirable end, or because one loves to do it, but only to be able to quit - a condition that a saner time would regard as infernal, a condemnation.

~ Wendell Berry

Loveless work, boring work, work valued only because others haven't got even that much, however loveless and boring--this is one of the harshest human miseries.

~ Wisława Szymborska

You cannot imagine the craving for rest that I feel—a hunger and thirst. For six long days, since my work was done, my mind has been a whirlpool, swift, unprogressive and incessant, a torrent of thoughts leading nowhere, spinning round swift and steady

~ H.g. Wells

From a pound of iron, that costs little, a thousand watch-springs can be made, whose value becomes prodigious. The pound you have received from the Lord,--use it faithfully.

~ Robert Schumann

Is a PLONGEUR'S work really necessary to civilization? We have a feeling that it must be 'honest' work, because it is hard and disagreeable, and we have made a sort of fetish of manual work. We see a man cutting down a tree, and we make sure that he is filling a social need, just because he uses his muscles; it does not occur to us that he may only be cutting down a beautiful tree to make room for a hideous statue. I believe it is the same with a PLONGEUR. He earns his bread in the sweat of his brow, but it does not follow that he is doing anything useful; he may be only supplying a luxury which, very often, is no luxury at all.

~ George Orwell

Oh, God! That bread should be so dear, And flesh and blood so cheap!

~ Jacob A. Riis

By means of industry and perseverance you will rise higher and higher.

~ Robert Schumann

Partially undermining the manufacturer's ability to assert that its work constituted a meaningful contribution to mankind was the frivolous way in which it went about marketing its products. Grief was the only rational response to the news that an employee had spent three months devising a supermarket promotion based on an offer of free stickers of cartoon characters called the Fimbles. Why had the grown-ups so churlishly abdicated their responsibilities? Were there not more important ambitions to be met before Death showed himself on the horizon in his hooded black cloak, his scythe slung over his shoulder?

~ Alain De Botton

You just go around getting hung up on all the least convenient things--and if the only obstacle in your way is a little extra work, then that's the wonderful gift right there.

~ Elif Batuman

The incommensurability between the modern economic system and the people who staff it explains why modern workers have so often been depicted as 'cogs' in the larger 'machinery' of industrial civilization; for while the practical rationalization of enterprise does require workers to be consistent, predictable, precise, uniform, and even to a certain extent creative, it does not really require them to be persons, that is, to live examined lives, to grow, to develop character, to search for truth, to know themselves, etc.

~ Craig M. Gay

The human worker will go the way of the horse.

~ Wassily Leontief

Anti-sabbatical: A job taken with the sole intention of staying only for a limited period of time (often one year). The intention is usually to raise enough funds to partake in another, more personally meaningful activity such as watercolor sketching in Crete or designing computer knit sweaters in Hong Kong. Employers are rarely informed of intentions

~ Douglas Coupland

Back in the days when gladiators hacked away at each other, there was always the man who decided whether the defeated should live or die. The job is usually given to the Emperor in movies, but in fact any senior man could have been the designated thumbs-up-thumbs-down guy. The official title for this fellow was...the editor. (evil laughter in background)

~ Gary Corby

A doctor must work eighteen hours a day and seven days a week. If you cannot console yourself to this, get out of the profession.

~ Martin H. Fischer

I nodded again, but I knew I would not grow up to drive a bulldozer. It would be awful to be dirty all day like these men. I didn't say it, but at best I would keep one in the backyard, like a goat.

~ Augusten Burroughs

I faced the dead lion courageously but will definitely run if I meet a roaring one...

~ Bahterawan

Normally I give permission to take my daughter for a walk after only the building of a wall and a stone pathway.' He smiled. 'For future reference.''But, Pan, I knew after the first week that a walk was not the only thing I would request,' the Pigeon said, smiling, 'and winter will be here soon.

~ Brigid Pasulka

What did you work at?” Colum asked, shifting a bit on the bench to look more directly at me.“I was in service,” I said quietly, more quietly than I intended. I wondered if maybe the answer had gotten lost in the rumble of the engines. It didn’t.“Honest work,” Colum said. I knew that that was what people say about work they consider beneath them. Hauling and scrubbing and digging are “honest work.” Grubbing and mucking? “Honest work.” Tell someone you’re a doctor or a mill owner, and they never say “honest work.

~ Susan Lynn Peterson

A determined Yankee book drummer once told a Southerner that 'a set of books on scientific agriculture' would teach him to 'farm twice as good as you do.' To which the Southerner replied: 'Hell, son, I don't farm half as good as I know how now.

~ Grady Mcwhiney

I worked for a menial’s hire,Only to learn, dismayed,That any wage I had asked of Life,Life would have willingly paid.

~ Jessie B. Rittenhouse

...but since He gave it them for their benefit and the greatest conveniences of life they were capable to draw form it, it cannot be supposed He meant it should always remain common and uncultivated. He gave it to the use of the industrious and rational (and labour was to be his title to it)...

~ John Locke

Do you think people love having jobs, Sylvia asks Peter in because they offer a condoned but false responsibility that masks, for at least eight hours a day, true responsibility?

~ David Bajo

..it's not how much you work, but how working so much makes you feel that counts. And how I felt was iserable.

~ Jonathon Lazear

My parents' work ethic amazed me. How could they put in such long hours, day after day?Part of the reason was to keep the family going - to keep me going. I realized that, although we had different values derived from different cultures and wouldn't agree on certain issues, they were good people, incredible people, and I loved and respected them.

~ Harvey Pekar

The more completely you can be yourself, the more fully and consciously you participate in the world.

~ Krist Pauwels

No work is so important you have to do it.

~ Marty Rubin

Of what use can our labour be, when the labours we record are in themselves entirely useless?

~ Henry Dircks

Don’t worry about getting credit, do the work anyway.

~ Richie Norton

Entrepreneurs get distracted by productivity and miss profits.Corporate folk get distracted by efficiencies and miss effectiveness.But ballers? Ballers know the difference between a hack and a hoop every time.Take your shot.

~ Richie Norton

What are you NOT working on that you should?

~ Richie Norton

I earned a mater's degree in journalism and took the first job offered, as a sports writer. Instead of chasing my own fame, I wrote about famous athletes chasing theirs.

~ Mitch Albom

I was cranked to a fifth gear, and everything I did, I did on a deadline.

~ Mitch Albom

.. I thought about him now and then, the things he had taught me about 'being human' and 'relating to others; but it was always in the distance, as if from another life.. .. The people who might have told me were long forgotten, their phone numbers buried in some packed-away box in the attic.

~ Mitch Albom

Anna thought about the men outside on the gallery. She was glad they were there; finding them smoking and talking quietly had been comforting, it was what men did in the evenings when the work was done. Of course, the work was not done, and she doubted that it ever would be. It would go on and on, even after the house was emptied of strangers, long after the wildflowers had blossomed a hundred times on their graves.

~ Howard Bahr

Work while you have strength.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Do all the work you can while you still have strength.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Arrogance never takes you anywhere. If you're arrogant and try to subvert your subordinates just remember time changes and you May not be in the position someday. They are younger and they will be in the power at that time.Power and position is never slave to someone, it moves with time.

~ Himmilicious

...Think of it as 'Right Livelihood 2.0'... In addition to not causing harm to yourself or another, this is livelihood that is an expression of your Core Intention, work that you can fall in love with and that no longer feels like “work”: work that matters.

~ Maia Duerr

Whatever your favorite kind of resistance is, it is likely to go into full bloom as you start making changes to your livelihood because this is an area that is linked with survival (our job is what pays our bills) as well as identity (our job is how we define ourselves). As a matter of fact, the more resistance you encounter, the more likely that you’re hitting paydirt in your transformational process.

~ Maia Duerr

Mindfulness is an invitation to change that pattern and to become aware of where we are and how we got here. Mindfulness gives us a chance to listen to the wisdom of our hearts, to notice with more clarity where we get in our own way, and to shift from reacting out of habit to responding from our intentions.

~ Maia Duerr