quotations about labor
It is better to drink the wine of industry from an earthen cup, than the wine of indolence from a silver tankard.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
He who lives upon the fruit of his own labor, escapes the contempt of haughty benefactors.
SAADI
attributed, Day's Collacon
The truth beyond the fetish's glimmering mirage is the relationship of laborer to product; it is the social account of how that object came to be. In this view every commodity, beneath the mantle of its price tag, is a hieroglyph ripe for deciphering, a riddle whose solution lies in the story of the worker who made it and the conditions under which it was made.
LEAH HAGER COHEN
Glass, Paper, Beans: Revolutions on the Nature and Value of Ordinary Things
I have two problems with hard labor: hard and labor.
JAROD KINTZ
$3.33
As brightness is to rustiness, so labor excelleth idleness.
THALES
attributed, Day's Collacon
To assert that labor is not the destiny of man, and that it cannot become for him a source of happiness, is to calumniate the Creator.
C. VIGOUREUX
attributed, Day's Collacon
Labour is the root of riches.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
The general tendency towards an eight-hour working day has undoubtedly been healthful, and it is wise for the State to set a good example as an employer of labor, both as to the number of hours of labor exacted and as to paying a just and reasonable wage.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
memorandum filed with Assembly Bill number 2222 entitled "An Act to amend chapter four hundred and fifteen of the laws of eighteen hundred and ninety-seven, entitled 'An Act in relation to labor'"
How happy he who crowns in shades like these, A youth of labour with an age of ease.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
The Deserted Village
Labor, laughing at difficulties, spans majestic rivers, carries viaducts over marshy swamps, suspends bridges over deep ravines, pierces the solid mountains with the dark tunnel, blasting rocks and filling hollows, and, while linking together all nations of the earth pities the proud fool and laughs him to scorn. He shall pass to dust, forgotten; but Labor will live forever, glorious in its conquests and monuments, and will keep organized no matter how many temporary defeats it endures.
NEWMAN HALL
"The Dignity of Labor", The Golden Treasury of Poetry and Prose
The lot of man is ceaseless labor, Or ceaseless idleness, which is still harder.
T. S. ELIOT
The Rock
The only real riches are labor; everything else is but the sign or abuse of it.
LEMONTEY
attributed, A Concise Exposition of the Doctrine of Association
Think about these imprints left by the material processes of work as the evidence of our presence on the earth, and ... think about how contemporary human beings, living in a western urban environment, can relate to the metaphysics of the labor which enables our lives.
JACKIE NICKERSON
"Exhibit: Jackie Nickerson", Crave, March 14, 2016
Labor has a bitter root, but a sweet taste.
HALM
attributed, Day's Collacon
Sulky labor, and the labor of sorrow are little worth: if you could only shed tranquility over the conscience and infuse joy into the soul, you would do more to make the man a thorough worker than if you could lend him the force of Hercules, or the hundred arms of Briareus.
WILBERFORCE
attributed, Day's Collacon
Pleasure is labour too, and tires as much.
WILLIAM COWPER
Hope
One of the huge disadvantages of being an American is that most of the hard labor is done for us.
JOSH DAFFERN
"10 Things That Will Ruin Your 2016 If You're Not Careful", Patheos, February 17, 2016
The qualities of labor, like tools,
Grow brighter when used.
SUSAN H. BOGGS
"Labor", Poems
Labour is good for a man, bracing up his energies to conquest,
And without it life is dull, the man perceiving himself useless.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
Proverbial Philosophy
It has been said "that he who works prays;" and certainly one of the best prayers that a working man with a large and young family can offer up is to steadily stick to his work. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour of the world, was the son of a working carpenter, and it is believed by many Theologians that our Saviour followed that trade (whatever it was in those days) until he was thirty years of age. If then God's only Son, the right hand of the throne of heaven, the King of men, the only sinless, spotless, perfect child, youth, and man, was a labourer, IS THERE NOT DIGNITY IN LABOUR? The happiest man is the working man, and if there is any real happiness in this world it is in the neat but humble cottage, where peace and love reign, and the industrious wife is the true helpmate of the working man; and not in the palace, where the bloated aristocrat, recovering from an attack of gout or some other punishment for excess, sits, trying to kill time, with bleared eyes (and often of idiotic expression) gazing into vacancy, surrounded by all that wealth can buy or human ingenuity contrive to make him comfortable, but with all not happy.
T. AUGUSTUS FORBES LEITH
"On the Dignity of Labour", Short Essays