WORK QUOTES VIII

quotations about work

The truth is, any of us in a position to choose and chase work out of love do so from a place of relative privilege. Overwhelmingly, work in the world is done for income, and income alone, and love doesn't even get a look-in.

SIMON CASTLES

"Do what you love mantra devalues hard work", The Age, February 9, 2016


It is useless work that darkens the heart.

URSULA K. LE GUIN

The Dispossessed

Tags: Ursula K. Le Guin


Inter-cubicle friendship is every bit as good for your health and your output as an ergonomically correct ball chair. Even in our furiously multi-tasking world, work should still come with a good dose of play. And, okay, maybe some free pretzels too.

KATIE UNDERWOOD

"Why developing friendships at work is so important", Canadian Business, January 27, 2016


If every man should work at that for which nature fitted him, the cows would be well tended.

FLORIAN

attributed, Day's Collacon


What the working man sells is not directly his Labor, but his Laboring Power, the temporary disposal of which he makes over to the capitalist. This is so much the case that I do not know whether by the English Law, but certainly by some Continental Laws, the maximum time is fixed for which a man is allowed to sell his laboring power. If allowed to do so for any indefinite period whatever, slavery would be immediately restored. Such a sale, if it comprised his lifetime, for example, would make him at once the lifelong slave of his employer.

KARL MARX

Value, Price, and Profit

Tags: Karl Marx


Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.

ARISTOTLE

attributed, Wisdom for the Soul

Tags: Aristotle


Playing games at work is a time-honored tradition. Windows computers come with Minesweeper and Solitaire for a reason, you know. But getting caught by the boss slacking off on company time isn't terribly good for your paycheck. If you're gaming on the clock, you need to be playing something that lets you cover your tracks.

K. THOR JENSEN

"The best games to secretly play at work", Geek, February 5, 2016


Have you beheld a man skillful in his work? Before kings is where he will station himself; he will not station himself before commonplace men.

SOLOMON

Proverbs 22:29


Family and work. Family and work. I can let them be at war, with guilt as their nuclear weapon and mutually assured destruction as their aim, or I can let them nourish each other.

ELLEN GILCHRIST

The Writing Life

Tags: Ellen Gilchrist


Call no work low that is honest;
Honest toil never degrades.

MARTHA LAVINIA HOFFMAN

"Workers"

Tags: Martha Lavinia Hoffman


A man succeeds in completing a work only when his qualities transcend that work.

CESARE PAVESE

The Business of Living

Tags: Cesare Pavese


Drive a nail home and clinch it so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with satisfaction -- a work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the Muse.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

Walden

Tags: Henry David Thoreau


True Work is the necessity of poor humanity's earthly condition. The dignity is in leisure. Besides, 99 hundredths of all the work done in the world is either foolish and unnecessary, or harmful and wicked.

HERMAN MELVILLE

letter to Catherine G. Lansing, September 5, 1877

Tags: Herman Melville


The chances of a man's succeeding who does not love his work are very small. For all success costs labor.

FRANK CHAPMAN SHARP

Success: A Course in Moral Instruction

Tags: Frank Chapman Sharp


Nothing will work unless you do.

MAYA ANGELOU

Facebook post, January 2, 2014

Tags: Maya Angelou


It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

letter to Harrison Blake, November 16, 1857


If all you do in life is work really hard, you're never going to get wealthy. Because it's not enough that you work hard to make money to set some of it aside.... to ensure future wealth, you must equally work smart.

RIC EDELMAN

"Working hard won't make you rich", Business Insider, April 2, 2017


When master and workmen unite the work is soon done.

WAKATAUKI

attributed, Day's Collacon


Our salvation is in work, but let us also take delight in that work.

MAXIM GORKY

Untimely Thoughts

Tags: Maxim Gorky


Some people were born to work for others. Not in a mindless, servile-way--rather they simply work better in a set regimen of daily tasks and functions. Others were born of the entrepreneurial spirit and enjoy the demands of self-determination and the roll of the dice.

RICHARD PAUL EVANS

The Christmas Box

Tags: Richard Paul Evans