quotations about work
Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
Notice: Undefined variable: id in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/w/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 37
The Sorrows of Young Werther
If we look at things from a results level -- what hours one puts in -- which is, I think, where we're going in the future of work, then we're going to have to balance our lives a little better. And, therefore, the organisational challenge really will be how we facilitate people to do that.
MARGOT SLATTERY
"Data is absolutely essential to the future of work", Silicon Republic, March 23, 2017
A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.
L. P. JACKS
Education Through Recreation
You reach a point where you don't work for money.
WALT DISNEY
attributed, The Quotable Billionaire
Work restores humankind and all its attributes to the savage animal condition that was its original intended state.
ELFRIEDE JELINEK
Lust
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
The philosophers of antiquity taught contempt for work, that degradation of the free man, the poets sang of idleness, that gift from the Gods.
PAUL LAFARGUE
The Right to Be Lazy
See that bunch of loafers on the street corner. They seldom work, and how they live no one can tell. Are they happy? Nay, nay; the good boxes on which they sit testify to their restlessness, for they have tried to while away their long hours by whittling them, when there was nothing else on hand to help pass the time. Certainly the idle, yawning, gaping, stretching loafer is not an ideal of a happy life.
NICIAS BALLARD COOKSEY
Helps to Happiness
I am not sure that life, to any one,
A fuller measure of contentment brings,
With all its gifts, than in the draught which springs,
From honest work, well plann'd, and bravely done.
WILLIAM WILSEY MARTIN
"Labor"
Having boundaries in life, especially at work, is important for protecting our happiness. Boundaries allow us to say no when we need to, but also mean we can say yes when the opportunity is right.
LOUISE LAMBERT
"You can't do it all: turning down work is sometimes a necessity", Albawaba Business, February 3, 2016
When master and workmen unite the work is soon done.
WAKATAUKI
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
Slow work produces fine goods.
CHINESE PROVERB
Formerly when a man worked ten hours a day, it was called economic slavery; nowadays it is called moonlighting.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
I like to call in sick to work at places where I've never held a job. Then when the manager tells me I don't work there, I tell them I'd like to. But not today, as I'm sick.
JAROD KINTZ
This Book is Not For Sale
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
Call no work low that is honest;
Honest toil never degrades.
MARTHA LAVINIA HOFFMAN
"Workers"
The better shaped his product, the more misshapen the worker.
KARL MARX
"Alienated Labor", Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts
There is no such thing as unfortunate genius; if a man or woman is fit for work, God appoints the field.
ADA ISAACS MENKEN
Infelicia
If you care about what you do and work hard at it, there isn't anything you can't do if you want to.
JIM HENSON
It's Not Easy Being Green: And Other Things to Consider