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Quotes about work
Thomas Carlyle thought work was close to holy, and said so at length in Past and Present. Thoreau, a decade later, wondered why his neighbours were working themselves to death to pay for a farm they hadn't asked to inherit.
Gibran gave one chapter of The Prophet to the subject and asked that work be done with love. Few people read any of this at nine on a Monday, which is a pity, and a good reason to keep some of it on a phone.
From the books
Checked word for word against public-domain editions.
The hardest work in the world is that which is grudgingly done.
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I have known employees actually to work harder in scheming, shirking, trying to keep from working hard in the performance of their duties, than they would have worked if they had tried to do their best, and had given the largest, the most liberal service possible to their employers. The hardest work in the world is that which is grudgingly done.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
Give me a man who cares how he shall do anything, not for the obtaining of a thing, but who cares about his own energy.
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… given to you nothing in the present case? Has he not given to you endurance? Has he not given to you magnanimity? Has he not given to you manliness? When you have such hands do you still look for one who shall wipe your nose? But we neither study these things nor care for them. Give me a man who cares how he shall do anything, not for the obtaining of a thing, but who cares about his own energy. What man, when he is walking about, cares for his own energy? Who, when he is deliberating, cares about his own deliberation, and not about obtaining that about which he deliberates? And if he succeeds, he is elated and says, How well we have deliberated; did I not tell you, …
The roots below the earth claim no rewards for making the branches fruitful.
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If you shut your door to all errors truth will be shut out. 131 I hear some rustle of things behind my sadness of heart,—I cannot see them. 132 Leisure in its activity is work. The stillness of the sea stirs in waves. 133 The leaf becomes flower when it loves. The flower becomes fruit when it worships. 134 The roots below the earth claim no rewards for making the branches fruitful. 135 This rainy evening the wind is restless. I look at the swaying branches and ponder over the greatness of all things. 136 Storm of midnight, like a giant child awakened in the untimely dark, has begun to play and shout. 137 Thou raisest thy waves vainly to follow thy lover. O sea, thou
Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.
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… read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books, else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know, that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; …
In proportion as one loses himself in the way, in the same degree does he get the highest happiness out of his work.
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In order to be successful in any kind of undertaking, I think the main thing is for one to grow to the point where he completely forgets himself; that is, to lose himself in a great cause. In proportion as one loses himself in the way, in the same degree does he get the highest happiness out of his work.
Let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made.
Whatever your vocation, let quality be your life-slogan.
The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Go on with your work as usual, for work is a blessed solace.
Great men are noted for their attention to trifles.
The hardness of flint is known to none so well as to those who strike it.
Better thine own work is, though done with fault, Than doing others' work, ev'n excellently.
All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be.
The law of nature is, Do the thing, and you shall have the Power; but they who do not the thing have not the power.
Simple and modest is the work of philosophy.
To have a daily appointed task of even common drudgery to do makes the rest of life feel all the sweeter.
If your subject do not appear to you the flower of the world at this moment, you have not rightly chosen it.
We are willing to work and we mean to wait.
The wear-and-tear of rust is even faster than the tear-and-wear of work.
Being work, it has to be done; but it’s easily enough done.
Necessity does everything well.
Keep turning the land, and always put up more hay than you need.
The greatest geniuses have been the greatest workers.
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
Work is love made visible.
The secret of fortune is joy in our hands.
The best relief is WORK, engaged in with interest and diligence.
Do you know that to do nothing is a melancholy resolution?
Labor ever will be the inevitable price for everything that is valuable.
Attend to the matter which is before thee, whether it is an opinion or an act or a word.
A man’s whole life is taxed for the least thing well done.
Do not craze yourself with thinking, but go about your business anywhere.
Practical industry, wisely and vigorously applied, always produces its due effects.
In the life of the artist there need be no hour without its pleasure.
Popular sayings
Widely repeated lines with no name attached, because nobody can honestly put one on them.
Go the extra mile.
Stop wishing, start doing.
The best way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.
Respect is earned, not given.
Make it work, make it right, make it fast.
Good things happen to those who hustle.
Give it your all.
Do your part, and do it well.
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