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A day's work is a day's work, neither more nor less, and the man or woman who does it needs a day's sustenance, a night's repose and due leisure, whether they be painter or ploughman.
George Bernard Shaw
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Everyone deserves fair compensation and rest for their labor, regardless of the type of work they do.

This quote by George Bernard Shaw emphasizes the importance of recognizing the value of work, no matter its nature. It asserts that all individuals, whether they engage in creative pursuits like painting or manual labor like farming, require adequate sustenance, rest, and leisure in return for their efforts, underlining the fundamental dignity of all forms of work.

Themes

WorkLaborRestDignityValue

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about workers' rights, one might use this quote to highlight the importance of fair pay and rest.

More from George Bernard Shaw

What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.
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Marriage is good enough for the lower classes: they have facilities for desertion that are denied to us.
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Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature!
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Those who talk most about the blessings of marriage and the constancy of its vows are the very people who declare that if the chain were broken and the prisoners left free to choose, the whole social fabric would fly asunder. You cannot have the argument both ways. If the prisoner is happy, why lock him in? If he is not, why pretend that he is?
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Treat a friend as a person who may someday become your enemy; an enemy as a person who may someday become your friend.
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The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.
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Similar quotes

It is right and necessary that all should have work to do which shall be worth doing and be of itself pleasant to do, and which should be done under such conditions as would make it neither over-wearisome nor over-anxious.
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The purpose of work is to give people a chance to utilize and develop their faculties; to enable them to overcome their ego-centeredness by joining others in a common task; and to bring for the goods and services needed for a becoming existence.
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When you start to confuse Freddie Mac, Sallie Mae and Fannie Mae with members of your family, and you remember 2,000 stock symbols but forget the children's birthdays, there's a good chance you've become too wrapped up in your work.
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Work is what structures adults' lives: it gives us purpose, focus, a set of responsibilities, and an identity. So when people are not participating in the labour market, all sorts of other things often start to go wrong.
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I have a job I'm pretty good at. I am in charge of things. I am on committees. People respect me and take my counsel. I want to be strong and professional, but I resent how hard I have to work to be taken seriously, to receive a fraction of the consideration I might otherwise receive.
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I cannot face with comfort the idea of life without work; work and the free play of the imagination are for me the same thing, I take no pleasure in anything else.
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