All work undertaken should be useful - not just for a day, or a year, but useful in the sense that it affords permanent improvement in living conditions or that it creates future new wealth for the Nation.
Interpretation
Work should lead to lasting improvements and benefits for society.
This quote by Franklin D. Roosevelt emphasizes the importance of engaging in meaningful work that contributes to the betterment of society and enhances living conditions for the long term. It suggests that efforts should not be short-lived or superficial but should create sustainable wealth and improve the quality of life for future generations.
In practice
A motivational speaker might use this quote to encourage young professionals to seek meaningful careers.
There has been one persistent theme through all Axis propaganda. This theme has been that Americans are admittedly rich, that Americans have considerable industrial power - but that Americans are soft and decadent, that they cannot and will not unite and work and fight. ... Let them tell that to the Marines!
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
A war of ideas can no more be won without books than a naval war can be won without ships. Books, like ships, have the toughest armor, the longest cruising range, and mount the most powerful guns.
Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
A world turned into a stereotype, a society converted into a regiment, a life translated into a routine, make it difficult for either art or artists to survive. Crush individuality in society and you crush art as well. Nourish the conditions of a free life and you nourish the arts, too.
The glory is being happy. The glory is not winning here or winning there. The glory is enjoying practicing, enjoy every day, enjoying to work hard, trying to be a better player than before.
The best social reform program in the world is a job.
I've never run into a guy who could win at the top level in anything today and didn't have the right attitude, didn't give it everything he had, at least while he was doing it; wasn't prepared and didn't have the whole program worked out.
I never thought a career as a musician was possible.
The path from dreams to success does exist. May you have the vision to find it, the courage to get on to it, and the perseverance to follow it.
You are not your resume, you are your work.
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