Quotes on Work

Oh, yes. I'd do it all again; the spirit is willing yet; I feel the same desire to do the work but the flesh is weak. It's too bad that our bodies wear out while our interests are just as strong as ever.

Doing a straight-forward, clear-cut task that has a beginning and an end balances out the complexity-without-end that often vexes the rest of my life. Sacred simplicity.

My wish is to be known only thru my work.

The individual is capable of both great compassion and great indifference. He has it within his means to nourish the former and outgrow the latter.

Our jobs determine to a large extent what our lives are like. Is what you do for a living making you ill? Does it keep you from becoming a more fully realized person? Do you feel ashamed of what you have to do at work? All too often, the answer to such questions is yes. Yet it does not have to be like that. Work can be one of the most joyful, most fulfilling aspects of life. Whether it will be or not depends on the actions we collectively take.

One of the great movements in my lifetime among educated people is the need to commit themselves to action. Most people are not satisfied with giving money; we also feel we need to work.

All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.

We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can. . . . The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work.

I have the same goal I've had ever since I was a girl: I want to rule the world.

Continuity of purpose is one of the most essential ingredients of happiness in the long run, and for most men that comes chiefly through their work.

If you have a sick or lonely person at home, be there. Maybe just to hold a hand, maybe just to give a smile, that is the greatest, the most beautiful work.

I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.

I don't think a system or a government should fear critical opinions or views. Only by heeding those critical views would it be possible for us to further improve our work and make further progress.

If the power to do hard work is not a skill, it's the best possible substitute for it.

The 'Aladdin' thing - that's not work; that's just fun. Three days in the recording studio going mad, then the animators do all the work. Not a bad way to cash a large check, my friend.

All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.

Humor is an affirmation of dignity, a declaration of man's superiority to all that befalls him.

A manager is responsible for the application and performance of knowledge.

I hear therefore with joy whatever is beginning to be said of the dignity and necessity of labor to every citizen. There is virtue yet in the hoe and the spade, for learned as well as for unlearned hands. And labor is everywhere welcome; always we are invited to work; only be this limitation observed, that a man shall not for the sake of wider activity sacrifice any opinion to the popular judgments and modes of action.

We teachers can only help the work going on, as servants wait upon a master.

The miracle of the seed and the soil is not available by affirmation; it is only available by labor.