LABOR QUOTES V
quotations about labor
Labor is a category unique to capitalism. In capitalism, labor is the touchstone of social life: it is a material property of human actors, bearing physical, nearly tangible qualities. It is also the touchstone, the foundation, of subjectivity and morality. Labor does not occupy such a position outside capitalism.
MARTHA LAMPLAND
The Object of Labor: Commodification in Socialist Hungary
The labor unions are group efforts in the direction of democracy. Like the political efforts in the same direction, they become many times stultified and lead up blind alleys. But the effort creates power. While the economic gains are themselves important and are measures of strength, the significance of the labor union is its assertion of the manhood of labor.
HELEN MAROT
American Labor Unions
Labor is King; though the gold wears the crown,
Labor dethrones gold at will;
Labor, when willing, makes money go down,
Labor, though modest, rules still.
HENRY LARGE
"Labor is King", The Poetical Works of Henry Large
It is only by labor that thought can be made healthy, and only by thought that labor can be happy; and the two cannot be separated with impunity.
JOHN RUSKIN
On the Nature of Gothic Architecture
Thou, O God, dost sell us all good things at the price of labour.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Thoughts on Art and Life
God has laid upon us many severe trials in this world, but He has created labour for us, and all is compensated. Thanks to labour, the bitterest tears are dried; a serious consoler, it always promises less than it bestows; a pleasure unparalleled, it is still the salt of other pleasures. Everything abandons you -- gaiety, wit, love -- labour alone is always present.
E. LEGOUVE
The Guernsey Magazine, Aug. 1877
Whatever your work might be, bring all of yourself to it. When you are fully present, you may find that your labor is no longer a burden. Wood is chopped. Water is carried. Life happens.
TOM BARRETT
"Chop Wood, Carry Water", Interlude Retreat
Labour is the purgatory of the erring.
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
Lucretia; or, The children of Night
The Lord had given them the day and the Lord had given them the strength. And the day and the strength had been dedicated to labor, and the labor was its reward. Who was the labor for? What would be its fruits? These were irrelevant and idle questions.
LEO TOLSTOY
Anna Karenina
The lottery of honest labor, drawn by time, is the only one whose prizes are worth taking up and carrying home.
THEODORE PARKER
Lessons from the World of Matter and the World of Man
No labor is superior to the laborer.
PIERRE-JOSEPH PROUDHON
What is Property?
No man or corporation has a right to employ any man without giving him the equivalent of his labor.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
His labor is a chant,
His idleness a tune;
Oh, for a bee's experience
Of clovers and of noon!
EMILY DICKINSON
"The Bee"
Labor is both a transformation of nature, and a realization of human meanings in it. Labor is a happening or a doing in which the unity of man and nature is constituted in a certain way, on the basis of their mutual transformation: man objectifies himself in labor and the object is torn out of its original context, adapted and processed. Through labor, man is objectified and the object is humanized. In humanizing nature and in objectifying (realizing) meanings man forms a human world. Man lives in a world of his own artifacts and meanings.
KAREL KOSIK
Dialectics of the Concrete: A Study on Problems of Man and World
Implicit in the stare of those eyes, the power of those knobbly hands, was labor's historic threat of violence against capital.
EDMUND MORRIS
Theodore Rex
All labor is coerced labor and hence a form of servitude.
STEVEN B. SMITH
"Lincoln's Enlightenment", Principle and Prudence in Western Political Thought
There is a beautiful reciprocity between labor and wealth; if the latter is produced by the former, the former is invigorated and sustained by the latter.
TRISTAM BURGESS
attributed, The Modern Farmer: Or, Home in the Country
Labor is what humans do, across time and across space. Labor is fundamental, crucial for satisfying our most basic needs. Labor thus provides a window for understanding all of human behavior, thought, and organization from the most macro-level of a global political economy to the most micro-level of the individual worker in a household. It is what we do and who we are.
E. PAUL DURRENBERGER & JUDITH MARTI
introduction, Labor in Cross-cultural Perspective
The gods give nothing really good and beautiful without labor.
XENOPHON
attributed, Day's Collacon
I am glad to know that there is a system of labor where the laborer can strike if he wants to. I wish to God that such a system prevailed all over the world.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech, Mar. 5, 1860