LABOR QUOTES V
quotations about labor
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
His labor is a chant,
His idleness a tune;
Oh, for a bee's experience
Of clovers and of noon!
EMILY DICKINSON
"The Bee"
By persistent labor man may attain to all excellence.
DEMOSTHENES
attributed, Day's Collacon
It's hard to find cheap labor in the land of the brave and free. And the only thing that's better, that's if they work for free.
RICHARD FORD
Poems Written by a Government Prisoner in Georgia, USA
You don't deserve any more than your labor is worth, it doesn't matter how rich a business owner is. If you don't risk your own wealth to start your own business, you don't deserve to become wealthy like those business owners you envy.
BURGESS KRELL
user comment, "Taxpayers No Longer Have to Pay Cops to Work for Union", WND, August 11, 2015
In proportion as labor is divided, arts are perfected.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
Labor is the only wealth of the poor, and the largest hands, those of the poor, hold the least, and have the least to hold; the poor are valuable for their thews and sinews; they have limbs to toil and shoulders to bear burdens, but the oppressor remembers not that they have hearts to feel, or mouths to be fed, or that there is a blood stronger than steam. The black iron is meted out to them, whilst the yellow gold gladdens the better sort.
ACTON
Acton; or, The Circle of Life: A Collection of Thoughts and Observations Designed to Delineate Life, Man, and the World
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
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
Providence has decreed that those common acquisitions, money, gems, plate, noble mansions, and dominion, should be sometimes bestowed on the indolent and unworthy; but those things which constitute our true riches, and which are properly our own, must be procured by our own labor.
ERASMUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Labor rids us of three great evils--poverty, vice, and boredom.
VOLTAIRE
attributed, Day's Collacon
Before the reward there must be labor. You plant before you harvest. You sow in tears before you reap in joy.
RALPH RANSOM
"Steps on the Stairway"
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 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
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
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
The gods give nothing really good and beautiful without labor.
XENOPHON
attributed, Day's Collacon
[Labor is] the primal curse,
But softened into mercy, made the pledge
Of cheerful days and nights without a groan.
WILLIAM COWPER
The Task
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
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