quotations about work
Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
ARISTOTLE
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attributed, Wisdom for the Soul
Who first invented work and bound the free
And holiday-rejoicing spirit down
To the unremitting importunity
Of business, in the green fields, and the town;
To plough, loom, anvil, spade--and oh! most sad!
To this dry drudgery of the desk's dead wood?
Who but the Being unblest, alien from good,
SABBATHLESS SATAN!
CHARLES LAMB
"Sonnet", The Examiner, June 20, 1819
The poor man with industry is happier than the rich man in idleness.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Many companies see happiness at work as an intangible "nice to have", rather than an important organisational priority. While you can't force employees to be happy -- or control every factor that contributes to happiness -- it's still possible to create the conditions that will help to promote happiness and positivity at work.
ROBERT HALF
"Happiness at work -- is it natural or necessary?", Business Zone, March 31, 2017
Work is the activity undertaken with our hands which gives objectivity to the world.
KEITH GRINT
The Sociology of Work
Work alone isn't enough for me and mine;
we know how to break our backs, but the great dream
Of my fathers was to be good at doing nothing.
CESARE PAVESE
"Ancestors"
Caring about the quality of your work causes stress. Stress can kill you. Maintain good health by remembering that the stockholders are complete strangers who have never done anything for you.
SCOTT ADAMS
Dilbert's Guide to the Rest of Your Life: Dispatches from Cubicleland
What the working man sells is not directly his Labor, but his Laboring Power, the temporary disposal of which he makes over to the capitalist. This is so much the case that I do not know whether by the English Law, but certainly by some Continental Laws, the maximum time is fixed for which a man is allowed to sell his laboring power. If allowed to do so for any indefinite period whatever, slavery would be immediately restored. Such a sale, if it comprised his lifetime, for example, would make him at once the lifelong slave of his employer.
KARL MARX
Value, Price, and Profit
The truth is, any of us in a position to choose and chase work out of love do so from a place of relative privilege. Overwhelmingly, work in the world is done for income, and income alone, and love doesn't even get a look-in.
SIMON CASTLES
"Do what you love mantra devalues hard work", The Age, February 9, 2016
Inter-cubicle friendship is every bit as good for your health and your output as an ergonomically correct ball chair. Even in our furiously multi-tasking world, work should still come with a good dose of play. And, okay, maybe some free pretzels too.
KATIE UNDERWOOD
"Why developing friendships at work is so important", Canadian Business, January 27, 2016
The truth is, everybody I've ever met who's successful is a workaholic.
ICE-T
Men's Health, December 2005
Labor produces marvels for the rich but it produces deprivation for the worker. It produces palaces, but hovels for the worker. It produces beauty, but deformity for the worker. It replaces labor by machines, but it throws one section of the workers back to barbaric labor, and it turns the remainder into machines.
KARL MARX
"Alienated Labor", Economic and Philosophic
While it will never be possible for employers to control all the factors that contribute to happiness at work, you can certainly help to create the right conditions for it. Ultimately, happiness is a choice, and a positive, healthy workplace environment is a good starting point. The benefits will be seen in better quality work, and significant improvements in recruitment and retention.
ROBERT HALF
"Happiness at work -- is it natural or necessary?", Business Zone , March 31, 2017
Thus have men become the creatures of their work, and thus has work become to them, in many respects, a curse. When work enslaves a group of faculties, and employs and develops that group to the neglect or the death of all others, then does it surpass and abuse its office. This it is that makes one-sided men, partial men, fractional men. This it is that puts the menial stamp upon men, that brands them with the name of their tyrant-master. This it is which spoils manhood, and debases its subjects to the level of their calling. This it is which too often transforms men into lawyers and financiers and ministers and merchants and farmers and hod-carriers -- beings who can do one thing, and nothing else.
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND
"Work and Play", Complete Works
If we look at things from a results level -- what hours one puts in -- which is, I think, where we're going in the future of work, then we're going to have to balance our lives a little better. And, therefore, the organisational challenge really will be how we facilitate people to do that.
MARGOT SLATTERY
"Data is absolutely essential to the future of work", Silicon Republic, March 23, 2017
A man who looks for easy work goes to bed tired.
KEN ALSTAD
Savvy Sayin's
When the toiler bends and labors till his sweat turns into pearls,
'Tis a nobler decoration than the coronets of earls.
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"Caelestis"
Most work, let's face it, is not the least bit loveable, and a good deal of it is barely tolerable. And this isn't going to change, no matter how many Steve Jobs quotes we share on Facebook. Tough, low-wage work isn't going away. In fact, jobs in the service and care industries are booming. But a "do what you love" ethos hides such work, and the conditions of its workers, by keeping individuals focused on the self and the belief that there is bliss to be found in a job if only they strive harder than those around them.
SIMON CASTLES
"Do what you love mantra devalues hard work", The Age, February 9, 2016
Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Sorrows of Young Werther
A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.
L. P. JACKS
Education Through Recreation