quotations about work
Such is the supreme folly of man that he labours so as to labour no more.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Thoughts on Art and Life
See that bunch of loafers on the street corner. They seldom work, and how they live no one can tell. Are they happy? Nay, nay; the good boxes on which they sit testify to their restlessness, for they have tried to while away their long hours by whittling them, when there was nothing else on hand to help pass the time. Certainly the idle, yawning, gaping, stretching loafer is not an ideal of a happy life.
NICIAS BALLARD COOKSEY
Helps to Happiness
Fast forward to today, and it's clear that the definition of work is continuing to morph, now even faster than before. Savvy employers realize there is little time to waste and that they must adapt to a variety of cultural and technological changes if they want to attract and retain talent.
PAIGE O'NEILL
"The definition of work is shifting", Network World, March 13, 2017
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
If you don't find a way to do something as work that is fulfilling and enjoyable, then your life is going to be really sad.
RUDOLPH GIULIANI
interview, May 3, 2003
None but those who work are entitled to eat.
AESOP
"The Brazier and His Dog", Aesop's Fables
People say they love hard workers but they really love natural talent--a bias with troubling implications when it comes to hiring.
ERIC JAFFE
"Hard Work Is Overrated", fastcodesign, January 19, 2016
Remember, work, well done, does good to the man who does it. It makes him a better man.
GEORGE S. CLASON
The Richest Man in Babylon
The poor man with industry is happier than the rich man in idleness.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
If you care about what you do and work hard at it, there isn't anything you can't do if you want to.
JIM HENSON
It's Not Easy Being Green: And Other Things to Consider
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
Slow work produces fine goods.
CHINESE PROVERB
A man who looks for easy work goes to bed tired.
KEN ALSTAD
Savvy Sayin's
Every man is better for a period of work under the open sky.
HENRY FORD
My Life and Work
Why should I let the toad work
Squat on my life?
Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork
And drive the brute off?
Six days of the week it soils
With its sickening poison--
Just for paying a few bills!
That's out of proportion.
PHILIP LARKIN
"Toads"
Anyone can do the job when things are going right.
ERNEST K. GANN
Fate is the Hunter
Work is the activity undertaken with our hands which gives objectivity to the world.
KEITH GRINT
The Sociology of Work
It is useless work that darkens the heart.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Dispossessed
Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
ARISTOTLE
attributed, Wisdom for the Soul
If every man should work at that for which nature fitted him, the cows would be well tended.
FLORIAN
attributed, Day's Collacon