quotations about work
A foreman, if he's got a conscience, and delights in his work, will do his business as well as if he was a partner. I wouldn't give a penny for a man as 'ud drive a nail in slack because he didn't get extra pay for it.
GEORGE ELIOT
Adam Bede
To escape boredom, man works either beyond what his usual needs require, or else he invents play, that is, work that is designed to quiet no need other than that for working in general.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Human, All Too Human
Work was associated with a war, and military jargon became part of everyday work life. We are led by "officers", we "kill the competition", "target" clients, work "in the trenches" and "on the front lines", develop "strategy" and "drive campaigns".
NATALIA BLAGOEVA
"Thank God It's Monday and the End of Work-Life Balance", Huffington Post, March 21, 2017
Work is the weapon of honor; he who lacks the weapon will never triumph.
D. G. MITCHELL
attributed, Day's Collacon
There's only one thing worse than to live without working, and that is to work without living.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
The truth is, everybody I've ever met who's successful is a workaholic.
ICE-T
Men's Health, December 2005
How strange it is that so many people have the belief that work is a burden and that idleness means happiness. Many are longing for the day that they will possess sufficient to quit work and take the world easy. They imagine that when that time comes their happiness will be complete. Alas, how many have reached this period of life to find themselves greatly disappointed! Idleness fails to give the happiness they expected and time drags more heavily than ever. The hardest job we ever tried was that of doing nothing.
NICIAS BALLARD COOKSEY
Helps to Happiness
The phrase "work-life balance" tells us that people think that work is the opposite of life. We should be talking about life-life balance.
PATRICK DIXON
Building a Better Business
In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.
LEO TOLSTOY
"Stop and Think!", Essays, Letters, Miscellanies
No man ever did or can do a great work alone.
ELBERT HUBBARD
The American Bible
I have never been able to draw a line between work and pleasure.
ANNA BALAKIAN
New York Times, August 15, 1997
Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.
J. M. BARRIE
attributed, The New Dictionary of Thoughts
Hard work never hurt anyone who hired someone else to do it.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
Work seemed something fundamental for man, something which enabled him to endure the aimless flight of time.
KOBO ABE
The Woman in the Dunes
Life is so simple when you're just doing your job.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
The Stone Gods
Hard work is rewarding. Taking credit for other people's hard work is rewarding and faster.
SCOTT ADAMS
Dilbert's Guide to the Rest of Your Life: Dispatches from Cubicleland
Retirement wasn't a reward at the end of a well-run career ... it was a void surrounded by endless dull hours, haunted by memories of work.
NORA ROBERTS
Blue Smoke
I love working for myself; it's so empowering. Except when I call in sick. I always know when I'm lying.
RITA RUDNER
stand-up routine
The only way to go beyond work is through work. It is not that work itself is valuable; we surmount work by work. The real value of work lies in the strength of self-denial.
KOBO ABE
The Woman in the Dunes
Though thousands of people indulge themselves in it regularly, and even develop a taste for it, there is no doubt in my mind (and that of scientists whom I employ to prove it) that Work is a dangerous and destructive drug, and should be called by its right name, which is Fatigue.
ROBERTSON DAVIES
The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks