Business

"Genuine Work alone, what thou workest faithfully, that is eternal, as the Almighty Founder and World-Builder himself."

"All work, even cotton-spinning, is noble; work is alone noble."

"If you work for a man, in heaven's name work for him! If he pays you wages that supply you your bread and butter, work for him—speak well of him, think well of him, stand by him and stand by the institution he represents. I think if I worked for a man I would work for him. I would not work for him a part of the time, and the rest of the time work against him. I would give an undivided service or none. If put to the pinch, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness."

"As good play for nothing, you know, as work for nothing."

"Nowher so besy a man as he ther was, And yet he semed bisier than he was."

"Do the day's work. If it be to protect the rights of the weak, whoever objects, do it. If it be to help a powerful corporation better to serve the people, whatever the opposition, do that. Expect to be called a stand-patter, but don't be a stand-patter. Expect to be called a demagogue, but don't be a demagogue. Don't hesitate to be as revolutionary as science. Don't hesitate to be as reactionary as the multiplication table. Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong. Don't hurry to legislate. Give administration a chance to catch up with legislation."

"Workers of the world, unite!"

"No man is base who does a true work; for true action is the highest being. No man is miserable that does a true work; for right action is the highest happiness. No man is isolated that does a true work; for useful action is the highest harmony — it is the highest harmony with nature and with souls — it is living association with men — and it is practical fellowship with God."

"With hand on the spade and heart in the sky Dress the ground and till it; Turn in the little seed, brown and dry, Turn out the golden millet. Work, and your house shall be duly fed: Work, and rest shall be won; I hold that a man had better be dead Than alive when his work is done."

"Our greatest weariness comes from work not done."

"Ah, little recks the laborer, How near his work is holding him to God, The loving Laborer through space and time."

"Thine to work as well as pray, Clearing thorny wrongs away; Plucking up the weeds of sin, Letting heaven's warm sunshine in."

"The best verse hasn't been rhymed yet, The best house hasn't been planned, The highest peak hasn't been climbed yet, The mightiest rivers aren't spanned; Don't worry and fret, faint-hearted, The chances have just begun For the best jobs haven't been started, The best work hasn't been done."

"Not all the labor of the earth Is done by hardened hands."

"There will be little drudgery in this better ordered world. Natural power harnessed in machines will be the general drudge. What drudgery is inevitable will be done as a service and duty for a few years or months out of each life; it will not consume nor degrade the whole life of anyone."

"Ah vitam perdidi operse nihil agendo."

"Too long, that some may rest, Tired millions toil unblest."

"But when dread Sloth, the Mother of Doom, steals in, And reigns where Labour's glory was to serve, Then is the day of crumbling not far off."

"The day is short, the labor long, the workers are idle, and reward is great, and the Master is urgent."

"The dog that trots about finds a bone."

"And yet without labour there were no ease, no rest, so much as conceivable."

"In books, or work, or healthful play."

"Clamorous pauperism feasteth While honest Labor, pining, hideth his sharp ribs."

"Heaven is blessed with perfect rest but the blessing of earth is toil."

"A workman that needeth not to be ashamed."

"Labor omnia vincit improbus."

"It is the first of all problems for a man to find out what kind of work he is to do in this universe."

"Let us take to our hearts a lesson— No lesson could braver be— From the ways of the tapestry weavers On the other side of the sea."

"Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice and need."

"The most unhappy of all men is the man who cannot tell what he is going to do, who has got no work cut-out for him in the world, and does not go into it. For work is the grand cure of all the maladies and miseries that ever beset mankind,—honest work, which you intend getting done."

"Hâtez-vous lentement; et, sans perdre courage, Vingt fois sur le métier remettez votre ouvrage."

"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread."

"Man must work. That is certain as the sun. But he may work grudgingly, or he may work gratefully; he may work as a man, or he may work as a machine. He cannot always choose his work, but he can do it in a generous temper, and with an up-looking heart. There is no work so rude, that he may not exalt it; there is no work so impassive, that he may not breathe a soul into it; there is no work so dull, that he may not enliven it."

"A day's work is a day's work, neither more nor less, and the man who does it needs a day's sustenance, a night's repose, and due leisure, whether he be painter or ploughman."

"Many faint with toil, That few may know the cares and woe of sloth."

"La tierra es de quien la trabaja con sus manos."

"Labour in vain; or coals to Newcastle."

"I am giving you examples of the fact that this creature man, who in his own selfish affairs is a coward to the backbone, will fight for an idea like a hero…. I tell you, gentlemen, if you can shew a man a piece of what he now calls God's work to do, and what he will later call by many new names, you can make him entirely reckless of the consequences to himself personally."

"How many a rustic Milton has passed by, Stifling the speechless longings of his heart, In unremitting drudgery and care! How many a vulgar Cato has compelled His energies, no longer tameless then, To mould a pin, or fabricate a nail!"

"The labour we delight in physics pain."

"What work's, my countrymen, in hand? where go you With bats and clubs? The matter? speak, I pray you."

"Nothing can be done at once hastily and prudently."

"Jesus once said that the dead should let to bury the dead (Luke 9:60). This shows no disrespect for the dead. It shows an awareness that there are some functions in society that will be well taken care of without Christians investing their creativity in those functions. Someone else, in meeting such needs, can make a stable living. Burying the dead is still one of the businesses in which you can make a stable living. There are other such services that we can count on society handling by itself. Leadership in government and business are among these. Let us reserve our limited creativity for functions that will not be taken care of if we do not to it."

"Qui laborat, orat."

"A man who has no office to go to—I don't care who he is—is a trial of which you can have no conception."

"Why, universal plodding poisons up The nimble spirits in the arteries, As motion and long-during action tires The sinewy vigour of the traveller."

"Why, Hal, 'tis my vocation. Hal: 'tis no sin for a man to labour in his vocation."

"If you care about children, then [UBI] is the best way to make household and families stronger; if you care about women and economic empowerment, this is a way to make it so that women can walk away from abusive or exploitative employers; if you care about communities of color, they would benefit much more proportionally from a thousand dollars a month than other communities, because they have lower access to various jobs and opportunities. This is the way that we can reform society in a way that actually serves all of our goals, our collective goals. And at least one study showed that if you would alleviate child poverty, you would increase GDP by 700 billion dollars, because of better health outcomes, educational outcomes, higher worker productivity, better mental health... We have to start investing in our people, intrinsically."

"We have to say "we are the citizens and owners and stakeholders of this society, we can vote ourselves a dividend, and it's up to us to build an economy that serves us, because... this economy is not designed to serve human beings. It is designed to serve capital efficiency. And for a long time, that also served human beings, but increasingly it's going to be that having lots of humans working for a company is irrelevant, or even negative, for corporate success. And we can see this by the fact that 94% of the new jobs created since 2005 to 2015, were gig economy, temp and contractor jobs, because the employer said "you know what? I'd rather not have a full-time employee, I'd rather not pay health care benefits", and that's why so many Americans right now are in that position. So we have to start recognizing that the economy is changing for good, and that it's up to us, the citizens of this country, to rewrite the rules the economy to serve us. We have to make the market serve us, and not have us all be slaves to the market, because the market is not going to care one whit about us increasingly over time."

"Hard toil can roughen form and face, And want can quench the eye's bright grace."