Labor

"The economic system denies the right of the sincerest and most sympathetic to keep their hands out of the blood of their brothers. We may not go to our rest at night, or waken to our work in the morning, without bearing the burden of the communal guilt; without being ourselves creators and causes of the wrongs we seek to bear away. At every step, when we would do good, evil is present with us, and exacts its tribute from the very citadel of the soul. ... If we stay at our posts, in order that we may change the system, we are on the backs of our brothers; if we desert our posts, in order that we may get off our brothers' backs, we take bread from their mouths, from the mouths of their children, and add to the army of the workless and hopeless."

"If little labour, little are our gaines: Man's fortunes are according to his paines."

"One of the curious features of Impressionism... was the casualness of their work. ...[T]he painters gave the impression of hastily concocted canvases... more... inspiration than... patient labor. The effortless stroke of genius became a leading measure of artistic quality, partly because it denied mere "work." ..."Art for art's sake" was an invention of the romantic era in France. ...They looked towards a mythical past in which the "natural" person could cultivate self-expression, free of the claims of social utility. This fantasized past... had an anti-industrial character. ...Work was despised because the growing industrial revolution was separating it from inventiveness, originality, and individualism. ...The inventiveness and spontaneity that independent artists sought were... opposed to industrial work,... products (with which they associated academic art) and for many... cities... Women and men held parasols and croquet mallets, not sickles and hoes, and dahlias were more attractive than cabbages. (It is true that Pissarro retained much of the outlook of Barbizon artists...) The work ethic implicit in Barbizon art... was done away with by the impressionists. The suburb and the coastal resort, not the farm, is the landscape of Morisot, Renoir, Manet, and Monet. ...The Impressionists ...joined other middle-class vacationers (except for Cézanne and Pissarro, so little in sympathy with Parisian society)."

"Mark this well, you proud men of action: You are nothing but the unwitting agents of the men of thought who often, in quiet self-effacement, mark out most exactly all your doings in advance."

"If one man has a dollar he didn't work for, some other man worked for a dollar he didn't get."

"The very nature of work will change. The governments may have to consider stronger social safety nets, and eventually universal basic income."

"Nothing is more laborious for you than not to labor at all—in other words, to despise everything that gives rise to our labors, which means all that is subject to change."

"Insofar as our culture conventionally construes technical, scientific, and professional roles as those that obligate men to ignore all but the technical implications of their work, the very social structure itself is inherently pathogenic. The social function of such a segmented role structure is akin to that of the reflexive obedience induced by military training. The function of such a technical role structure, as of military discipline, is to sever the normal moral sensibilities and responsibilities of civilians and soldiers and to enable them to be used as deployables, willing to pursue practically any objective. In the last analysis, such arrangements produce an unthinking readiness to kill or to hurt others - or to produce things that do so - on order."

"A man who works at another’s will, not for his own passion or his own need, but for money or honor, is always a fool."

"Ein Mensch, der um anderer willen, ohne dass es seine eigene Leidenschaft, sein eigenes Bedürfnis ist, sich um Geld oder Ehre oder sonst etwas abarbeitet, ist immer ein Tor."

"For as labor cannot produce without the use of land, the denial of the equal right to the use of land is necessarily the denial of the right of labor to its own produce."

"God designed man for work--work for his own sustenance; he who does not work shall not eat."

"My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition."

"I need to wake out of my stupor and begin work. ...my body stands frozen in a snow packed tundra waiting for rescue. It may take a few days before that happens, since my mind is on vacation in Alberta right now."

"The world is full of willing people, some willing to work, the rest willing to let them."

"“Men work together,” I told him from the heart, “Whether they work together or apart.”"

"The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows."

"People have been known to achieve more as a result of working with others than against them."

"I urge you to work together in promoting a true, worldwide ethical mobilization which, beyond all differences of religious or political convictions, will spread and put into practice a shared ideal of fraternity and solidarity, especially with regard to the poorest and those most excluded."

"Peacefulness to be found in writing. Why do I not write every day? Partly because I feel I ought to write well and know I can't. But that is not a good enough reason for not writing, if it gains me poise & peace."

"It's a living."

"The idea that to make a man work you've got to hold gold in front of his eyes is a growth, not an axiom. We've done that for so long that we've forgotten there's any other way."

"Every employee in an undertaking, then, takes a larger or smaller share in the work of administration, and has, therefore, to use and display his administrative faculties. This is why we often see men, who are specially gifted, gradually rise from the lowest to the highest level of the industrial hierarchy, although they have only had an elementary education. But young men, who begin practical work as engineers soon after leaving industrial schools, are in a particularly good position both for learning administration and for showing their ability in this direction, for in administration, as in all other branches of industrial activity, a man’s work is judged by its results."

"He who understands the limits of life knows how easy it is to procure enough to remove the pain of want and make the whole life complete and perfect. Hence he has no longer any need of things which are not to be won save by labor and conflict."

"Personally, I have nothing against work, particularly when performed, quietly and unobtrusively, by someone else. I just don't happen to think it's an appropriate subject for an "ethic.""

"The costs of production of labor consist of precisely the quantity of means of subsistence necessary to enable the worker to continue working, and to prevent the working class from dying out. The worker will therefore get no more for his labor than is necessary for this purpose; the price of labor, or the wage, will, in other words, be the lowest, the minimum, required for the maintenance of life."

"The capitalists soon had everything in their hands and nothing remained to the workers."

"There have always been poor and working classes; and the working class have mostly been poor. But there have not always been workers and poor people living under conditions as they are today."

"The only difference as compared with the old, outspoken slavery is this, that the worker of today seems to be free because he is not sold once for all, but piecemeal by the day, the week, the year, and because no one owner sells him to another, but he is forced to sell himself in this way instead, being the slave of no particular person, but of the whole property-holding class."

"The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it."

"If A equals success, then the formula is: A equals X plus Y plus Z. X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut."

"Every individual should have the opportunity to develop the gifts which may be latent in him. Alone in that way can the individual obtain the satisfaction to which he is justly entitled; and alone in that way can the community achieve its richest flowering. For everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom."

"When modern men and women insist that they feel completely free in their work, they are in a sense telling the truth, for the triumph of conformity lies in the crushing of all resistance, all experience of conflict."

"I owe my success to the fact that I never had a clock in my workroom. Seventy-five of us worked twenty hours every day and slept only four hours — and thrived on it. An hardwork can make you to have a successfull future.There can be many fails maybe in our life but have to ready to face it for a hardworked work."

"Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing."

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."

"The grinders cease because they are few."

"For what profit comes to mortals from all the toil and anxiety of heart with which they toil under the sun? Every day sorrow and grief are their occupation; even at night their hearts are not at rest. This also is vanity."

"All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing."

"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."

"Arbeit macht frei."

"No job is ugly, unless it's made ugly by the person doing it."

"Workingmen of the country ... toil for a pittance at the pleasure of their masters and are bludgeoned, jailed or shot when they protest — this is the central, controlling, vital issue of the hour, and neither of the old party platforms has a word or even a hint about it."

"Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work."

"To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lonely labor, to be given a chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy."

"I spent a busy day today, but got little done. This is because I am at last becoming perfect in the art of seeming busy, even when very little is going on in my head or under my hands. This is an art which every man learns, if he does not intend to work himself to death."

"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."

"I believe that every employee, from the CEO suite to the factory floor, contributes to a business’ success, so everybody should share in the rewards – especially those putting in long hours for little pay."

"If you work hard, you do your part, you should be able to give your children all the opportunities they deserve. That is the basic bargain of America."

"Workers, the most absolutely necessary part of the whole social structure, without whose services none can either eat, or clothe, or shelter himself, are just the ones who get the least to eat, to wear, and to be housed withal — to say nothing of their share of the other social benefits which the rest of us are supposed to furnish, such as education and artistic gratification."