Back To Work quotes
page 2
“It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.”
“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing.”
Source: Moby-Dick or, The Whale
“The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.”
Source: The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People (1989), p. 161
“A girl doesn't need anyone who doesn't need her”
Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before
“People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.”
Dale Carnegie, quoted in Permission to Play : Taking Time to Renew Your Smile (2003) by Jill Murphy Long, p. 69
“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.”
As quoted in Conquering an Enemy Called Average (1996) by John L. Mason
Reddit IAmA (c. April 2012) http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/s2uh1/i_am_joss_whedon_ama/c4ao0m1
Source: Frankenstein
“We never can just stop time. Or take moments back. Life doesn't work that way, does it?”
Source: Oceans of Fire
Source: The Way of All Flesh (1903), Ch. 14
Context: Every man’s work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself, and the more he tries to conceal himself the more clearly will his character appear in spite of him.
“Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”
Variant: Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there.
“Any damn fool can beg up some kind of job; it takes a wise man to make it without working.”
Source: Post Office (1971)
“A year from now you may wish you had started today.”
“When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: 'Whose?”
“If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.”
“Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit.”
206
“Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.”
Variant: Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.
“It’s life. You don’t figure it out. You just climb up on the beast and ride.”
Source: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
“It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.”
As quoted in "Ali's Quotes" at BBC Sport : Boxing (17 January 2007)
“There is no such thing as a good tax.”
The correct attribution is Oklahoma Senator Thomas Gore, in his speech to the National Tax Association in 1935.. Though it is often attributed to Churchill, there is no evidence he ever said it.
Misattributed
Variant: There is no such thing as a good tax.
Source: http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/there_is_no_such_thing_as_a_good_tax/
Source: http://newspaperarchive.com/san-antonio-express/1935-10-17/page-2
“Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work.”
Soyez réglé dans votre vie et ordinaire comme un bourgeois, afin d'être violent et original dans vos œuvres. To Gertrude Tennant (December 25, 1876)
Correspondence
Variant: Be regular and orderly in your life like a bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work.
Source: In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead
“Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for.”
Source: Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now
“Go and get your things,' he said. 'Dreams mean work.”
Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
As quoted in Conversations with Maya Angelou (1989) by Jeffrey M. Elliot
“When they give you lined paper, write the other way.”
Misattributed
Variant: If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.
Source: Epigraph, in Fahrenheit 451 a translation of a statement by Juan Ramón Jiménez
“Silence is a true friend who never betrays.”
“The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.”
Source: Things Fall Apart (1958), Chapter 3 (p. 27)
Oh, the Places You'll Go! (1990)
Source: Oh, The Places You'll Go!
“If they give you lined paper, write the other way.”
Source: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
“I have been bent and broken, but -I hope- into a better shape.”
“In matters of style, swim with the current: in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”
As quoted in Careertracking: 26 success Shortcuts to the Top (1988) by James Calano and Jeff Salzman; though used in an address by Bill Clinton (31 March 1997), and sometimes cited to Notes on the State of Virginia (1787) no earlier occurence of this has yet been located.
Disputed
“It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste”
“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people.”
Source: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
“It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong.”
“Write it. Shoot it. Publish it. Crochet it, sauté it, whatever. MAKE.”
“The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.”
Illusions : The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)
“Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.”
“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”
This phrase was created by reporter Sharon Begley in the end of a 1977 Newsweek article with an extended profile of Carl Sagan. It was a final conclusion about Sagan's work and the topic of hypotethical extra-terrestrial life forms. "Quote Investigator" http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/18/incredible/
Misattributed
“Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”
Source: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
“When given an opportunity, deliver excellence and never quit.”
Source: Rebel Without a Crew, or How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker With $7,000 Became a Hollywood Player
“Education costs money, but then so does ignorance.”
The Daily Telegraph, 21 August 1990 http://www2.gsu.edu/~dscthw/8350/bayes/perfinfo.pdf
“The business of business is business.”
Widely attributed to Milton Friedman, and sometimes cited as being in his work Capitalism and Freedom (1962) this is also attributed to Alfred P. Sloan, sometimes with citation of a statement of 1964, but sometimes with attestations to his use of it as a motto as early as 1923.
Disputed
As quoted in Become a Conscious Creator: A Return to Self-Empowerment (2007) by Lisa Ford, p. 44
“They can because they think they can.”
Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book V, p. 153
“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
Misattributed to Confucius since at least 1985; correct origins are dubious, as mentioned in "Choose a Job You Love, and You Will Never Have To Work a Day in Your Life" at QuoteInvestigator.com (2 September 2014) http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/09/02/job-love/: the oldest English-language use of the proverb has been found in Woolfolk, Ann, "Toshiko Takaezu," Princeton Alumni Weekly, Vol. 83(5), 6 October 1982, p. 32: "Find something you love to do and you’ll never have to work a day in your life." (attributed to Arthur Szathmary, who attributes it, in his turn, to an unnamed source).
Misattributed, Not Chinese
“Each man had only one genuine vocation — to find the way to himself”
Source: Demian (1919), p. 193
“Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work.”
Nil sine magno
vita labore dedit mortalibus.
Book I, satire ix, line 59
Satires (c. 35 BC and 30 BC)
“The harder I work, the luckier I get.”
Originated with Samuel Goldwyn as a paraphrase of a proverb from a collection by Coleman Cox, but similar proverbs have existed since the 16th century. http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/07/21/luck-hard-work/
Misattributed
“There is zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.”
Downey, Maureen (interviewer), "Teaching introverts: Do schools prefer big talkers to big thinkers?", The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 5, 2016.
“Success is a state of mind. If you want success, start thinking of yourself as a success.”
As quoted in The Pocket Philosopher/ Psychologist (2004) by Mark J. Merten, p. 87
“The business of business is business.”
Widely attributed to Friedman, and sometimes cited as being in his work Capitalism and Freedom (1962) this is also attributed to Alfred P. Sloan, sometimes with citation of a statement of 1964, but sometimes with attestations to his use of it as a motto as early as 1923.
Disputed
Hays translation
At dawn of day, when you dislike being called, have this thought ready: "I am called to man's labour; why then do I make a difficulty if I am going out to do what I was born to do and what I was brought into the world for?(Farquharson translation)
Ὄρθρου, ὅταν δυσόκνως ἐξεγείρῃ, πρόχειρον ἔστω ὅτι ἐπὶ ἀνθρώπου ἔργον ἐγείρομαι· ἔτι οὖν δυσκολαίνω, εἰ πορεύομαι ἐπὶ τὸ ποιεῖν ὧν ἕνεκεν γέγονα καὶ ὧν χάριν προῆγμαι εἰς τὸν κόσμον; ἢ ἐπὶ τοῦτο κατεσκεύασμαι, ἵνα κατακείμενος ἐν στρωματίοις ἐμαυτὸν θάλπω;
V, 1
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book V
Hopper quoted this from Ralph Waldo Emerson's book Self Reliance, the book he loved throughout his life
1941 - 1967
Source: 'How Edward Hopper Saw the Light', by Joseph Phelan, at Artcyclopedia online
“The harder I work, the luckier I get.”
Source: Disrupt You! (2015), p.151
“There are things worth fighting for.”
Rand al'Thor
(15 October 1994)
This is presented as a statement of 1877, as quoted in From Telegraph to Light Bulb with Thomas Edison (2007) by Deborah Headstrom-Page, p. 22.
1800s
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
As quoted in An Enemy Called Average (1990) by John L. Mason, p. 55.
Date unknown
“Be silent and safe—silence never betrays you.”
Rules of the Road.
Bell Telephone Talk (1901)
“This is the thing that I was born to do.”
Musophilus (1599), Stanza 100, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.”
From "Self-Portrait" (1972)
Truman Capote: Conversations (1987)
“They can because they think they can.”
Possunt, quia posse videntur.
Source: Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book V, Line 231 (tr. John Conington)
“This is the challenge facing modern man.”
"Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution" (31 March 1968)
1960s
Context: On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" But Conscience asks the question "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right. I believe today that there is a need for all people of good will to come together with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "We ain't goin' study war no more." This is the challenge facing modern man.
“Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.”
This evokes Will Durant's famous summation of Aristotle: "Excellence then is not an act, but a habit."
2000s, The Powell Principles (2003)
Context: If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.
“I look back on my life like a good day's work, it was done and I am satisfied with it.”
Grandma Moses : My Life's History (1951)
Context: I have written my life in small sketches, a little today, a little yesterday, as I have thought of it, as I remember all the things from childhood on through the years, good ones, and unpleasant ones, that is how they come out and that is how we have to take them.
I look back on my life like a good day's work, it was done and I am satisfied with it. I was happy and contented, I knew nothing better and made the best out of what life offered. And life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.
“But these are the people who never get it.”
"I want everything" http://home.earthlink.net/~2lulah2/everything.htm in What I Want from Life (1934) edited by Edmund George Cousins, p. 108
Context: I don’t know what I want.
Nobody knows — or if they do, they don’t know for long. I mean, you don’t want the same thing long enough for it to be What You Want From Life in capital letters.
Well, maybe some people do. Maybe there's a few simple folks — or maybe a few million, I don't know — who fix their hearts, and their minds, and their everlasting souls on a thing, and keep on all their lives hoping for it. Living for it. Wanting It From Life.
But these are the people who never get it.
“So these are changes that are important.”
Donovan: "We are all one shining Being" (1998)
Context: Today I can’t comment on what the problem is in China, Russia, or Africa without realizing again and again the Diamond Sutra, which says that we look at the world and see it as separate but in fact, this is an illusion, but the reality is that we are one shining being. Until this can be understood, I can’t see any change. But I see some change now. There is a world consciousness. In the "old" New Age, they talked about the Age of Aquarius being an age of enlightenment. And now when a man goes to the moon he sees the earth. Before when someone did meditation he or she could meditate on the earth and the moon but now a man and a woman can see that we are on one planet and that the water is polluted and that the air is dirty. So these are changes that are important. But when we spoke about these things in the 60s people said we were dreamers.
“Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”
“No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.”
“The harder I work, the luckier I get.”
It was Thomas Jefferson who started the stream of variations on that theme. He should have added, 'The harder I work on one thing, the unluckier I get on all the other commitments I haven’t had time for'.
Lean Logic, (2016), p. 472, entry on Time Fallacies http://www.flemingpolicycentre.org.uk/lean-logic-surviving-the-future/
Source: Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't
“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.”