“Do you shovel to survive, or survive to shovel?”

— Kóbó Abe, book The Woman in the Dunes

Source: The Woman in the Dunes

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Kóbó Abe16

Japanese writer, playwright, photographer and inventor 1924–1993

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“You gentlemen may laugh, but that is true, all right; it sounds ridiculous, I know, but it is fact. Now if the problem were put up to any of you man to develop science of shoveling as it was put up to us, that is, to a group of men who had deliberately set out to develop the science of all kinds of all laboring work, where do you think you would begin? When you started to study the science of shoveling I make the assertion that you would be within two days – just as we were in two days –well on the way toward development of the science of shoveling. At least you would outlined in your minds those elements which required careful, scientific study in order to understand science of shoveling. I do not want to go into all of the details of shoveling, but I will give you some of the elements, one or two of the most important elements of the science of shoveling; that is, the elements that reach further and have more serious consequences than any other. Probably the most important element in the science of shoveling is this: There must be some shovel load at which a first-class shoveler will do his biggest day’s work. What is that load? To illustrate: when we went to the Bethlehem Steel Works and observed the shoveler in the yard of that company, we found that each of the good shovelers in that yard owned his own shovel; they preferred to buy their own shovels rather than to have the company furnish them. There was a larger tonnage of ore shoveled in that woks than of any other material and rice coal came next in tonnage. We would see a first-class shoveler go from shoveling rice coal with a load of 3.5 ponds to the shovel to handling ore from the Massaba Range, with 38 pounds to the shove Now, is 3.5 pounds the proper shovel load or is the 38 pounds the proper load? They cannot both be right. Under scientific management the answer to this question is not a matter of anyone’s opinion; it is a question for accurate, careful, scientific investigation.”

Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856–1915) American mechanical engineer and tennis player

Source: Testimony of Frederick W. Taylor... 1912, p. 111.

“What I can offer you is no different than a shovel. You’ve got the gold mine, and all I’m offering you is the shovel. What does a shovel do? It allows you to dig for the gold. It allows you an access. There are very particular techniques that I am talking about, and from there, you can have an experience is beautiful, an experience that is soothing. That’s all.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Melbourne, Australia March 26, 1985
1980s

“I dare say that most of you gentlemen know that a good many pig-iron handlers can never learn to shovel right; the ordinary pig-iron handler is not the type of man well suited to shoveling. He is to stupid; there is too much mental strain, too much knack required of a shoveled for the pig-iron handler to take kindly to shoveling.”

Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856–1915) American mechanical engineer and tennis player

Source: Testimony of Frederick W. Taylor... 1912, p. 111.

“Never use needle for shoveling. Needle is for sewing and shovel is for harvesting. Therefore, when you leave a job to your hands, look at their capabilities and scales and so keep in mind that shovel can be used for many different things, but its main usage is to feed the air into the land.”

Elia M. Ramollah (1973) founder and leader of the El Yasin Community

The Great Master of Thought (Amen- Vol.3), Observing management

“Start with a shovel, wind up with a spoon”

Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970) American musician, singer and songwriter

Rolling Stone Magazine interview, March 1970 http://crosstowntorrents.org/archive/index.php/t-1112.html

“Should I get you a shovel, so you can dig that hole deeper?”

Rick Riordan book The Hammer of Thor

Source: The Hammer of Thor

“Sure the shovel and tongs
To each other belongs.”

Samuel Lover (1797–1868) Irish song-writer, novelist, and painter

Widow Machree, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“Lawyers spend their professional careers shoveling smoke.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) United States Supreme Court justice

Attributed in Watergate and the White House, Volumes 1-2 (1973) by Edward W. Knappman, p. 100; this has also become paraphrased as "Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke".
Attributions

“If you don't have a big enough shovel, you get some friends to help you.”

Paul MacCready (1925–2007) American aeronautical engineer

Paul MacCready Interview http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/mac0int-1, Engineer of the Century, January 12, 1991, Pasadena, California <br class="br">Context: If you want to move mountains, you just go move mountains. If you don't have a big enough shovel, you get some friends to help you. If you have the enthusiasm to charge ahead, you can do all sorts of things. Some things you can't do. You can't invent a perpetual motion machine. You've got to select your targets. But people can do so much more than they realize.

“Students, eh? Love 'em or hate 'em, you can't hit them with a shovel!”

Terry Pratchett book Making Money

Source: Making Money

“Do you shovel to survive, or survive to shovel?”

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Kóbó Abe16

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