Quotes about drudgery

A collection of quotes on the topic of drudgery, world, man, life.

Quotes about drudgery

George Orwell photo

“With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.”

Max Ehrmann (1872–1945) American writer, poet, and attorney

Source: Desiderata: A Poem for a Way of Life

Stefan Zweig photo
Rainer Maria Rilke photo

“First a childhood, limitless and without
renunciation or goals. O unselfconscious joy.
Then suddenly terror, barriers, schools, drudgery,
and collapse into temptation and loss.Defiance. The one bent becomes the bender,
and thrusts upon others that which it suffered.
Loved, feared, rescuer, fighter, winner
and conqueror, blow by blow.And then alone in cold, light, open space,
yet still deep within the mature erected form,
a gasping for the clear air of the first one, the old one…Then God leaps out from behind his hiding place.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Erst eine Kindheit, grenzenlos und ohne
Verzicht und Ziel. O unbewußte Lust.
Auf einmal Schrecken, Schranke, Schule, Frohne
und Absturtz in Versuchung und Verlust.</p><p>Trotz. Der Gebogene wird selber Bieger
und rächt an anderen, daß er erlag.
Geliebt, gefürchtet, Retter, Ringer, Sieger
und Überwinder, Schlag auf Schlag.<p>Und dann allein im Weiten, Leichten, Kalten.
Doch tief in der errichteten Gestalt
ein Atemholen nach dem Ersten, Alten...</p><p>Da stürzte Gott aus seinem Hinterhalt.</p>
As translated by Cliff Crego
Imaginärer Lebenslauf (Imaginary Life Journey) (September 13, 1923)

William Wilberforce photo
Desiderius Erasmus photo

“A constant element of enjoyment must be mingled with our studies, so that we think of learning as a game rather than a form of drudgery, for no activity can be continued for long if it does not to some extent afford pleasure to the participant.”

Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, and theologian

Letter to Christian Northoff (1497), as translated in Collected Works of Erasmus (1974), p. 114

James Beard photo
Dinah Craik photo
Lewis Mumford photo
Simone de Beauvoir photo

“Work almost always has a double aspect: it is a bondage, a wearisome drudgery; but it is also a source of interest, a steadying element, a factor that helps to integrate the worker with society. Retirement may be looked upon either as a prolonged holiday or as a rejection, a being thrown on to the scrap-heap.”

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist

Pt I, Ch. 4: Old age in present-day society, p. 263
The Coming of Age (1970)

Logan Pearsall Smith photo

“The test of a vocation is the love of the drudgery it involves.”

Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) British American-born writer

Art and Letters.
Afterthoughts (1931)

Henry David Thoreau photo
William Morley Punshon photo
George Herbert photo

“A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine:
Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws,
Makes that and th' action fine.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Source: The Temple (1633), The Elixir, Lines 17-20

Samuel C. Florman photo
Lucy Lawless photo

“It took me a long time to adjust and narrow down my life. I made my shift to the mind-set … there's time for my daughter outside work and that's all. This is my new life. This is not drudgery. This is fun.”

Lucy Lawless (1968) New Zealand actress

On balancing work and family-life — reported in Barbara Yost, The Arizona Republic (April 15, 1996) "Actress Easily Conquers Role in 'Xena: Warrior Princess'", Chicago Tribune, p. 5.

Herbert Marcuse photo
Roberto Mangabeira Unger photo
Roberto Mangabeira Unger photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Vannevar Bush photo

“Men in general are very slow to enter into what is reckoned a new thing; and there seems to be a very universal as well as great reluctance to undergo the drudgery of acquiring information that seems not to be absolutely necessary.”

William Playfair (1758–1824) British mathematician, engineer and political economist

Observations on the Trade with North america, Chart V, page 29.
The Commercial and Political Atlas, 3rd Edition

Paul R. Halmos photo

“I read once that the true mark of a pro — at anything — is that he understands, loves, and is good at even the drudgery of his profession.”

Paul R. Halmos (1916–2006) American mathematician

I Want to be a Mathematician: An Automathography (1985)

Taylor Caldwell photo
Frank McCourt photo
Betty Friedan photo
Charles Lamb photo
Bernard Lown photo

“For the first time science and medicine can diminish drudgery and pain.
Only those who see the invisible can do the impossible.”

Bernard Lown (1921–2021) American cardiologist developer of the DC defibrillator and the cardioverter, as well as a recipient of the…

Though sometimes quoted as if he were author of it, the expression "Only those who see the invisible can do the impossible" is one that greatly predates Lown's use of it; it has also been attributed to Thomas Jefferson, Jesus and Mrs. Charles E. Cowman, but the earliest published expression yet located seems to have been one by American Baptist minister Rev. Robert Stuart MacArthur in Royal Messages of Cheer and Comfort Beautifully Told (1909) edited by Sarah Conger Robinson, p. 58
A Prescription for Hope (1985)
Context: We must hold fast to the dream that reason will prevail. The world today is full of anguish and dread. As great as is the danger, still greater is the opportunity. If science and technology have catapulted us to the brink of extinction, the same ingenuity has brought humankind to the boundary of an age of abundance.
Never before was it possible to feed all the hungry. Never before was it possible to shelter all the homeless. Never before was it possible to teach all the illiterates. Never before were we able to heal so many afflictions. For the first time science and medicine can diminish drudgery and pain.
Only those who see the invisible can do the impossible. But in order to do the impossible, in the words of Jonathan Schell, we ask "not for our personal survival: we ask only that we be survived. We ask for assurance that when we die as individuals, as we know we must, mankind will live on".

Herbert Hoover photo

“Some may ask where all this may lead beyond mere material progress. It leads to a release of the energies of men and women from the dull drudgery of life to a wider vision and a higher hope. It leads to the opportunity for greater and greater service, not alone from man in our own land, but from our country to the whole world. It leads to an America, healthy in body, healthy in spirit, unfettered, youthful, eager — with a vision searching beyond the farthest horizons, with an open mind, sympathetic and generous.”

Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) 31st President of the United States of America

The New Day: Campaign Speeches of Herbert Hoover (1928), Campaign speech in New York (22 October 1928)
Context: My conception of America is a land where men and women may walk in ordered freedom in the independent conduct of their occupations; where they may enjoy the advantages of wealth, not concentrated in the hands of the few but spread through the lives of all; where they build and safeguard their homes, and give to their children the fullest advantages and opportunities of American life; where every man shall be respected in the faith that his conscience and his heart direct him to follow; where a contented and happy people, secure in their liberties, free from poverty and fear, shall have the leisure and impulse to seek a fuller life.
Some may ask where all this may lead beyond mere material progress. It leads to a release of the energies of men and women from the dull drudgery of life to a wider vision and a higher hope. It leads to the opportunity for greater and greater service, not alone from man in our own land, but from our country to the whole world. It leads to an America, healthy in body, healthy in spirit, unfettered, youthful, eager — with a vision searching beyond the farthest horizons, with an open mind, sympathetic and generous.

Vladimir Lenin photo

“The Government of the proletarian dictatorship, together with the Communist Party and trade unions, is of course leaving no stone unturned in the effort to overcome the backward ideas of men and women, to destroy the old un-communist psychology. In law there is naturally complete equality of rights for men and women. And everywhere there is evidence of a sincere wish to put this equality into practice. We are bringing the women into the social economy, into legislation and government. All educational institutions are open to them, so that they can increase their professional and social capacities. We are establishing communal kitchens and public eating-houses, laundries and repairing shops, nurseries, kindergartens, children’s homes, educational institutes of all kinds. In short, we are seriously carrying out the demand in our programme for the transference of the economic and educational functions of the separate household to society. That will mean freedom for the woman from the old household drudgery and dependence on man. That enables her to exercise to the full her talents and her inclinations. The children are brought up under more favourable conditions than at home.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

As quoted by Clara Zetkin in "Lenin on the Women’s Question", My Memorandum Book https://www.marxists.org/archive/zetkin/1920/lenin/zetkin1.htm, 1920.
Attributions

Vera Stanley Alder photo