Quotes about work

A collection of quotes on the topic of work, working, doing, people.

Henry Ford quote: “Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.”

Albert Einstein quote: “Genius is 1% talent and 99% percent hard work…”

+ 4 quotes

Aristotle quote: “Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.”

John Irving quote: “It is hard work and great art to make life not so serious.”

James Hudson Taylor quote: “Work is the outcome of effort; fruit, of life.”

Jair Bolsonaro quote: “So what? I'm sorry. What do you want me to do? My name's Messiah, but I can't work miracles.”

Quotes about work

“I think that a literary work should not be a piece of spit thrown onto the road.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: Interview. "No más cuentos para princesas".

Thinking

“That work pride, that ridiculous work pride has put an end to his illusions, with those few illusions that he still had since at school they promised him a magnificent future just for entering university.”

José Baroja book No fue un catorce de febrero y otros cuentos

School, Future, Universe

“Before becoming godín, Jaime worked for a miserable 79 mexican pesos an hour as a subject professor in one of the many universities in Guadalajara; very little for any future aspirations and very little for any present aspirations.”

José Baroja book Sueño en Guadalajara y otros cuentos

Future, Universe

““Godín”, is said in Mexico of the office worker from nine to eighteen hours or of any other employee to whom his immediate boss says, during his first day of work and with all the naturalness in the world: “Welcome. From today, your body and soul belong to us.”

José Baroja book Sueño en Guadalajara y otros cuentos

Soul, World, Nature

“If I can't do it, I will work on it until I can. If I become able to do it, I will work on it until I can do it perfectly. If I become able to do it perfectly, I will work on it until I can do it perfectly any number of times.”

Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)

Annotation: It's unclear, whether this quote is from Hanyu himself or based on a commercial script, but it's commonly attributed to him.
Original: (ja) できなかったら、できるまでやる。できるようになったら、完璧にできるまでやる。完璧にできるようになったら、何度でも、完璧にできるまでやる。
Source: Attributed, Lines from a TV commercial for 味の素アミノバイタル (AJINOMOTO amino VITAL), released on 1 October 2014, as quoted in フィギュアスケート14-15シーズン序盤号, published on 15 November 2014 by 日刊スポーツ新聞社 (Nikkan Sports News).

Time

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

love, Love, Life, People

“To achieve this, we have to distinctively promote continuing and lifelong education, the form of education which is responsive to individual needs and preferences. With educational facilities and a variety of educational programs available, people can make use of the learning centre as a place to acquire technical skills or knowledge adaptive to their work and daily life activities.”

Sukavich Rangsitpol (1935) Thai politician

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001221/122102Eo.pdf Page53-56
Education for All People and Education for Life

Life, People, Education, Knowledge

“We cannot deny that people who know more about the educational needs of local people are those who work and live within that community.”

Sukavich Rangsitpol (1935) Thai politician

All for Education
Source: :http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001221/122102Eo.pdf Page53-56

People, Education, Communication

“Great things come from hard work and perseverance. No excuses.”

Kobe Bryant (1978–2020) American basketball player

Perseverance

“What I do when I write is that I'll do a raggedy, rough version just to hear the chorus, just to see how much I like the chorus. If it works for me that way when it's raggedy, then I'll know it will just work… Listen to that, that's at home. Janet, Randy, Me… Janet and I are going "Whoo, Whoo… Whoo, Whoo…" I do that same process with every song. It's the melody, it's the melody that's most important, If the melody can sell me, then I'll go to the next step. The idea is to transcribe from what's in your mentality onto tape. If you take a song like "Billie Jean," Where the bass line is the prominent, dominant piece, the protagonist of the song, the main driving riff that you hear, getting the character of the riff to be just the way you want it to be, that takes a lot of time. Listen, you're hearing four basses on there, doing four different personalities, and that's what gives it character, but it takes a lot of work.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

On listening to an early version of Billie Jean on an iPhone
Ebony interview (2007)

Way, Home, Idea, Time

“Everyone should consider his
body as a priceless gift from
one whom he loves above all, a
marvelous work of art, of
indescribable beauty, and
mystery beyond human conception, and so delicate that
a word, a breath, a look, nay, a
thought may injure it.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Love, Beauty, Art

“You gotta make a change. Its time for us as a people to start making some changes, lets change the way we eat, lets change the way we live, and lets change the way we treat each other. You see the old way wasn't working so its on us, to do what we gotta do to survive.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

People, Way, Change, Time

“Let it go, you've got to forget about revenge. Believe me, in this work I've met a lot of guys who feel the way you do. Trust me, for those who follow the path of revenge, it never ends well. You'll only tear yourself apart and even if you succeed with your revenge, what would you have then... nothing, emptiness.”

Hatake Kakashi book Naruto

To Sasuke

Forgetting, Feeling, Revenge, Way

“I put my heart and soul into my work, and I have lost my mind in the process.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Soul, Heart

“My methods are really methods of working and thinking; this is why they have crept in everywhere anonymously.”

Emmy Noether (1882–1935) German mathematician

Letter to Helmut Hasse (1931) as quoted in Auguste Dick, Emmy Noether, 1882-1935 (1981) Tr. H. I. Blocher, p. 61.

Thinking

“Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.”

Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist

Variant: Coming together is the beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.

For Team, Leadership, Success

“Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

Sometimes credited to Jack Kerouac, from his book The Dharma Bums. It is not a quote by Kerouac. It first appeared as a very brief description of The Dharma Bums in Esquire's list of "The 80 Best Books Every Man Should Read" in 2010: http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/g96/80-books/?slide=71. It was later copied by Kilburn Hall in his list of 30 "Books and Authors Every Man Should Read" which he first posted online in 2012: https://kilburnhall.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/the-books-and-authors-every-man-should-read/
Misattributed

Mountain, Time

“Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

Zen Masters : The Wisdom of Frank Zappa (2003)

People, Communication

“The damned thing works! (telegram, on the first successful television broadcast)”

Philo Farnsworth (1906–1971) American inventor

George Everson Official Website of Philo Farnsworth https://www.cmgww.com/historic/farnsworth/

Success

“I obtained scientific guidance and stimulation mainly through personal mathematical contacts in Erlangen and in Göttingen. Above all I am indebted to Mr. E. Fischer from whom I received the decisive impulse to study abstract algebra from an arithmetical viewpoint, and this remained the governing idea for all my later work.”

Emmy Noether (1882–1935) German mathematician

Mathematics, Idea, Decision, Study

“It is so hard to get things done in this world. You try and too often it doesn't work. But you have to continue. And you never give up. ”

Malala Yousafzai (1997) Pakistani children's education activist

World

“People always said that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

Rosa Parks (1913–2005) African-American civil rights activist

Rosa Parks: My Story, p. 116, Rosa Parks and James Haskins (1992)

People

“The secret of getting successful work out of your trained men lies in one nutshell—in the clearness of the instructions they receive.”

Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement

Training, Men, Secret, Success

“in the swastika, the mission of the struggle for the victory of the Aryan man, and, by the same token, the victory of the idea of creative work.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Idea, Victory

“After being hurt by the world so much, they began to see the demons within humans. So without hiding it through trickery, they worked to express it.”

Osamu Dazai book No Longer Human

Source: No Longer Human

World, Hurt

“A mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it is not open.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

“It is an acknowledged fact that we perceive errors in the work of others more readily than in our own.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Error

“Poor and working people in this country are sent to kill poor and working people in other country to make the rich richer. Without racism, soldiers would realize that they have more in common with the Iraqi people than they do with the billionaires who send us to war.”

Michael Prysner (1983) American anti-war political activist

"Our Real Enemies"

War, People, Country

“The killing was a means to an end. That was the least satisfactory part. I didn't enjoy doing that. That's why I tried to create living zombies with uric acid in the drill [to the head], but it never worked. No, the killing was not the objective. I just wanted to have the person under my complete control, not having to consider their wishes, being able to keep them there as long as I wanted.”

Jeffrey Dahmer (1960–1994) American serial killer, cannibal and necrophile

In an interview with Stone Phillips, Dateline NBC (29 November 1994)

Parting, Personality

“One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

Variant: Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. If you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away.

Success, Deep, Love, Life

“You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.”

Marie Curie (1867–1934) French-Polish physicist and chemist

Pierre Curie (1923), as translated by Charlotte Kellogg and Vernon Lyman Kellogg, p. 168

World, Hope, Thinking, Time

“The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Deep, Future

“Nature is my manifestation of God.
I go to nature every day for inspiration in the day's work.”

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American architect (1867-1959)

God, Nature

“If I die in Atlanta my work shall then only begin, but I shall live, in the physical or spiritual to see the day of Africa’s glory.”

Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) Jamaica-born British political activist, Pan-Africanist, orator, and entrepreneur

Source: Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“I just like having fun. It's a very good release, rock music, but you know you say that I am a different person on stage and that same thing could be said of anyone going out to do his job. It's my work, and I'm very serious about it, getting it right - when we began, we approached it the way we did because we were not prepared to be out-of-work musicians, ever. We said either take it on as a serious commodity or don't do it at all.”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

"The Man Who Would Be Queen" in Melody Maker (2 May 1981) http://www.queenarchives.com/index.php?title=Freddie_Mercury_-_05-02-1981_-_Melody_Maker.

Music, Way, Personality

“Life is suffering, and suffering can make you resentful, murderous, and then genocidal, if you take it far enough. So you need an antidote to suffering. And maybe you think that you can build walls of luxury around yourself, and that that will protect you from the suffering. Good luck with that. That isn't going to work. Maybe you think that you could build a delusion and live inside that. Well, that's going to fall apart. What is there, then, that's going to help you fight against suffering? That's easy: It's the Truth. The Truth is the antidote to suffering. The reason for that is because the Truth puts reality behind you, so that you can face the reality that's coming straight at you without becoming weak and degenerating and becoming resentful and wishing for the destruction of Being, because that's the final Hell. The final Hell is your soul wishing for the destruction of everything, because it's too painful, and you're too bitter. And that happens to people all the time.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

Life, Pain, People, Truth

“Just as I was starting on my journey the idea came to me for a new symphony, this time with a program, but a program which will remain an enigma to all— let them guess it who can. It will be called "A Programmatic Symphony" (No. 6). During my trip, while composing in my mind, I frequently shed tears. When I got home I settled down to sketch it, and the work went so furiously that I had the first movement completely ready in less than four days and the remaining movements are already clearly outlined in my head. Half the third movement is already done. There will be much innovation of form in this symphony— and incidentally, the finale will not be a noisy allegro but, on the contrary, a long drawn-out adagio. You can't imagine what bliss I feel, being convinced that my time is not yet passed and I can still work. Perhaps, of course, I'm mistaken, but I don't think so.”

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) Russian composer

Letter to a nephew (late February 1893)

Feeling, Home, Imagination, Idea

“We must not forget that when radium was discovered no one knew that it would prove useful in hospitals. The work was one of pure science. And this is a proof that scientific work must not be considered from the point of view of the direct usefulness of it. It must be done for itself, for the beauty of science, and then there is always the chance that a scientific discovery may become like the radium a benefit for humanity.”

Marie Curie (1867–1934) French-Polish physicist and chemist

Lecture at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York (14 May 1921)

Beauty, Science, Chance, Forgetting

“Now, O son of God, set in the valley of true humility, walk in peace without pride of spirit, which, like a precipitous mountain, offers a difficult, or near-impossible, ascent or descent to those who attempt to scale it, and on its summit no building can be built. For a person who tries to climb higher than he can achieve possesses the name of sanctity without substance, because, in name alone without a structure of good works, he glories in a kind of vain joy of the mind.”

Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) Medieval saint, prophetise, mystic and Doctor of Church

Letter to the Monk Guibert, 1176

God, Peace, Mountain, Joy

“Hard work and training. There's no secret formula. I lift heavy, work hard and aim to be the best.”

Ronnie Coleman (1964) American bodybuilder

Herald Sun staff (October 13, 2006) "A good life, naturally", Herald Sun, p. 017.

Secret, Training

“The people's community must not be a mere phrase, but a revolutionary achievement following from the radical carrying out of the basic life needs of the working class. A ruthless battle against corruption! A war against exploitation, freedom for the workers! The elimination of all economic-capitalist influences on national policy. Maintaining a rotten economic system has nothing to do with nationalism, which is an affirmation of the Fatherland. The sin of liberal thinking was to overlook socialism’s nation-building strengths, thereby allowing its energies to go in anti-national directions.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/haken32.htm “Those Damn Nazis: Why Are We Socialists?”

Written by Joseph Goebbels and Mjölnir, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (Munich: Verlag Frz. Eher (1932). “Those Damned Nazis,” (Nazi propaganda pamphlet).
1930s

Life, War, Freedom, Communication

“Researchers find it very necessary to keep blinkers on. They don't want to admit that the animals they are working with have feelings.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

" An Interview with Jane Goodall https://web.archive.org/web/20100920074838/http://www.idausa.org:80/essays/goodallinterview.html", In Defense of Animals (date unknown) Context: Researchers find it very necessary to keep blinkers on. They don't want to admit that the animals they are working with have feelings. They don't want to admit that they might have minds and personalities because that would make it quite difficult for them to do what they do; so we find that within the lab communities there is a very strong resistance among the researchers to admitting that animals have minds, personalities and feelings.

Feeling, Animals

“Smiling makes me feel weak and not in control and not powerful and small. Writing a song is so personal. You have to have trust in someone you're working with; otherwise, you're not gonna come out with something that's really you.”

Billie Eilish (2001) American singer-songwriter

Source: https://www.wmagazine.com/story/billie-eilish-new-ep/

Personality, Making love, Smile, Feeling

“The new kind of music seems to create not from the heart but from the head. Its composers think rather than feel. They have not the capacity to make their works exalt - they meditate, protest, analyze, reason, calculate and brood, but they do not exalt.”

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) Russian composer, pianist, and conductor

Music, Feeling, Thinking, Heart

“Preparation for tomorrow is hard work today.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Back To Work

“I had given up my seat before, but this day, I was especially tired. Tired from my work as a seamstress, and tired from the ache in my heart.”

Rosa Parks (1913–2005) African-American civil rights activist

Heart

“Everybody has talent, but ability takes hard work.”

Michael Jordan (1963) American retired professional basketball player and businessman

“If it were not for the depressing heat and the urgency of the work, one could sit down and laugh to tears at the absurdity of the thing, and under the circumstances it is a little wearing. But our motto is the old west coast proverb,; in other words, don't flurry; patience gains the day.”

Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement

Tear, Patience

“Establishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war.”

Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician

Peaceful, War, Education, Peace

“Should you seek might, power, false honor, excess — seek that we would work for you to provide your temporal advantages — we will bring you as close to the throne as you wish, and then turn you over to the consequences of your folly, but our inner sanctuary remains closed to such. But should you want to learn wisdom — want to learn to make mankind more clever, better, free and happy — then be thrice welcomed by us.”

Adam Weishaupt (1748–1830) German philosopher and founder of the Order of Illuminati

Die neuesten Arbeiten des Spartacus und Philo in dem Illuminaten-Orden (1794) pp. 9-10.

Wisdom, Learning, Falseness, Happiness

“Jesus was a great worker, and His disciples must not be afraid of hard work.”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 128.

“We will find them anywhere on the planet and punish them. Our Air Force’s military work in Syria must not simply be continued. It must be intensified in such a way that the criminals understand that vengeance is inevitable.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

2015-11-17, vowing to retaliate against the Islamic militants responsible for the destruction of a Russian airliner over the Sinai on October 31, 2015. Tribune India, http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/russians-up-strikes-in-french-fury/159736.html (17 November 2015) 2011 - 2015

Way, Understanding

“The foundation is in place, and now we have to get to work.”

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (1945) Brazilian politician, 35th president of Brazil

" Profile: Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5346744.stm" in news.bbc.co.uk, October 29, 2006: About his second term as president

“Just as the various trades are most highly developed in large cities, in the same way food at the palace is prepared in a far superior manner. In small towns the same man makes couches, doors, plows and tables, and often he even builds houses, and still he is thankful if only he can find enough work to support himself. And it is impossible for a man of many trades to do all of them well. In large cities, however, because many make demands on each trade, one alone is enough to support a man, and often less than one: for instance one man makes shoes for men, another for women, there are places even where one man earns a living just by mending shoes, another by cutting them out, another just by sewing the uppers together, while there is another who performs none of these operations but assembles the parts, Of necessity, he who pursues a very specialised task will do it best.”

Xenophon book Cyropaedia

Cyropaedia, 4th Century BC

Women, Men, Food, Shoe

“I'm very happy, very delighted.... for I am surrounded here by all that I love. I spent my time out of doors.... and naturally I'm working all the time, and I think this year I'm going to do some serious things. And then in the evening, dear fellow, I come home to my little cottage to find a good fire and a dear little family... Dear friend, it's a delight to watch this person [his first son Jean, born in 1867] grow, and I am glad to have him to be sure…”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

in a letter to Frédéric Bazille: as cited by K.E. Sullivan. Monet: Discovering Art, Brockhampton press, London (2004), p. 22
1850 - 1870

Love, Family, Home, Nature

“I have succeeded in proving; and what I consider more important, there have been opened up to this vast and most excellent science, of which my work is merely the beginning, ways and means by which other minds more acute than mine will explore its remote corners.”

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer

Author, Third Day. Change of Position
Dialogues and Mathematical Demonstrations Concerning Two New Sciences (1638)
Context: It has been observed that missiles and projectiles describe a curved path of some sort; however no one has pointed out the fact that this path is a parabola. But this and other facts, not few in number or less worth knowing, I have succeeded in proving; and what I consider more important, there have been opened up to this vast and most excellent science, of which my work is merely the beginning, ways and means by which other minds more acute than mine will explore its remote corners.

Way, Science

“It is quite certain that in seeing the people who treat us so well despite their own misfortune, we are more obliged than ever to work hard for their happiness.”

Marie Antoinette book Let them eat cake

After learning of the bread shortages that were occurring in Paris at the time of Louis XVI's coronation in Rheims, as quoted in Marie Antoinette: The Journey (2001) by Antonia Fraser, p. 135 . Tradition persists that Marie Antoinette joked "Let them eat cake!" (Qu'ils mangent de la brioche.) This phrase, however, occurs in a passage of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions, written in 1766, when Marie Antoinette was 11 years old and four years before her marriage to Louis XVI. Cf. The Straight Dope http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_334.html, "On Language" http://partners.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20000625mag-onlanguage.html by William Safire at The New York Times, and in the discussions at Google groups http://groups.google.com/group/alt.talk.royalty/msg/6a7b76d15c411368?dmode=source. Context: It is quite certain that in seeing the people who treat us so well despite their own misfortune, we are more obliged than ever to work hard for their happiness. The king seems to understand this truth; as for myself, I know that in my whole life (even if I live for a hundred years) I shall never forget the day of the coronation.

People, Happiness

“You have to fight to reach your dream. You have to sacrifice and work hard for it.”

Lionel Messi (1987) Argentine association football player

Fight, Dreams

“Do not wait; the time will never be "just right." Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.”

Napoleon Hill book Think and Grow Rich

Variant: Do not wait: the time will never be 'just right'. Start where you stand, and work whatever tools you may have at your command and better tools will be found as you go along.
Source: Think and Grow Rich (1938), p. 127
Context: Do not wait; the time will never be "just right." Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.

Success, Motivational, Business, Powerful

“There is something else which has the power to awaken us to the truth. It is the works of writers of genius. They give us, in the guise of fiction, something equivalent to the actual density of the real, that density which life offers us every day but which we are unable to grasp because we are amusing ourselves with lies.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

Life, Truth

“A dream doesn't become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.-Colin Powell”

Colin Powell (1937) Former U.S. Secretary of State and retired four-star general

Wise, Life, Dreams, Reality

“I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don't want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I want to live on in my apartment.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

The joke about immortality also appears in On Being Funny (1975)
In an interview in Rolling Stone magazine from April 9, 1987, Allen said "Someone once asked me if my dream was to live on in the hearts of people, and I said I would prefer to live on in my apartment."
Source: The Illustrated Woody Allen Reader (1993)

Heart, Funny

“You're mind is working at its best when you're being paranoid.
You explore every avenue and possibility of your situation
at high speed with total clarity.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

Source: Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall

Speed

“He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.”

Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) Catholic saint and founder of the Franciscan Order

This quote was actually composed by Louis Nizer, and published in his book, Between You and Me (1948).
Misattributed
Variant: He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.

Heart

“Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you; it means learning to respect and use your own brains and instincts; hence, grappling with hard work.”

Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) American poet, essayist and feminist

For women, Thinking, Learning

“It's a very frustrated feeling you get when the only people with good photos of you work are the police department.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

People, Feeling, Photo

“The richest and fullest lives attempt to achieve an inner balance between three realms: work, love and play.”

Erik H. Erikson (1902–1994) American German-born psychoanalyst & essayist

Love

“You know it's never fifty-fifty in a marriage. It's always seventy-thirty, or sixty-forty. Someone falls in love first. Someone puts someone else up on a pedestal. Someone works very hard to keep things rolling smoothly; someone else sails along for the ride.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Mercy (1996)

Love, Marriage

“The story you are about to read is a work of fiction. Nothing - and everything - about it is real.”

Todd Strasser (1950) American author of young-adult and middle grade novels

Reading

“If you knew how much work went into it, you would not call it genius.”

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet

On the paintings in the Sistine Chapel, as quoted in Speeches & Presentations Unzipped (2007) by Lori Rozakis, p. 71. Earliest known citation is a Usenet post from August 2001 https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=alt.guitar.beginner/1Vdr9hO_g_g/grDd5GE99SEJ. No source is given. Possibly a variant of the preceding longer-established quote. Disputed

“God is in everything I do and all my work glorifies Him.”

Dolly Parton (1946) American singer-songwriter and actress

God

“Communication is a skill that you can learn. It's like riding a bicycle or typing.
If you're willing to work at it, you can rapidly improve the quality of very part of your life.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

Life, Communication, Learning, Parting

“Why do we think love is a magician? Because the whole power of magic consists in love. The work of magic is the attraction of one thing by another because of a certain affinity of nature.”

Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) Italian philosopher

Love, Nature, Thinking

“When the workers of a single factory or of a single branch of industry engage in struggle against their employer or employers, is this class struggle? No, this is only a weak embryo of it. The struggle of the workers becomes a class struggle only when all the foremost representatives of the entire working class of the whole country are conscious of themselves as a single working class and launch a struggle that is directed, not against individual employers, but against the entire class of capitalists and against the government that supports that class. Only when the individual worker realizes that he is a member of the entire working class, only when he recognises the fact that his petty day-to-day struggle against individual employers and individual government officials is a struggle against the entire bourgeoisie and the entire government, does his struggle become a class struggle.”

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

Source: On the Foreign Policy of the Soviet State

Support, Country

“Let the future tell the truth and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

On patent controversies regarding the invention of Radio and other things, as quoted in "A Visit to Nikola Tesla" by Dragislav L. Petković in Politika (April 1927); as quoted in Tesla, Master of Lightning (1999) by Margaret Cheney, Robert Uth, and Jim Glenn, p. 73 ISBN 0760710058 ; also in Tesla: Man Out of Time (2001) by Margaret Cheney, p. 230 ISBN 0743215362

Truth, Future

“If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all.”

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet

Found attributed to Michelangelo in non-specialist publications as early as 1929 https://books.google.com/books?id=-0YhAQAAMAAJ&dq=If+people+knew+how+hard+I+had+to+work+to+gain+my+mastery%2C+it+would+not+seem+so+wonderful+at+all.&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=michelangelo, but no source is known. Not found in any known biography of Michelangelo. Disputed

People

“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.”

Indíra Gándhí (1917–1984) Indian politician and Prime Minister

Back To Work, People, Funny

“Happy will be those who give ear to the words of the dead. The reading of good works and the observing of their precepts.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XLV Prophecies

Reading, Dead, Happiness

“It's so overwhelming. It's almost better than winning the lottery, because you worked for it. It's like something you want all your life, but you never thought it would happen, and all of a sudden it did.”

Ronnie Coleman (1964) American bodybuilder

On his reaction being named the top professional bodybuilder in the world — reported in Nancy Kruh (October 3, 1999) "Ronnie Coleman- Nobody messes with this Arlington cop, a.k.a. Mr. Olympia", The Dallas Morning News, p. 1E.

Life

“And people say to me, they say Jesus wasn't Jewish. I say of course he was Jewish. 30 years old, single, lives with his parents. Come on! Work in his father's business, his mom thought he was God's gift! He's Jewish! Give it up!”

Robin Williams (1951–2014) American actor and stand-up comedian

Robin Williams: Live on Broadway (2002)

God, People, Moms, Business

“Don't ever give up precaution and farsightedness before attempting any work, and remember the result of negligence and nonchalance.”

Ali al-Hadi (829–868) imam

Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.78, p. 370.
General

“People who have been hardworking, tax paying, those people ought to be given an opportunity to be on a track that leads towards citizenship, and if that happened, then they wouldn't be prey to the employers who say, 'We want you because we know that you work for a salary we could not lawfully pay anyone else.”

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Interview, MSNBC, UNKNOWN DATE

People

“A work of art should express only that which elevates the soul and pleases it in a noble manner. The feeling of the artist should not overstep these limits; it is wrong to venture beyond.”

Bettina von Arnim (1785–1859) German writer

Quoted in Albert Jay Nock, Memoirs of a Superfluous Man (1943), p. 175.
Attributed

Art, Feeling, Soul

“Well it's a risk to do a movie of this calibre on a subject matter and a point in history people are not very familiar with. It's a tough subject to sell - so salary-wise you have to make sacrifices to make a certain film happen. I would have been an idiot to pass up the opportunity to work with Mr Scorsese.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

http://www.popmonk.com/actors/leonardo-dicaprio/quotes-leonardo-dicaprio.htm

People, History

“To Joseph Stalin: Stop sending people to kill me! We've already captured five of them, one of them with a bomb and another with a rifle… If you don't stop sending killers, I'll send a very fast working one to Moscow and I certainly won't have to send another.”

Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980) Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman

Robert Service, Stalin: A Biography (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005), p. 592.
Message found among the personal effects of Joseph Stalin.
Other

People

“Anybody white could take your whole self for anything that came to mind. Not just work, kill, or maim you, but dirty you. Dirty you so bad you couldn't like yourself anymore. And though she and others lived through and got over it, she could never let it happen to her own. The best things she was, was her children. Whites might dirty her all right, but not her best thing, her beautiful, magical best thing — the part of her that was clean.”

Toni Morrison book Beloved

Source: Beloved (1987), Ch. 26

Children, Beauty, Parting

“If it ever lay in my power, I will work the Cardinal as much displeasure as he has done to me”

Anne Boleyn (1501–1536) Second wife of Henry VIII of England, mother of Queen Elizabeth I of England

About her dislike of Cardinal Wolsey, "Anne Bleyn" http://www.sixwives.info/anne-boleyn.htm, quote under section "Anne Boleyn and Henry Percy", The Tudors

“On the day Billy was born, it was like walking through a mirror and everything was Technicolor. My life had been very work-orientated, and all in close-up. Once I had the family it went into sudden widescreen.”

Helena Bonham Carter (1966) British actress

Guardian interview 3 Nov 2006 http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2006/nov/03/1

Life, Family

“Earn wealth through honest and truthful work.”

Basava (1134–1196) a 12th-century Hindu philosopher, statesman, Kannada Bhakti poet of Lingayatism

Basavanna's Preachings

Truth, Wealth

“What’s the use of doing all this work if we don't get some fun out of this?”

Rosalind Franklin (1920–1958) British chemist, biophysicist, and X-ray crystallographer

As quoted by Aaron Klug, interview , 17 June 2005 http://library.cshl.edu/oralhistory/interview/scientific-experience/women-science/aaron-rosalind-franklin/

“Maybe we have to contribute ideologies to achieve the perfect utopian government. Remember, government-sponsored health care was a communist idea. Should only the rich be allowed to live long? Does that say that because a person is poor, he is a lesser human being; and doesn't deserve to live as long, because he doesn't wear a tie to work?”

Timothy McVeigh (1968–2001) American army soldier, security guard, terrorist

1990s, Letter to the Union-Sun & Journal (1992)

Health, Idea, Personality, Perfection

“You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; in just the same way, you learn to love by loving.”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

Je ne sais point de plus grande finesse pour parvenir à aimer que d'aimer, comme on apprend à étudier en étudiant, à parler en parlant, à travailler en travaillant.
Francis de Sales, quoted in Vie de saint François de Sales, évèque et prince de Genève by André Jean Marie Hamon (Librairie Victor Lecoffre, Paris, 1896), Vol. II, Book VII, Ch. V: Son amour pour Dieu
Variant of sourced quotation: Comme on apprend à étudier en étudiant, à jouer du luth en jouant, à nager en nageant; aussi apprend-on à aimer Dieu et le prochain en l'aimant. — Francis de Sales, quoted in Jean-Pierre Camus, "L'esprit du bienheureux saint François de Sales" (1641), Part I, Section 31; published in Oeuvres complètes de saint François de Sales, ed. Jean-Irénée Depéry (Berche et Tralin, Paris, 1875), Vol. I
Misattributed

Love, Way, Study, Learning

“I'm very proud of being Jewish. It means I have a good work ethic, and you get Jewish humour and you're allowed to tell Jewish jokes.”

Daniel Radcliffe (1989) English actor

Guardian interview, Saturday 4 July 2009

“Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to talk, think and act for myself — and I will obey every law or submit to the penalty.”

Chief Joseph (1840–1904) Nez Percé Chieftain

Lincoln Hall Speech (1879)

Religion, Law, Penalty, Travel

“I don't like all the attention. I think it's better to let my work do the talking.”

Shigeru Miyamoto (1952) Japanese video game designer and producer

Source: Digital Trends http://news.digitaltrends.com/featured_article58.html

Thinking

“In tomorrow's world we must all work together as hard as ever, if we're truly to be United Nations”

Isabel II do Reino Unido (1926–2022) queen of the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and head of the Commonwealth of Nations

The Queen urging nations to work together at her second address of the United Nations http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/10533451.stm

World

“Mathematics is the gate and key of the sciences. … Neglect of mathematics works injury to all knowledge, since he who is ignorant of it cannot know the other sciences or the things of this world. And what is worse, men who are thus Ignorant are unable to perceive their own ignorance and so do not seek a remedy.”

Roger Bacon book Opus Majus

cited in: Morris Kline (1969) Mathematics and the physical world. p. 1
Opus Majus, c. 1267

Men, World, Mathematics, Knowledge

“It is the perfection of God's works that they are all done with the greatest simplicity. He is the God of order and not of confusion.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

Cited in Rules for methodizing the Apocalypse, Rule 9, from a manuscript published in The Religion of Isaac Newton (1974) by Frank E. Manuel, p. 120, quoted in Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton (1983) by Richard S. Westfall, p. 326, in Fables of Mind: An Inquiry Into Poe's Fiction (1987) by Joan Dayan, p. 240, and in Everything Connects: In Conference with Richard H. Popkin (1999) by Richard H. Popkin, James E. Force, and David S. Katz, p. 124
Context: It is the perfection of God's works that they are all done with the greatest simplicity. He is the God of order and not of confusion. And therefore as they would understand the frame of the world must endeavor to reduce their knowledge to all possible simplicity, so must it be in seeking to understand these visions.

God, Perfection

“The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.”

Винс Ломбарди (1913–1970)

Motivational, Success, For Team, Heartbreaking

“Basketball isn't easy. All my life I've been striving to make myself better. It's a full time commitment. To be the best, you have to work the hardest. You have to chase what seems impossible over and over and over again, because giving up is not an option, and when you feel like you've reached your limit, it's only the beginning, that's when the time to dig deep, to find the courage to push some more, because if you've got the drive, the discipline, and the resolve to do what it takes to make yourself great, then the rewards are endless.”

LeBron James (1984) American basketball player

Courage, Time, Life, Making love