Quotes about work
page 45

Robert P. George photo
George W. Bush photo
Frances Kellor photo

“Then the war came, intensifying the native nationalistic sense of every race in the world. We found alien enemies in spirit among the native-born children of the foreign-born in America; we found old stirrings in the hearts of men, even when they were naturalized citizens, and a desire to take part in the world struggle, not as Americans, but as Jugo-Slavs or Czecho-Slovaks. We found belts and stockings stuffed with gold to be taken home, when peace should be declared, by men who will go back to work out their destinies in a land they thought never to see again. We found strong racial groups in America split into factions and bitterly arraigned against one another. We found races opposing one another because of prejudices and hatreds born hundreds of years ago thousands of miles away. We awoke to the fact that old-world physical and psychological characteristics persisted under American clothes and manners, and that native economic conditions and political institutions and the influences of early cultural life were enduring forces to be reckoned with in assimilation. We discovered that while a common language and citizenship may be portals to a new nation, men do not necessarily enter thereby, nor do they assume more than an outer likeness when they pass through”

Frances Kellor (1873–1952) American sociologist

What is Americanization? (1919)
Context: When the country first tried in 1915 to Americanize its foreign-born people, Americanization was thought of quite simply as the task of bringing native and foreign-born Americans together, and it was believed that the rest would take, care of itself. It was thought that if all of us could talk together in a common language unity would be assured, and that if all were citizens under one flag no force could separate them. Then the war came, intensifying the native nationalistic sense of every race in the world. We found alien enemies in spirit among the native-born children of the foreign-born in America; we found old stirrings in the hearts of men, even when they were naturalized citizens, and a desire to take part in the world struggle, not as Americans, but as Jugo-Slavs or Czecho-Slovaks. We found belts and stockings stuffed with gold to be taken home, when peace should be declared, by men who will go back to work out their destinies in a land they thought never to see again. We found strong racial groups in America split into factions and bitterly arraigned against one another. We found races opposing one another because of prejudices and hatreds born hundreds of years ago thousands of miles away. We awoke to the fact that old-world physical and psychological characteristics persisted under American clothes and manners, and that native economic conditions and political institutions and the influences of early cultural life were enduring forces to be reckoned with in assimilation. We discovered that while a common language and citizenship may be portals to a new nation, men do not necessarily enter thereby, nor do they assume more than an outer likeness when they pass through.

Gerard Manley Hopkins photo
Kurien Kunnumpuram photo
Hillary Clinton photo
Franz Marc photo
Bernice King photo
Arthur James Balfour photo
Stella Vine photo
Jean de La Bruyère photo

“There is, however, nothing wanting to the idleness of a philosopher but a better name, and that meditation, conversation, and reading should be called “work.””

Il ne manque cependant à l'oisiveté du sage qu'un meilleur nom, et que méditer, parler, lire, et être tranquille s'appelât travailler.
Aphorism 12
Les Caractères (1688), Du mérite personnel

Warren Farrell photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Alfred Binet photo

“By following up this idea, also, we might go a little further. We might arrive at the conviction that our present science is human, petty, and contingent; that it is closely linked with the structure of our sensory organs; that this structure results from the evolution which fashioned these organs; that this evolution has been an accident of history; that in the future it may be different; and that, consequently, by the side or in the stead of our modern science, the work of our eyes and hands—and also of our words—there might have been constituted, there may still be constituted, sciences entirely and extraordinarily new—auditory, olfactory, and gustatory sciences, and even others derived from other kinds of sensations which we can neither foresee nor conceive because they are not, for the moment, differentiated in us. Outside the matter we know, a very special matter fashioned of vision and touch, there may exist other matter with totally different properties. …We must, by setting aside the mechanical theory, free ourselves from a too narrow conception of the constitution of matter. And this liberation will be to us a great advantage which we shall soon reap. We shall avoid the error of believing that mechanics is the only real thing and that all that cannot be explained by mechanics must be incomprehensible. We shall then gain more liberty of mind for understanding what the union of the soul with the body may be.”

Alfred Binet (1857–1911) French psychologist and inventor of the first usable intelligence test

Source: The Mind and the Brain, 1907, p. 43

Herbert A. Simon photo
Paul Signac photo

“Frankly, this is my position: I have been painting for two years, and my only models have been your [ Monet's ] own works; I have been following the wonderful path you broke for us. I have always worked regularly and conscientiously, but without advice or help, for I do not know any impressionist painter who would be able to guide me, living as I am in an environment more or less hostile to what I am doing. And so I fear I may lose my way, and I beg you to let me see you, if only for a short visit. I should be happy to show you five or six studies; perhaps you would tell me what you think of them and give me the advice I need so badly, for the fact is that I have the most horrible doubts, having always worked by myself, without teacher, encouragement, or criticism.”

Paul Signac (1863–1935) French painter

In a letter to Claude Monet, 1880; quoted by Geffroy: Claude Monet, vol. I, p. 175; as quoted by John Rewald, in Georges Seurat', a monograph https://ia800607.us.archive.org/23/items/georges00rewa/georges00rewa.pdf; Wittenborn and Compagny, New York, 1943. p. 15
In 1880 an exhibition of the works of Claude Monet had - as Signac was to say later - 'decided his career,' - and after his first efforts as an impressionist Signac had ventured to appeal to Monet, writing him this sentence in his letter

Ervin László photo
Richard Holt Hutton photo
Goran Višnjić photo
Max Wertheimer photo
Bidhan Chandra Roy photo
Clement Attlee photo
Caitlín R. Kiernan photo
James D. Watson photo

“The word (classical) carries the implication that the works of art and literature produced in Graeco-Roman antiquity possess an absolute value, that they form the standard by which all others are to be judged.”

Jasper Griffin (1937–2019) Public Orator and Professor of Classical Literature

The Oxford History of the Classical World (with John Boardman and Oswyn Murray, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986) p. 3

Dwight L. Moody photo
Gary Gygax photo

“One more thing: don’t spend too much time merely reading. The best part of this work is the play, so play and enjoy!”

Gary Gygax (1938–2008) American writer and game designer

Preface http://web.archive.org/20080320021015/redcoat668.wordpress.com/2008/03/04/the-game-designers-barbecue-in-memory-of-gary-gygax-1938-2008/ to the Oriental Adventures (1985)

Anton Mauve photo

“I am busy working on a large painting with sheep; the last days I am working with real pleasure, the weather is.... not too hot and with nice skies. It's great here!!!! I shout with joy the whole day and more and more I desire to stay here until the end.”

Anton Mauve (1838–1888) Dutch painter (1838–1888)

translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
(version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Anton Mauve, uit zijn brief:) Ik ben druk bezig aan een groot schilderij met schapen, in de laatste dagen ben ik met waar genoegen aan het werk, het weer is.. ..niet al te warm en mooie luchten. 't Is hier heerlijk!!!! Ik jubel steeds en verlang hoe langer hoe meer hier te blijven tot het einde.
In a letter of Mauve, from Laren 1885, to his student nl:Arina Hugenholtz, as quoted by Arina Hugenholtz in In Memoriam Anton Mauve; as cited in Van IJs naar Sneeuw - De ontwikkeling van het wintergezicht in de 19de eeuw, Arsine Nazarian, Juli 2008 Utrecht University; studentnummer: 0360953, p. 85
Mauve's mood was frequently moving between depression and cheerful moods, as many related people knew
1880's

Condoleezza Rice photo

“Sometimes people decide to write reports even though they haven't been to Guantanamo. And so I would just suggest that people look at some of the work that's been done by people who have been there. But that's not to say that we will not be very glad at the day that conditions permit the closure of Guantanamo and the trying of its inhabitants or for their release.”

Condoleezza Rice (1954) American Republican politician; U.S. Secretary of State; political scientist

Remarks With British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw At Blackburn Town Hall http://web.archive.org/web/20060405071024/http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2006/63980.htm, April 1, 2006.

Thomas Eakins photo
Robert Hunter (author) photo
Sophia Loren photo
Ernesto Che Guevara photo
James Meade photo
Francis Escudero photo

“I am happy and humbled by the continued confidence by the people, but what is important is that public servants seeking the people’s vote like me continue to work to prove that we are worthy of the positions entrusted to us.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

The Philippine Star http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2013/02/08/906431/loren-chiz-tied-top-spot-latest-pulse-asia-survey
2013, Mid-Term Campaign Trail

George Peacock photo
Jay Leno photo

“In America, we like everyone to know about the good work we're doing anonymously.”

Jay Leno (1950) American comedian, actor, writer, producer, voice actor and television host

Said on a 2008 episode (12.7) of British motoring program Top Gear.
Miscellaneous

"Weird Al" Yankovic photo

“What kind of bananas do you have working at newspapers in Austin that would base an entire review of an artist's performance on whether or not they had a good seat?”

"Weird Al" Yankovic (1959) American singer-songwriter, music producer, accordionist, actor, comedian, writer, satirist, and parodist

Replying to a fan criticising the poor seats a reviewer of a concert received. "Ask Al" Q&As for September 6, 2004 http://www.weirdal.com/aaarchive.htm#090604.

Michael Vassar photo

“I taught at a school in Cincinnati with a 0% graduation rate and that was also interesting so I updated from thinking school was beneficial for other people but not beneficial to me, to thinking school was beneficial for maybe some people around the middle – at least some of the better schools – but not beneficial for the vast majority of people, to then actually reading the literature on education and on intelligence and academic accomplishment and symbolic manipulation and concluding "no, school isn't good for anyone". There might be a few schools that are good for people, like there's Blair and there's Stuyvesant and these schools may actually teach people, but school can better be seen as a vaccination program against knowledge than a process for instilling knowledge in people, and of course when a vaccination program messes up, occasionally people get sick and die of the mumps or smallpox or whatever. And when school messes up occasionally people get sick and educated and they lose biological fitness. And in either case the people in charge revise the program and try to make sure that doesn't happen again, but in the case of school they also use that as part of their positive branding and you know maintain a not-very-plausible story about it being intended to cause that effect while also working hard to make sure that doesn't happen again.”

Michael Vassar (1979) President of the Singularity Institute

In an interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cSG0p-uflA with Adam Ford, December 2012

Alain de Botton photo

“It would scarcely be acceptable, for example, to ask in the course of an ordinary conversation what our society holds to be the purpose of work.”

Source: The Consolations of Philosophy (2000), Chapter I, Consolations For Unpopularity, p. 9.

John Bright photo
Kurt Schwitters photo
Charles A. Beard photo

“The word science of administration has been used. There are many who object to the term. Now if by science is meant a conceptual scheme of things in which every particularity coveted may be assigned a mathematical value, then administration is not a science. In this sense only astro-physics may be called a science and it is well to remember that mechanical laws of the heavens tell us nothing about the color and composition of the stars and as yet cannot account for some of the disturbances and explosions which seem accidental. If, on the other hand, we may rightly use the term science in connection with a body of exact knowledge derived from experience and observation, and a body of rules or axioms which experience has demonstrated to be applicable in concrete practice, and to work out in practice approximately as forecast, then we may, if we please, appropriately and for convenience, speak of a science of administration. Once, when the great French mathematician, Poincaré, was asked whether Euclidean geometry is true, he replied that the question had no sense but that Euclidean geometry is and still remains the most convenient. The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that a science is, among other things, a particular branch of knowledge or study; a recognized department of learning.”

Charles A. Beard (1874–1948) American historian

Source: Philosophy, Science and Art of Public Administration (1939), p. 660-1

John Barrowman photo
Steve Ballmer photo
Robert Kuttner photo

“But of course you can have your cake and eat it, too - if you decide to to bake a second cake. And you may well find that baking two cakes does not take twice the work of baking one.”

Robert Kuttner (1943) American journalist

Source: The Economic Illusion (1984), Chapter 1, Equality and Efficiency, p. 14

Ben Gibbard photo
Edward Heath photo

“Progress in these policies can only be brought about if a considerable degree of consensus exists within our country. I have heard some doubt expressed as to what consensus means…Consensus means deliberately setting out to achieve the widest possible measure of agreement about our national policies, in this particular case about our economic activities, in the pursuit of a better standard of living for our people and a happier and more prosperous country. If there be any doubt about the desirability of working towards such a consensus let us recognize that every successful industrialized country in the modern world has been working on such a basis.”

Edward Heath (1916–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1970–1974)

Speech to the Federation of Conservative Students in Manchester (6 October 1981), quoted in The Times (7 October 1981), p. 6. Margaret Thatcher had read Heath's advance text and responded http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104712 by saying that "To me consensus seems to be—the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no-one believes, but to which no-one objects".
Post-Prime Ministerial

Glenn Beck photo

“We have the State Department working together with Google, MTV, MSNBC, Facebook, all of these— all of these giant corporations. Google now has two executives that we know of that were charged to help this revolution.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Networks
2011-02-15
Beck Isn't Sure If His Theory About Google, Egypt, State Department, And MTV Is "Sinking In"
Media Matters for America
2011-02-15
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201102150011
2011-02-15
on protests in Egypt against president Hosni Mubarak
2010s, 2011

Isaac Watts photo

“In works of labour or of skill
I would be busy too:
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.”

Isaac Watts (1674–1748) English hymnwriter, theologian and logician

Song 20: "Against Idleness and Mischief".
1710s, Divine Songs Attempted in the Easy Language of Children (1715)

“I object very much when my work is said to not be political, because my feelings about the social system are in there somewhere. The idea is to have it all in there together—you can’t pull it out.”

Donald Judd (1928–1994) artist

1980
Source: Flash Art, Nr. 132-134, (1987), p. 36: Cited in: " ‘Donald Judd: Stacks’ at Mnuchin Gallery http://galleristny.com/2013/10/donald-judd-stacks-at-mnuchin-gallery/" by Andrew Russeth at galleristny.com, 10/01/13.

Louis-ferdinand Céline photo
Tom Stoppard photo

“My work always tried to unite the true with the beautiful; but when I had to choose one or the other, I usually chose the beautiful.”

Tom Stoppard (1937) British playwright

Misattributed
Source: Hermann Weyl as quoted by Freeman Dyson: "Characteristic of Weyl was an aesthetic sense which dominated his thinking on all subjects. He once said to me, half-joking, 'My work always tried to unite the true with the beautiful; but when I had to choose one or the other, I usually chose the beautiful.'" - Freeman Dyson, "Obituary of Hermann Weyl," Nature (1956-03-10), pp. 457-458.

Phillip Guston photo
Baruch Ashlag photo
William Ellery Channing photo

“The office of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men opportunity to work out happiness for themselves.”

William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) United States Unitarian clergyman

Review of The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte (1827) by Sir Walter Scott, in the Christian Examiner (September - October 1827)

“I'm going to work hard not to have any wrong thoughts!”

Child
The Children's Story (1982)

John Stapp photo

“We do all of our work in consideration of Murphy's Law.”

John Stapp (1910–1999) American academic

The Fastest Man on Earth, Why Everything You Know About Murphy’s Law is Wrong, Nick T. Spark, Improbable Research, 2012-01-05 http://www.improb.com/airchives/paperair/volume9/v9i5/murphy/murphy1.html,

Joey Comeau photo
Samuel Butler photo

“Think of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. If you look at it to admire it you are lost.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Improvement in Art
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part IX - A Painter's Views on Painting

Thomas Robert Malthus photo
William Styron photo

“My life and work have been far from free of blemish, and so I think it would be unpardonable for a biographer not to dish up the dirt.”

William Styron (1925–2006) American novelist and essayist

"A Conversation with William Styron", Humanities (May/June 1997)

Donald J. Trump photo
Charlie Beck photo

“I am immensely proud to lead the men and women of the LAPD who work tirelessly every day to earn the trust of our communities and who risk their lives to protect those that live, work and visit the City of Angels.”

Charlie Beck (1953) Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department

Quoted in: [December 5, 2014, http://www.laweekly.com/informer/2014/08/12/lapd-chief-charlie-beck-gets-another-5-years, Dennis Romero, August 12, 2014, LA Weekly, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck Gets Another 5 Years]

Robert Rauschenberg photo
Thomas Carlyle photo

“"A fair day's wages for a fair day's work": it is as just a demand as governed men ever made of governing. It is the everlasting right of man.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

Bk. I, ch. 3.
1840s, Past and Present (1843)

“p>The inherent contradictions and binds men find themselves in in trying to become less macho in their relationship with a woman were poignantly expressed in a letter written by a young man to a New York newspaper in response to an article that addressed itself to a question posed by a woman writer—whether women would be able to think of a non-macho man as sexy. The letter writer wrote:I am by nature a gentle and non-aggressive 27-year-old man who often finds women turned off sexually by my tenderness and non-macho view of the world. I have come to realize that for all their talk, a lot of women still want the hairy, sexy, war-mongering, aggressive machoman of their dreams. So after several fruitless years as a gentle poet-man, I now turn myself into a heavy machismo when I go out with a woman. It works. I open the doors, I order the food and drinks, I decide which movie or play we will see. I keep my shirt unbuttoned down past my nipples and wear a gold chain around my neck with a carved elephant tusk medallion, and if the relationship is not working out, I make the first move and tell my companion that I'm sorry but we're through.The sad thing about all this is that it works.”

Herb Goldberg (1937–2019) American psychologist

After all those years of being naturally sensitive and gentle, and now I've got to turn myself inside out just to appear sexy. It's fun and it's nice, but I do wish I could just be myself again.</p></blockquote>
Who Is the Victim? Who Is the Oppressor?, pp. 165&ndash;166
The New Male (1979)

Joseph Heller photo
Joey Comeau photo
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi photo
Ebenezer Howard photo

“All, then, are agreed on the pressing nature of this problem, all are bent on its solution, and though it would doubtless be quite Utopian to expect a similar agreement as to the value of any remedy that may be proposed, it is at least of immense importance that, on a subject thus universally regarded as of supreme importance, we have such a consensus of opinion at the outset. This will be the more remarkable and the more hopeful sign when it is shown, as I believe will be conclusively shown in this work, that the answer to this, one of the most pressing questions of the day, makes of comparatively easy solution many other problems which have hitherto taxed the ingenuity of the greatest thinkers and reformers of our time. Yes, the key to the problem how to restore the people to the land — that beautiful land of ours, with its canopy of sky, the air that blows upon it, the sun that warms it, the rain and dew that moisten it — the very embodiment of Divine love for man — is indeed a Master-Key, for it is the key to a portal through which, even when scarce ajar, will be seen to pour a flood of light on the problems of intemperance, of excessive toil, of restless anxiety, of grinding poverty — the true limits of Governmental interference, ay, and even the relations of man to the Supreme Power.”

Ebenezer Howard (1850–1928) British writer, founder of the garden city movement

Introduction.
Garden Cities of To-morrow (1898)

Will Rogers photo

“Communism is like prohibition, it's a good idea but it won't work.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

10167
The Autobiography of Will Rogers (1949)

Robert E. Howard photo
Lyndall Urwick photo
Mahmud of Ghazni photo

“The Sultan then departed from the environs of the city, in which was a temple of the Hindus. The name of this place was Maharatu-l Hind. He saw there a building of exquisite structure, which the inhabitants said had been built, not by men, but by Genii, and there he witnessed practices contrary to the nature of man, and which could not be believed but from evidence of actual sight. The wall of the city was constructed of hard stone, and two gates opened upon the river flowing under the city, which were erected upon strong and lofty foundations to protect them against the floods of the river and rains. On both sides of the city there were a thousand houses, to which idol temples were attached, all strengthened from top to bottom by rivets of iron, and all made of masonry work; and opposite to them were other buildings, supported on broad wooden pillars, to give them strength.
In the middle of the city there was a temple larger and firmer than the rest, which can neither be described nor painted. The Sultan thus wrote respecting it: - "If any should wish to construct a building equal to this, he would not be able to do it without expending an hundred thousand, thousand red dinars, and it would occupy two hundred years even though the most experienced and able workmen were employed."…
The Sultan gave orders that all the temples should be burnt with naptha and fire, and levelled with the ground.”

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

About the capture of Mathura. Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 44-45 Also quoted (in part) in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.
Quotes from Tarikh Yamini (Kitabu-l Yamini) by Al Utbi

Al Sharpton photo

“Who defines terrorists? Today's terrorist is tomorrow's friend. We were the ones that worked with Saddam Hussein. The United States worked with bin Laden.”

Al Sharpton (1954) American Baptist minister, civil rights activist, and television/radio talk show host

Democratic presidential candidate debate, Detroit (26 October 2003)

José Rizal photo

“In the Middle Ages, everything bad was the work of the devil, everything good, the work of God. Today, the French see everything in reverse and blame the Germans for it.”

José Rizal (1861–1896) Filipino writer, ophthalmologist, polyglot and nationalist

Letter to Fr. Pastells (11 November 1892)