Quotes about work
page 47

George W. Bush photo
Elizabeth Prentiss photo

“It sweetens every bit of work to think that I am doing it in humble, far-off, yet real imitation of Jesus.”

Elizabeth Prentiss (1818–1878) American musician, hymnwriter

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 250.

“But how does it come about, step by step, that some complex Systems actually function? This question, to which we as students of General Systemantics attach the highest importance, has not yet yielded to intensive modern methods of investigation and analysis. As of this writing, only a limited and partial breakthrough can be reported, as follows: A COMPLEX SYSTEM THAT WORKS IS INVARIABLY FOUND TO HAVE EVOLVED FROM A SIMPLE SYSTEM THAT WORKED”

John Gall (1925–2014) American physician

Source: Systemantics: the underground text of systems lore, 1986, p. 65 cited in "Quotes from Systemantics – Funny, But Scary Too" Posted on agileadvice.com March 3, 2006 by Mishkin Berteig. This quote was mentioned in General systemantics (1975, p. 71)

Chris Cornell photo

“I remember seeing how Layne [Staley] reacted to Andy [Andrew Wood] dying from drugs, and I think that he was scared possibly. And I think he also reacted the same way when Kurt [Cobain] shot himself. They were really good friends. And yet it didn’t stop him. But for me, if I think about the evolution of my life as it appears in songs for example, Higher Truth is a great example of a record I wouldn’t have been able to write [when I was younger], and part of that is in essence because there was a period of time there where I didn’t expect to be here. And now not only do I expect to be here, and I’m not going anywhere, but I’ve had the last 12 years of my life being free of substances to kind of figure out who the substance-free guy is, because he’s a different guy. Just by brain chemistry, it can’t be avoided. I’m not the same, I don’t think the same, I don’t react the same. And my outlook isn’t necessarily the same. My creative endeavours aren’t necessarily the same. And one of the great things about that is it enabled me to kind of keep going artistically and find new places and shine the light into new corners where I hadn’t really gone before. And that feels really good. But it’s also bittersweet because I can’t help but think, what would Jeff be doing right now, what would Kurt be doing right now, what would Andy be doing? Something amazing, I’m sure of it. And it would be some music that would challenge me to lift myself up, something that would be continually raising the bar so that I would work harder too, in the same way they affected me when they were alive basically.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

When asked if there was a lesson to be learned from his friends' deaths caused by substance abuse and if it was not enough to scare everyone ** The Life & Times of Chris Cornell, Rolling Stone Australia, 17 September 2015 https://rollingstoneaus.com/music/post/the-life-and-times-of-chris-cornell/2273,
Solo career Era

Abd al-Karim Qasim photo
Richard Holbrooke photo
Paula Modersohn-Becker photo

“Today I painted my first plain air portrait at the clay pit, a little blond and blue-eyed girl. The way the little thing stood in the yellow sand was simply beautiful – a bright and shimmering thing to see. It made my heart leap. Painting people is indeed more beautiful than painting a landscape. I suppose you can notice that I am dead-tired, after this long day of hard work, cant you? But inside I am so peaceful and happy..”

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) German artist

in a letter to her mother, from Worpswede, August 1897; as quoted in Paula Modersohn-Becker, The Letters and Journals by Paula Modersohn-Becker, eds. Günter Busch, Liselotte von Reinken, Arthur S. Wensinger, Carole Clew Hoey - Northwestern University Press, 1998, p. 79
1897

T.S. Eliot photo

“When the day's hustle and bustle is done,
Then the Gumbie Cat's work is but hardly begun.”

The Old Gumbie Cat
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939)

Jimmy Wales photo

“Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park. It is like a temple for the mind. It is a place we can all go to think, to learn, to share our knowledge with others. When I founded Wikipedia, I could have made it into a for-profit company with advertising banners, but I decided to do something different. We’ve worked hard over the years to keep it lean and tight. We fulfill our mission efficiently.”

Jimmy Wales (1966) Wikipedia co-founder and American Internet entrepreneur

Wikimedia donation page https://donate.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:LandingPage&country=US&uselang=en&utm_medium=spontaneous&utm_source=fr-redir&utm_campaign=spontaneous&rdfrom=%2F%2Fwikimediafoundation.org%2Fw%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DFundraising%26redirect%3Dno.

Jack LaLanne photo

“People thought I was a charlatan and a nut, [he remembered]. The doctors were against me — they said that working out with weights would give people heart attacks and they would lose their sex drive.”

Jack LaLanne (1914–2011) American exercise instructor

In Jack LaLanne, Founder of Modern Fitness Movement, Dies at 96, New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/24/sports/24lalanne.html?_r=0

Joanna Newsom photo

“I killed my dinner
with karate
kicked him in the face, taste the body, shallow work is the work that I do.”

Joanna Newsom (1982) American musician

The Book of Right-On
The Milk-Eyed Mender (2004)

Swami Vivekananda photo
Peter F. Drucker photo

“Nice work if you can get it,
And you can get it if you try.”

Ira Gershwin (1896–1983) American lyricist

"Nice Work If You Can Get It", A Damsel in Distress (1937).

Gore Vidal photo
Hesiod photo
Henry Moore photo

“I myself in my work tend to humanize everything, to relate mountains to people, tree trunks to the human body, pebbles to heads & figures, etc… To cut out & make a taboo any organic representational element or human reference & then say the artist has gained freedom, seems as silly as locking yourself up in a small cell & saying 'now I know where I am – this is freedom – freedom from the outside world”

Henry Moore (1898–1986) English artist

critic on the idea of pure Abstract art by Moore
1940 - 1955
Source: 'Unpublished notes' for 'Art and Life', 1941, HMR Archive; as quoted in Henry Moore writings and Conversations, edited by Alan Wilkinson, University of California Press, California 2002, p. 114

James Callaghan photo
John Lancaster Spalding photo

“Say not thou lackest talent. What talent had any of the greatest, but passionate faith in the efficacy of work?”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 169

Cornelia Parker photo

“My work has threads of ideas from all over the place. I try to crystallise them in something simple and direct that the viewer can then take where they want.”

Cornelia Parker (1956) English artist

Source: Mark Hudson. "Cornelia Parker Interview." in: Telegraph. June 24, 2010

Clinton Edgar Woods photo

“To summarize, the production of information and its use in transactions both incur costs and are thus subject to economizing. In the 1970s, there occurred a revival of interest among economists in the economics of transaction, and Oliver Williamson in particular, building on the earlier work of Ronald Coase and John Commons, has explored the different institutional arrangements that govern transactional choices.”

Max Boisot (1943–2011) British academic and educator

Variant: To summarize, the production of information and its use in transactions both incur costs and are thus subject to economizing. In the 1970s, there occurred a revival of interest among economists in the economics of transaction, and Oliver Williamson in particular, building on the earlier work of Ronald Coase and John Commons, has explored the different institutional arrangements that govern transactional choices.
Source: Knowledge Assets, 1998, p. 235

Kane Hodder photo
El Lissitsky photo
Luke Haines photo
Roy Blount Jr. photo
Benito Mussolini photo

“Lenin is an artist who has worked men, as other artists have worked marble or metals. But men are harder than stone and less malleable than iron. There is no masterpiece. The artist has failed. The task was superior to his capacities.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

Popolo d'Italia (14 July 1920) "The Artificer and the Material," quoted in Mussolini in the Making (1938) by Gaudens Megaro, p. 326
1920s

Donald J. Trump photo
Dan Harmon photo
Robert J. Sawyer photo
Dennis Kucinich photo
George Washington Plunkitt photo

“There’s an honest graft, and I’m an example of how it works. I might sum up the whole thing by sayin’: “I seen my opportunities and I took ’em.””

George Washington Plunkitt (1842–1924) New York State Senator

Source: Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, Chapter 1, Honest Graft and Dishonest Graft, p. 3

John Buchan photo
Oscar Niemeyer photo
Ralph Ellison photo

“The work of art is, after all, an act of faith in our ability to communicate symbolically.”

Ralph Ellison (1914–1994) American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer

"The Little Man at Chehaw Station" (1978), in The Collected Essays, ed. John F. Callahan (New York: Modern Library, 1995), p. 503.

Paul Cézanne photo
Benjamin Harrison photo
Vladimir Lenin photo
Hilary Duff photo
Attila the Stockbroker photo
Charles Babbage photo

“There are in the Exhibition some beautiful examples of such lace amongst the productions of other countries as well as of our own. They are made by the united labour of many women. The cost of a piece of lace will consist of:
# The remuneration to the artist who designs the pattern.
# The cost of the raw material.
# The cost of the labour of a large number of women working on it for many months.
Let us compare this with the cost of a piece of statuary, which is undoubtedly of a much higher class of art; it will consist of:
# The remuneration to the artist who makes the model.
# The cost of the raw material.
# The cost of labour, by assistants in cutting the block to the pattern of the model.
# Finishing the statue by the artist himself.
In lace making the skill of the artist is required only for the production of the first example. Every succeeding copy is made by mere labour: each copy may be considered as an individual, and will cost the same amount of time.
In sculpture the three first processes are quite analogous to those in lace-making. But the fourth process requires the taste and judgment of the artist. It is this which causes it to retain its rank amongst the fine arts, whilst lacemaking must still be classed amongst the industrial.”

Charles Babbage (1791–1871) mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable c…

Source: The Exposition of 1851: Views Of The Industry, The Science, and the Government Of England, 1851, p. 49-50

Camille Paglia photo
Kwame Nkrumah photo
John D. Carmack photo
Alaska Thunderfuck 5000 photo
Julian of Norwich photo
Ian Standish Monteith Hamilton photo
Mark Kac photo
Jack London photo
Leopold Kronecker photo

“God made the integers, all the rest is the work of man.”

Leopold Kronecker (1823–1891) German mathematician who worked on number theory and algebra (1823–1891)

Die ganzen Zahlen hat der liebe Gott gemacht, alles andere ist Menschenwerk.
Quoted in "Philosophies of Mathematics" - Page 13 - by Alexander George, Daniel J. Velleman - Philosophy - 2002

Isaac Watts photo
Jordan Peterson photo

“We're adapted to the meta-reality, which means that we're adapted to that which remains constant across the longest spans of time. And that's not the same things that you see around you day to day. They're just like clouds, they're just evaporating, you know? There are things underneath that that are more fundamental realities, like the dominance hierarchy, like the tribe, like the danger outside of society, like the threat that other people pose to you, and the threat that you pose to yourself. Those are eternal realities, and we're adapted to those. That's our world, and that's why we express all those things in stories. Then you might say, well how do you adapt yourself to that world? The answer, and I believe this is a neurological answer, is that your brain can tell you when you're optimally situated between chaos and order. The way it tells you that is by producing the sense of engagement and meaning. Let's say that there's a place in the environment that you should be. So what should that place be? Well, you don't want to be terrified out of your skull. What good is that? And you don't want to be so comfortable that you might as well sleep. You want to be somewhere where you are kind of on firm ground with both of your feet, but you can take a step with one leg and test out new territory. Some of you who are exploratory and emotionally stable are going to go pretty far out there into the unexplored territory without destabilizing yourself. And some people are just going to put a toe in the chaos, and that's neuroticism basically - your sensitivity to threat that is calibrated differently in different people. And some people are more exploratory than others. That's extroversion and openness, and intelligence working together. Some people are going to tolerate more chaos in their mixture of chaos and order. Those are often liberals, by the way. They're more interested in novel chaos, and conservatives are more interested in the stabilization of the structures that already exist. Who's right? It depends on the situation. That's why liberals and conservatives have to talk to each other, because one of them isn't right and the other is wrong. Sometimes the liberals are right and sometimes the liberals are right, because the environment is unpredictable and constantly changing, so that's why you have to communicate. That's what a democracy does. It allows people of different temperamental types to communicate and to calibrate their societies. So let's say you're optimally balanced between chaos and order. What does that mean? Well, you're stable enough, but you're interested. A little novelty heightens your anxiety. It wakes you up a bit. That's the adventure part of it. But it also focuses the part of your brain that does exploratory activity, and that's associated with pleasure. That's the dopamine circuit. So if you're optimally balanced - and you know you're there if you're listening to an interesting conversation or you're engaged in one…you're saying some things that you know, and the other person is saying some things that they know - and what both of you know is changing. Music can model that. It provides you with multi-level predictable forms that can transform just the right amount. So music is a very representational art form. It says, 'this is what the universe is like.' There's a dancing element to it, repetitive, and then little variations that surprise you and produce excitement in you. In doesn't matter how nihilistic you are, music still infuses you with a sense of meaning because it models meaning. That's what it does. That's why we love it. And you can dance to it, which represents you putting yourself in harmony with these multiple layers of reality, and positioning yourself properly.”

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

"The selection pressure that women placed on men developed the entire species. There's two things that happened. The men competed for competence, since the male hierarchy is a mechanism that pushes the best men to the top. The effect of that is multiplied by the fact that women who are hypergamous peel from the top. And so the males who are the most competent are much more likely to leave offspring, which seems to have driven cortical expansion."
Concepts

Báb photo
Peter Medawar photo
Alain photo

“We are advised and led along by second-rate moralists who only know how to work themselves into a delirium and pass their illness onto others.”

Alain (1868–1951) French philosopher

The Eloquence of Our Passions
Alain On Happiness (1928)

Richard Stallman photo
Lord Dunsany photo
Vincent Van Gogh photo
George Carlin photo
James A. Michener photo
"Weird Al" Yankovic photo

“I wrote "Eat It" because I wanted to buy a banana boat for Christmas. It worked.”

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

I Love the 80's 3D, VH1, 1985.

Bram van Velde photo

“Paris with its multitude of art directions calls continuously to the deepest penetration and recognition of your inner essence. Only in this way it is possible to create work that refers the time span.”

Bram van Velde (1895–1981) Dutch painter

in his letter to H. E. Kramer, 25-10-1926, as quoted in: Bram van Velde, A Tribute, Municipal Museum De Lakenhal Leiden, Municipal Museum Schiedam, Museum de Wieger, Deurne 1994, p. 44 (English translation: Charlotte Burgmans)
1920's

Maria Callas photo
Frederic G. Kenyon photo
Li Hongzhi photo

“Although Qigong has been spread for quite a long period of time, several decades already, no one knows its real implications. Therefore, I have written in the book, Zhuan Falun, everything about certain phenomena in the Qigong community, why Qigong is spread in ordinary human society, and what the ultimate goal of Qigong is. Therefore, this book is a systematic work that enables one to practice cultivation. Through reading it repeatedly, many people feel that there is something unique about the book: no matter how many times you have read this book, you always seem to feel a sense of freshness, and no matter how many times you have read it, you always attain a different understanding from the same sentence, and no matter how many times you have read it, you always feel that there is still a great deal of content in it that is yet to be found. Why is it this way, then? It is because that I have systematically compiled many things that are considered heavenly secrets within this book, such as that people are able to practice cultivation, how cultivation should be practiced, and the characteristics of this universe, etc. For a practitioner, it can enable him to complete his cultivation practice successfully. Because no one has ever done such a thing in the past, when reading this book, many people find that a lot of the contents are heavenly secrets. After races are mixed up, you will find one's child born to be an infant of mixed blood. However, there is a partition in the middle of this child's life. If it is separated, he will be physically and intellectually incomplete or a person with an incomplete body. Modern science also knows that it is getting worse one generation after another. It would be like this”

Li Hongzhi (1951) Chinese religious leader and dissident

Falun Buddha Fa Lecture in Sydney http://www.falundafa.org/book/eng/lectures/1996L.html

El Lissitsky photo
Camille Pissarro photo

“I brought Durand eight pictures, among them my 'Sunset' and the motif done from my window. They have been praised, but I find them poor, - tame, grey, monotonous, - I am not at all satisfied. - I am working with fury and I have finally discovered the right execution, the search for which has tormented me for a year. I am pretty sure I have it now, all I need is to spend this coming autumn in Rouen or in some other place where I can find striking motifs.”

Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) French painter

Quote of Pissarro, from Osny, February 1884, in a letter to his son Lucien; in Camille Pissarro - Letters to His Son Lucien ed. John Rewald, with assistance of Lucien Pissarro; from the unpublished French letters; transl. Lionel Abel; Pantheon Books Inc. New York, second edition, 1943, p. 61
1880's

Don DeLillo photo
Francis Escudero photo

“As a father, I will work hard to ensure that I teach them the right values in life and with the RH Bill, to arm them with knowledge so they can ably decide for themselves.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

The Philippine Daily Inquirer http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/325857/senate-passes-rh-bill
2012

Hillary Clinton photo
Bhakti Tirtha Swami photo
Roger Ebert photo
Walter Wick photo
Wassily Kandinsky photo

“I have just finished one painting and am already at work on the preliminary drawings for the next one. I must do something in order to get rid of such habits or I won't manage to find time for any vacation. I have had this new painting in my mind since January, and must get it down on canvas.”

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) Russian painter

Quote from his letter to Freundlich, 15 July 15, 1938; as cited in Kandinsky in Paris: 1934-1944 - exhibition catalog, published by The Solomon K. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, 1985, p. 27
1930 - 1944

Agatha Christie photo
Robert Graves photo

“Anthropologists are a connecting link between poets and scientists; though their field-work among primitive peoples has often made them forget the language of science.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

"Mammon" an address at the London School of Economics (6 December 1963); published in Mammon and the Black Goddess (1965).
General sources

Alison Lohman photo
Tim Cook photo
Annie Dillard photo

“Whenever a work's structure is intentionally one of its own themes, another of its themes is art.”

Annie Dillard (1945) American writer

Quoted by Ted Nelson in Literary Machines (1982)

Robert Rauschenberg photo

“I am sick of talking about What and Why I am doing. I have always believed that the WORK is the word. Action is seen less clearly through reason. There are no shortcuts to directness.”

Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) American artist

around 1965
Quote from Robert Rauschenberg, The early 1950s, Walter Hopps, Houston Fine Art Press, 1991
1960's

Robert T. Kiyosaki photo

“Simply because it’s easier to learn to work for money, especially if fear is your primary emotion when the subject of money is discussed.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

Adrianne Wadewitz photo

“Wadewitz eventually came out as a Wikipedian, the term the encyclopedia uses to describe the tens of thousands of volunteers who write and edit its pages. A rarity as a woman in the male-centric Wikipedia universe, she became one of its most valued and prolific contributors as well as a force for diversifying its ranks and demystifying its inner workings.”

Adrianne Wadewitz (1977–2014) academic and Wikipedian

Woo, Elaine (April 23, 2014). "Adrianne Wadewitz dies at 37; helped diversify Wikipedia" http://www.latimes.com/obituaries/la-me-adrianne-wadewitz-20140424,0,1077455.story. Los Angeles Times.
About

David Brewster photo
Margaret Mead photo

“I learned the value of hard work by working hard.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Attributed in You Vs. You: Sport Psychology Got Life (2005) by Wayne Mazzoni, p. 90
2000s

Gregory Benford photo

“He went to Los Angeles to do the work even though he hated the city; it was full of happy homogeneous people without structure or direction. While on the bus to work, it seemed to him Los Angeles went on long after it had already made its point.”

Gregory Benford (1941) Science fiction author and astrophysicist

White Creatures, p. 170 (Originally published in New Dimensions 5, edited by Robert Silverberg), 1975
In Alien Flesh (1986)

Robert G. Ingersoll photo
George W. Bush photo

“People's attitudes are shaped at least as much by the organization in which they work as by their pre-existing attitudes.”

Charles Perrow (1925–2019) American sociologist

Source: 1970s, Organizational Analysis: A Sociological View, 1970, p. 4

Joseph Kosuth photo
Courtney B. Vance photo
Mike Tyson photo