Quotes about work
page 49

David Whitmer photo

“BE IT KNOWN unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto whom this work shall come: That we, through the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record, which is a record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, their brethren, and also of the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which hath been spoken. And we also know that they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for his voice hath declared it unto us; wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true. And we also testify that we have seen the engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man. And we declare with words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon; and we know that it is by the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear record that these things are true. And it is marvelous in our eyes. Nevertheless, the voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it; wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear testimony of these things. And we know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be found spotless before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell with him eternally in the heavens. And the honor be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one God. Amen. OLIVER COWDERY DAVID WHITMER MARTIN HARRIS”

David Whitmer (1805–1888) Book of Mormon witness

Book of Mormon, 1830 Edition, p. 585 (1830)

Rudolf Karl Bultmann photo
Colin Wilson photo
Jeet Thayil photo

“Alongside their work on pure economic theory, the classical political economists engaged in a parallel project: to promote the forcible reconstruction of society into a purely market-oriented system.”

Michael Perelman (1939) American economist

Source: The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret History of Primitive Accumulation (2000), p. 2

Robert A. Heinlein photo
Phillip Guston photo
Albert Einstein photo

“Professor Smith has kindly submitted his book to me before publication. After reading it thoroughly and with intense interest I am glad to comply with his request to give him my impression.
The work is a broadly conceived attempt to portray man's fear-induced animistic and mythic ideas with all their far-flung transformations and interrelations. It relates the impact of these phantasmagorias on human destiny and the causal relationships by which they have become crystallized into organized religion.
This is a biologist speaking, whose scientific training has disciplined him in a grim objectivity rarely found in the pure historian. This objectivity has not, however, hindered him from emphasizing the boundless suffering which, in its end results, this mythic thought has brought upon man.
Professor Smith envisages as a redeeming force, training in objective observation of all that is available for immediate perception and in the interpretation of facts without preconceived ideas. In his view, only if every individual strives for truth can humanity attain a happier future; the atavisms in each of us that stand in the way of a friendlier destiny can only thus be rendered ineffective.
His historical picture closes with the end of the nineteenth century, and with good reason. By that time it seemed that the influence of these mythic, authoritatively anchored forces which can be denoted as religious, had been reduced to a tolerable level in spite of all the persisting inertia and hypocrisy.
Even then, a new branch of mythic thought had already grown strong, one not religious in nature but no less perilous to mankind — exaggerated nationalism. Half a century has shown that this new adversary is so strong that it places in question man's very survival. It is too early for the present-day historian to write about this problem, but it is to be hoped that one will survive who can undertake the task at a later date.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Foreword of "Man and his Gods" by Homer W. Smith
Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and Religion (1999)

Roland Barthes photo
Danie Craven photo

“A game of rugby is a work of art!”

Danie Craven (1910–1993) South African rugby union player and administrator

Sunday Times interview (1980s)

William H. Seward photo

“The color of the prisoner’s skin, and the form of his features, are not impressed upon the spiritual immortal mind which works beneath. In spite of human pride, he is still your brother, and mine, in form and color accepted and approved by his Father, and yours, and mine, and bears equally with us the proudest inheritance of our race — the image of our Maker. Hold him then to be a Man.”

William H. Seward (1801–1872) American lawyer and politician

Argument as defense attorney during the trial of an African-American criminal defendant, Auburn, New York (July 1846), published in Works of William H. Seward, vol. I (New York: Redfield, 1853), p. 417.

Philip K. Dick photo
Jimmy Carter photo
Evelyn Waugh photo

“No.3 Commando was very anxious to be chums with Lord Glasgow, so they offered to blow up an old tree stump for him and he was very grateful and said don't spoil the plantation of young trees near it because that is the apple of my eye and they said no of course not we can blow a tree down so it falls on a sixpence and Lord Glasgow said goodness you are clever and he asked them all to luncheon for the great explosion.
So Col. Durnford-Slater DSO said to his subaltern, have you put enough explosive in the tree?. Yes, sir, 75lbs. Is that enough? Yes sir I worked it out by mathematics it is exactly right. Well better put a bit more. Very good sir.
And when Col. D Slater DSO had had his port he sent for the subaltern and said subaltern better put a bit more explosive in that tree. I don't want to disappoint Lord Glasgow. Very good sir.
Then they all went out to see the explosion and Col. DS DSO said you will see that tree fall flat at just the angle where it will hurt no young trees and Lord Glasgow said goodness you are clever.
So soon they lit the fuse and waited for the explosion and presently the tree, instead of falling quietly sideways, rose 50 feet into the air taking with it ½ acre of soil and the whole young plantation.
And the subaltern said Sir, I made a mistake, it should have been 7½ not 75. Lord Glasgow was so upset he walked in dead silence back to his castle and when they came to the turn of the drive in sight of his castle what should they find but that every pane of glass in the building was broken.
So Lord Glasgow gave a little cry and ran to hide his emotions in the lavatory and there when he pulled the plug the entire ceiling, loosened by the explosion, fell on his head.
This is quite true.”

Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966) British writer

Letter to his wife (31 May 1942)

Herbert Read photo

“The work of art … is an instrument for tilling the human psyche, that it may continue to yield a harvest of vital beauty.”

Herbert Read (1893–1968) English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art

Source: Collected Poems (1966), p. 20

Fidel Castro photo

“Soon, I'll be like all the others. The time will come for all of us, but the ideas of the Cuban Communists will remain as proof on this planet that if they are worked at with fervor and dignity, they can produce the material and cultural goods that human beings need, and we need to fight without a truce to obtain them.”

Fidel Castro (1926–2016) former First Secretary of the Communist Party and President of Cuba

Speech after Raul was re-elected as head of the Communist party http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fidel-castro-gives-speech-saying-hes-nearing-the-end-of-his-life/

Jozef Israëls photo

“He [the painter J. A. Kruseman in Amsterdam] is very amicable with his students without exposing his mastery to disdain. I sometimes see him painting from time to time. And I almost visit daily his studio. You must know that his students don't work in the same room where the big man is staying... Sometimes one or two days pass that he doesn't see our work, he let follow the students their own way most of the time... Thanks God he tells me I have feeling and talent.”

Jozef Israëls (1824–1911) Dutch painter

translation from original Dutch text: Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch (citaat uit de brief van Jozef Israëls, in het Nederlands): Hij [de schilder J.A. Kruseman te Amsterdam] gaat zeer amical met zijn discipelen om zonder zijn meesterschap aan minachting bloot te stellen. Ik zie hem nu en dan wel eens schilderen. En kom in zijn atelier bijna dagelijksch. Gij moet namenlijk weten dat zijn leerlingen niet in dezelfde kamer zitten te werken waar de groote man zit.. .Soms gaan er wel een of 2 dage voorbij dat hij het werk niet komt zien, hij laat de leerlingen meest hun eigen manier volgen.. .Hij zegt mij Gode zij dank gevoel en dispositie toe..
In a letter of Jozef Israels from Amsterdam, 16 July 1843, to his friend, pharmacist Essingh in Groningen; from R.K.D. Archive, A.S. Kok, The Hague
Quotes of Jozef Israels, 1840 - 1870

Charles Boarman photo

“My dear Father, Charley wrote you in his letter to his Aunt Laura thanking you for your kindness in sending us a nice Christmas present. You must not think because I have not written you myself before this that I appreciated your kindness less. I have been so troubled with pains and weakness in my arm and hand as to be almost useless at times. I think it was nursing so much when the children were sick. I was so relieved when Anna's note to Charly arrived yesterday telling Frankie was better. It would have been dreadful for Mother to have gone out west at this miserable season of the year. I was wretchedly uneasy. I do hope poor Franky will get along nicely now. It will make him much more careful about exposing himself having had this severe attack. Charley received the enclosed letters Anna sent from Sister Eliza and Toad[? ]. I was very glad to get them. It is quite refreshing to read Sister Eliza's letters. They are so cheerful and happy. I had a letter from her on Friday. This Custom House investigating committee is attracting a great deal of attention and time here. It holds its sessions at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Mr. Broome was up on Tuesday evening until ten o'clock but was not called upon. It is very slow. He has been for three weeks passed preparing the statement for those summoned from the Public Stores. Mr. Broome sends Laura a paper to look at—The Fisk tragedy. What is Nora doing with herself this winter. She might write to me sometimes. Give much love to Mother. Ask her for her receipt for getting fat. I would like to gain some myself. It is so much nicer to grow fleshy as you advance in life than to shrivel and dry up. The children are all well and growing very fast. Lloyd has to study very hard this year. His studies are quite difficult. I suppose Charley Harris is working hard too. Mr. Broome sent you a paper with the Navy Register in this week. I received your papers and often Richard calls and gets them. I must close. Mr. Broome and children join me in love to you, Mother, Laura, Anna, Nora, Charly & all.
With much love,
Your devoted child, Mary Jane
I enclose Nancy letter which was written some time ago.”

Charles Boarman (1795–1879) US Navy Rear Admiral

Mary Jane Boarman in a Sunday letter to her father (January 21, 1872)
The people mentioned in Mary Jane's letter were her children Lloyd, Charley, and Nancy; her husband, William Henry Broome; her sisters Eliza, Anna, Laura, and Nora; her brother Frankie; and her nephew frontier physician Dr. Charles "Charley" Harris, son of her sister Susan.
John Broome and Rebecca Lloyd: Their Descendants and Related Families, 18th to 21st Centuries (2009)

Bill Maher photo
Randolph Bourne photo

“Every little school boy is trained to recite the weaknesses and inefficiencies of the Articles of Confederation. It is taken as axiomatic that under them the new nation was falling into anarchy and was only saved by the wisdom and energy of the Convention. … The nation had to be strong to repel invasion, strong to pay to the last loved copper penny the debts of the propertied and the provident ones, strong to keep the unpropertied and improvident from ever using the government to secure their own prosperity at the expense of moneyed capital. … No one suggests that the anxiety of the leaders of the heretofore unquestioned ruling classes desired the revision of the Articles and labored so weightily over a new instrument not because the nation was failing under the Articles, but because it was succeeding only too well. Without intervention from the leaders, reconstruction threatened in time to turn the new nation into an agrarian and proletarian democracy. … All we know is that at a time when the current of political progress was in the direction of agrarian and proletarian democracy, a force hostile to it gripped the nation and imposed upon it a powerful form against which it was never to succeed in doing more than blindly struggle. The liberating virus of the Revolution was definitely expunged, and henceforth if it worked at all it had to work against the State, in opposition to the armed and respectable power of the nation.”

Randolph Bourne (1886–1918) American writer

¶13. Published under "The Development of the American State," The State https://mises.org/library/state (Tucson, Arizona: See Sharp Press, 1998), pp. 33–34.
"The State" (1918), II

Steve Ballmer photo

“My dad said, "What the heck is software?" and my mom said, "Why would a person ever need a computer?" They said, "OK, OK, we hear you, but if it doesn't work out, you'll go back to business school right?"”

Steve Ballmer (1956) American businessman who was the chief executive officer of Microsoft

And I said "Right," and I never came back.
CNBC: "How Steve Ballmer went from making $50,000 a year as an assistant at Microsoft to becoming a billionaire" https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/27/billionaire-steve-ballmer-started-out-making-only-50000-at-microsoft.html (27 July 2018)
2010s

Thomas Young (scientist) photo
Julia Gillard photo

“It was inconceivable to me that the kind of anti-Labor work that Kevin had been involved in – the destabilisation, the leaking – would be rewarded by the leadership.”

Julia Gillard (1961) Australian politician and lawyer, 27th Prime Minister of Australia

The Killing Season, Episode three: The Long Shadow (2010–13)

Calvin Coolidge photo
Terry Eagleton photo
Jonathan Edwards photo
Roberto Clemente photo

“Everybody, they say Roberto just swings the bat and hits the ball. I work hard. No one works harder than I do. People think things come easy to me. They don't.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "Clemente Says Hitting Does Not Come Easy" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=UagkAAAAIBAJ&sjid=xqAFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5876%2C6101257 by Ralph Bernstein (AP), in The Reading Eagle (March 26, 1968)
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1968</big>

Nat King Cole photo
Wilhelm II, German Emperor photo
Dorothy Day photo
Richard Strauss photo
Charlotte Brontë photo
Italo Calvino photo
Norman Tebbit photo

“I’m not sure. He ought to. Things would work better.”

Norman Tebbit (1931) English politician

On the existence of God, remarks to The Daily Telegraph in March 2011 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8422956/Lord-Tebbit-why-I-admire-Clegg-more-than-Cameron.html

Nathan Lane photo

“There isn't anyone else like Nathan. He is able to express more in a look or a word than most actors I've ever worked with.”

Nathan Lane (1956) American actor

Victor Garber — reported in Maureen Dezell (October 19, 2003) "Nathan Lane Goes Beyond Broadway", The Boston Globe, p. N1.
About

Fred Astaire photo
Don Soderquist photo

“Customer loyalty doesn’t just happen; you have to work on it every day. It isn’t only big things; it’s a lot of the little things done over and over again. Over time, these little things demonstrate to your customers that you really do care about them and are genuinely interested in satisfying them. It is important to understand that you don’t do it only to increase sales, you do it because it’s the right thing to do.”

Don Soderquist (1934–2016)

Don Soderquist “ The Wal-Mart Way: The Inside Story of the Success of the World's Largest Company https://books.google.com/books?id=mIxwVLXdyjQC&lpg=PR9&dq=Don%20Soderquist&pg=PR9#v=onepage&q=Don%20Soderquist&f=false, Thomas Nelson, April 2005, p. 92.
On Doing Things Right

William Morris photo
Miguel de Unamuno photo
Adam Smith photo

“But though empires, like all the other works of men, have all hitherto proved mortal, yet every empire aims at immortality.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book V, Chapter II, Part II, p. 896.

Ilana Mercer photo
Fred Rogers photo

“Well, what is essential about you? And who are those who have helped you become the person that you are? Anyone who has ever graduated from a college, anyone who has ever been able to sustain a good work, has had at least one person and often many who have believed in him or her. We just don't get to be competent human beings without a lot of different investments from others.”

Fred Rogers (1928–2003) American television personality

Commencement Address at Dartmouth College June 9th, 2002 http://www.dartmouth.edu/~news/releases/2002/june/060902c.html and Commencement Address at Middlebury College May, 2001 http://web.archive.org/web/20030906163501/http://www.middlebury.edu/offices/pubaff/general_info/addresses/Fred_Rogers_2001.htm

Subcomandante Marcos photo
R. Venkataraman photo
Dwight D. Eisenhower photo
Rob Enderle photo

“Apple tends to aggressively work to not discover problems with products that are shipped and certainly not talk about them.”

Rob Enderle (1954) American financial analyst

Tesla and Apple: When Analytics Can Bite You http://itbusinessedge.com/blogs/unfiltered-opinion/tesla-and-apple-when-analytics-can-bite-you.html in IT Business Edge (28 October 2015)

Tim O'Reilly photo
Jonathan Edwards photo
Walter A. Shewhart photo
John Winthrop photo
Julian of Norwich photo
Kenneth Grahame photo
Poul Anderson photo
Donald A. Norman photo
Ernesto Che Guevara photo
Hillary Clinton photo

“I hope the fact-checkers are turning up the volume and really working hard. Donald supported the invasion of Iraq.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)

Suze Robertson photo

“But please come into my studio; It is now full of works everywhere, you see... Oh, you don't need to be careful; those paintings do fall together frequently; - it doesn't really harm them.”

Suze Robertson (1855–1922) Dutch painter

(version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Suze Robertson:) Maar komt u binnen op mijn atelier; 't staat er nu overal vol, naar u ziet.. .O, u hoeft niet zoo voorzichtig te weezen [M. J. Brusse komt naar haar atelier voor het interview]; die schilderijen vallen wel meer door elkaar; - 't hindert ze heusch niet..
M. J. Brusse visited Suze's studio in The Hague, for the interview
Source: 1900 - 1922, Onder de Menschen: Suze Robertson' (1912), p. 29

Taslima Nasrin photo
Theresa May photo
Jacoba van Heemskerck photo

“It is a terrible, but also tremendous time. Personally I find it moreover so important for my art to live now... These times force you to think over a lot and work very hard, in Nature now a strong creative force is working.”

Jacoba van Heemskerck (1876–1923) Dutch painter

translation from German, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
(original version, written by Jacoba in German:)Es ist eine schreckliche, doch auch eine gewaltige Zeit, ich persönlich empfinde es auch für meine Kunst so wichtig, jetzt zu leben.. .In dieser Zeit muss man viel denken und viel arbeiten, in der Natur ist jetzt eine so grosse Schaffenskraft.
In a letter of Jacoba, late 1914; as cited by A. Behne, in 'der Krieg und die künstlerische Produktion', in 'Die Umschau', Jan / März 1915
Jacoba is partly referring to World War 1. The Netherlands kept itself out of this war, but many Belgium refugees entered the country
1910's

Steve McManaman photo
Roberto Mangabeira Unger photo

“It's not the work or the personality of the founder of a religion that's important, but what its followers do with what they learn…”

Charles de Lint (1951) author

Part One: The Hidden People, "Border Spirit" p. 335
The Little Country (1991)

Mata Amritanandamayi photo

“Scientists are not known for the graces of courtesy and tact when commenting on the work of others.”

Scott L. Montgomery (1951) American geologist and writer

The Chicago Guide to Communicating Science, second edition, University of Chicago press, 2017, page 83 ISBN 978-0-226-14450-4.

Barbara Hepworth photo

“Light and space … are the sculptor's materials as much as wood or stone … I feel that I can relate my work more easily, in the open air, to the climate and the landscape.”

Barbara Hepworth (1903–1975) English sculptor

1947 - 1960
Source: Interview in Dialogues on Art, Edouard Roditi; London, 1960, pp. 91–92

George Holmes Howison photo
Joseph H. Hertz photo

“Not indolence but congenial work is man's Divinely allotted portion.”

Joseph H. Hertz (1872–1946) British rabbi

Genesis II, 15 (p. 8)
The Pentateuch and Haftorahs (one-volume edition, 1937, ISBN 0-900689-21-8

Oksana Shachko photo
John Hicks photo
Marianne von Werefkin photo
Karel Appel photo
David Cameron photo
Warren Farrell photo
Rose Wilder Lane photo
Herbert Marcuse photo
Edgar Froese photo
Tessa Virtue photo
Francis Escudero photo
Parker Palmer photo
Nader Shah photo

“When the Shah departed towards the close of the day, a false rumour was spread through the town that he had been severely wounded by a shot from a matchlock, and thus were sown the seeds from which murder and rapine were to spring. The bad characters within the town collected in great bodies, and, without distinction, commenced the work of plunder and destruction…. On the morning of the 11th an order went forth from the Persian Emperor for the slaughter of the inhabitants. The result may be imagined; one moment seemed to have sufficed for universal destruction. The Chandni chauk, the fruit market, the Daribah bazaar, and the buildings around the Masjid-i Jama’ were set fire to and reduced to ashes. The inhabitants, one and all, were slaughtered. Here and there some opposition was offered, but in most places people were butchered unresistingly. The Persians laid violent hands on everything and everybody; cloth, jewels, dishes of gold and silver, were acceptable spoil…. But to return to the miserable inhabitants. The massacre lasted half the day, when the Persian Emperor ordered Haji Fulad Khan, the kotwal, to proceed through the streets accompanied by a body of Persian nasakchis, and proclaim an order for the soldiers to resist from carnage. By degrees the violence of the flames subsided, but the bloodshed, the devastation, and the ruin of families were irreparable. For a long time the streets remained strewn with corpses, as the walks of a garden with dead flowers and leaves. The town was reduced to ashes, and had the appearance of a plain consumed with fire. All the regal jewels and property and the contents of the treasury were seized by the Persian conqueror in the citadel. He thus became possessed of treasure to the amount of sixty lacs of rupees and several thousand ashrafis… plate of gold to the value of one kror of rupees, and the jewels, many of which were unrivalled in beauty by any in the world, were valued at about fifty krors. The peacock throne alone, constructed at great pains in the reign of Shah Jahan, had cost one kror of rupees. Elephants, horses, and precious stuffs, whatever pleased. the conqueror’s eye, more indeed than can be enumerated, became his spoil. In short, the accumulated wealth of 348 years changed masters in a moment.”

Nader Shah (1688–1747) ruled as Shah of Iran

About Shah’s sack of Delhi, Tazrikha by Anand Ram Mukhlis. A history of Nâdir Shah’s invasion of India. In The History of India as Told by its own Historians. The Posthumous Papers of the Late Sir H. M. Elliot. John Dowson, ed. 1st ed. 1867. 2nd ed., Calcutta: Susil Gupta, 1956, vol. 22, pp. 74-98. https://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/h_es/h_es_tazrikha_frameset.htm

Buckminster Fuller photo
Harry Emerson Fosdick photo

“Each painting has its own way of evolving. One may start with a few color areas on the canvas; another with a myriad of lines, another with a profusion of colors... Once I sense the suggestion I begin to paint intuitively. The suggestion then becomes a phantom that must be caught and made real. As I work, or when the painting is finished, the subject reveals itself.”

William Baziotes (1912–1963) American painter

I Cannot Evolve Any Concrete Theory, William Baziotes, in Possibilities, Vol. I, no. 1, New York, winter 1947-48, p. 2
William Baziotes is referring in this quote to Surrealist automatism originally a surrealist art concept
1940s

Jennifer Beals photo