Quotes about work (10000 quotes, page 5)

“The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.”

Howard Thurman (1899–1981) American writer

"The Work of Christmas" in The Mood of Christmas & Other Celebrations (1985)
Context: When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.

People , Peace , Music , Heart

“Humanity needs practical men, who get the most out of their work, and, without forgetting the general good, safeguard their own interests. But humanity also needs dreamers, for whom the disinterested development of an enterprise is so captivating that it becomes impossible for them to devote their care to their own material profit.”

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

As quoted in Astrophysics of the Diffuse Universe (2003) by Michael A. Dopita and Ralph S. Sutherland
Context: Humanity needs practical men, who get the most out of their work, and, without forgetting the general good, safeguard their own interests. But humanity also needs dreamers, for whom the disinterested development of an enterprise is so captivating that it becomes impossible for them to devote their care to their own material profit. Without doubt, these dreamers do not deserve wealth, because they do not desire it. Even so, a well-organized society should assure to such workers the efficient means of accomplishing their task, in a life freed from material care and freely consecrated to research.

Men , Forgetting

“If you will avoid all bigotry, go on. In every instance of this kind, whatever the instrument be, acknowledge the finger of God. And not only acknowledge, but rejoice in his work, and praise his name with thanksgiving. Encourage whomsoever God is pleased to employ, to give himself wholly up thereto. Speak well of him wheresoever you are; defend his character and his mission.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

Sermon 38 "A Caution against Bigotry http://www.ccel.org/ccel/wesley/sermons.v.xxxviii.html
Sermons on Several Occasions (1771)
Context: In order to examine ourselves thoroughly, let the case be proposed in the strongest manner. What, if I were to see a Papist, an Arian, a Socinian casting out devils? If I did, I could not forbid even him, without convicting myself of bigotry. Yea, if it could be supposed that I should see a Jew, a Deist, or a Turk, doing the same, were I to forbid him either directly or indirectly, I should be no better than a bigot still.
O stand clear of this! But be not content with not forbidding any that casts out devils. It is well to go thus far; but do not stop here. If you will avoid all bigotry, go on. In every instance of this kind, whatever the instrument be, acknowledge the finger of God. And not only acknowledge, but rejoice in his work, and praise his name with thanksgiving. Encourage whomsoever God is pleased to employ, to give himself wholly up thereto. Speak well of him wheresoever you are; defend his character and his mission. Enlarge, as far as you can, his sphere of action; show him all kindness in word and deed; and cease not to cry to God in his behalf, that he may save both himself and them that hear him.
I need add but one caution: Think not the bigotry of another is any excuse for your own. It is not impossible, that one who casts out devils himself, may yet forbid you so to do. You may observe, this is the very case mentioned in the text. The Apostles forbade another to do what they did themselves. But beware of retorting. It is not your part to return evil for evil. Another’s not observing the direction of our Lord, is no reason why you should neglect it. Nay, but let him have all the bigotry to himself. If he forbid you, do not you forbid him. Rather labour, and watch, and pray the more, to confirm your love toward him. If he speak all manner of evil of you, speak all manner of good (that is true) of him.

God

“Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism, as I understand it. It seems to me nonsense, in a period like our own, to think that one can avoid writing of such subjects.”

George Orwell Why I Write

"Why I Write," Gangrel (Summer 1946)
Context: The Spanish war and other events in 1936-7 turned the scale and thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism, as I understand it. It seems to me nonsense, in a period like our own, to think that one can avoid writing of such subjects.

Understanding , Thinking

“We are working aggressively to support our Japanese ally at this time of extraordinary challenge.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2011, Address on the natural and nuclear energy disasters in Japan (March 2011)
Context: We are working aggressively to support our Japanese ally at this time of extraordinary challenge. Search and rescue teams are on the ground in Japan to help the recovery effort. A disaster assistance and response team is working to confront the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami. The U. S. military, which has helped to ensure the security of Japan for decades, is working around the clock.

Support , Time

“At present I do not feel I have seen more than the fringe of poverty.
Still, I can point to one or two things I have definitely learned by being hard up. I shall never again think that all tramps are drunken scoundrels, nor expect a beggar to be grateful when I give him a penny, nor be surprised if men out of work lack energy, nor subscribe to the Salvation Army, nor pawn my clothes, nor refuse a handbill, nor enjoy a meal at a smart restaurant. That is a beginning.”

George Orwell book Down and Out in Paris and London

Source: Down and out in Paris and London (1933), Ch. 38
Context: My story ends here. It is a fairly trivial story, and I can only hope that it has been interesting in the same way as a trivial diary is interesting. … At present I do not feel I have seen more than the fringe of poverty.
Still, I can point to one or two things I have definitely learned by being hard up. I shall never again think that all tramps are drunken scoundrels, nor expect a beggar to be grateful when I give him a penny, nor be surprised if men out of work lack energy, nor subscribe to the Salvation Army, nor pawn my clothes, nor refuse a handbill, nor enjoy a meal at a smart restaurant. That is a beginning.

Men , Feeling , Thinking , Learning

“That is what Castle's work needed: a beginner's eye”

Theodore Roszak book Flicker

Flicker (1991)
Context: That is what Castle's work needed: a beginner's eye—my eye, before it became too schooled and guarded, while it was still in touch with the vulgar foundations of the art, still vulnerably naive enough to receive that faint and flickering revelation of the dark god whose scriptures are the secret history of the movies.

“Hold all and wait.
The questions that are in one’s mind will be worked out eventually without a word from the Master.
The light becomes stronger and the darkness vanishes in the reorganization of the inner man and his thinking processes and habits.
Do not make the mistake of trying to fit the teachings of ECK into the old ways of thinking.
Drop all and start over again.”

Paul Twitchell (1909–1971) American writer

Way , Question , Thinking , Light

“People who work together will win, whether it be against complex football defenses, or the problems of modern society.”

Vince Lombardi (1913–1970) American football player, coach, and executive

For Team , People , Problem , Football

“Taking your first title is much more complicated and more difficult; it takes years of work – from go-kart to Formula One. The second comes more easily, because you’ve already got the experience.”

Niki Lauda (1949–2019) Austrian former Formula 1 racing driver

“You know, when I have a bad game, it continues to humble me and know that, you know, you still have work to do and you still have a lot of people to impress.”

LeBron James (1984) American basketball player

Game , People , Bad luck

“Everybody shut up. Let us work.”

Kobe Bryant (1978–2020) American basketball player

“Put your head down and work hard. Never wait for things to happen, make them happen for yourself through hard graft and not giving up.”

Gordon Ramsay (1966) British chef, writer and TV presenter

Making love , Waiting

“Honesty and loyalty work in collaboration with each other; therefore, where you find dishonesty, lives disloyalty.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1976

Loyalty

“The ancients considered mechanics in a twofold respect; as rational, which proceeds accurately by demonstration, and practical. To practical mechanics all the manual arts belong, from which mechanics took its name. But as artificers do not work with perfect accuracy, it comes to pass that mechanics is so distinguished from geometry, that what is perfectly accurate is called geometrical; what is less so is called mechanical. But the errors are not in the art, but in the artificers. He that works with less accuracy is an imperfect mechanic: and if any could work with perfect accuracy, he would be the most perfect mechanic of all; for the description of right lines and circles, upon which geometry is founded, belongs to mechanics. Geometry does not teach us to draw these lines, but requires them to be drawn; for it requires that the learner should first be taught to describe these accurately, before he enters upon geometry; then it shows how by these operations problems may be solved.”

Isaac Newton book Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica

Preface (8 May 1686)
Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)

Drawing , Art , Perfection , Problem

“Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world. Science is the highest personification of the nation because that nation will remain the first which carries the furthest the works of thought and intelligence.”

Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) French chemist and microbiologist

As quoted in Louis Pasteur, Free Lance of Science (1960) by René Jules Dubos, Ch. 3 : Pasteur in Action

Country , Intelligence , Knowledge , World

“The Great Work is the attainment of that middle point in which equilibrating force abides. Furthermore, the reactions of equilibrated force do everywhere conserve universal life by the perpetual motion of birth and death. It is for this reason that the philosophers have compared their gold to the sun. For the same reason that same gold cures all diseases of the soul and communicates immortality.”

Eliphas Levi (1810–1875) French writer

Source: The History Of Magic (1860), p. 500

Soul , Death , Sun , Communication

“If we dwell on real or imagined sins of the past, we shall never be able to find one another in the present, nor shall we be able to work together on building the future.”

F. W. de Klerk (1936) South African politician

Speech to the Good-will Foundation (9 March 1991)
1990s

Past , Future , Imagination

“I arrived at the house one day, my mother being at work, and heard the sounds of Samuel plunging his penis into my sister’s vagina through her closed room door, along with my sister’s moans. I stood there and listened to it all. So my sister, who was four years younger than me, managed to lose her virginity before I did. It reminded me of how pathetic I was, that at the age of twenty-two, I was still a virgin.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), Pastimes

Sister , Housing , Age

“In Europe Negro soldiers are used principally as service troops ·behind the ·lines, and I state now, on the authority of many American officers, that they ·were lazy; that they would not work; that it was a mistake to send them to Europe, and furthermore, that. they should be returned from Europe ar:d sent to the Pacific, where there are races of color.”

James Eastland (1904–1986) American politician

1940s

Color

“There are no buildings that have been built by chance, remote from the human society where they have grown and its needs, hopes and understandings, even as there are no arbitrary lines and motiveless forms in the work of the masons. The life and existence of every great, beautiful and useful building, as well as its relation to the place where it has been built, often bears within itself complex and mysterious drama and history.”

Ivo Andrič book The Bridge on the Drina

Source: The Bridge on the Drina (1945), Ch. 2

Chance , History , Understanding , Beauty

“I tried out that Buckethead guy. I met with him and asked him to work with me but only if he got rid of the fucking bucket. So I came back a bit later and he's wearing this green fucking Martian's-hat thing. I said, 'Look, just be yourself!' He told me his name was Brian, so I said that's what I'd call him. He says, 'No one calls me Brian except my mother.' So I said, 'Pretend I'm your mum then!' I haven't even got out of the room and I'm already playing fucking mind games with the guy. What happens if one day he's gone and there's a note saying, 'I've been beamed up?”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

[Laughs] Don't get me wrong, he's a great player. He plays like a motherfucker!
Revolver interview; as quoted in "Ozzy Osbourne "Says Ex-GUNS N' ROSES Guitarist Buckethead Auditioned For His Solo Band" http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/ozzy-osbourne-says-ex-guns-n-roses-guitarist-buckethead-auditioned-for-his-solo-band/, Blabbermouth.net, January 5, 2005

Game , Guy

“What has been handed down to us does not seem to be working for the majority of people. With the advances in science and technology over the last two hundred years, you may be asking: “does it have to be this way?””

Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer

With the observable fact that scientific knowledge makes our lives better when applied with concern for human welfare and environmental protection, there is no question that science and technology can produce abundance so that no one has to go without... Hopes for divine intervention by mythical characters are delusions that cannot solve the problems of our modern world. The future of the world is our responsibility and it depends upon decisions we make today. We are our own salvation or damnation.
Source: Designing the Future (2007), p. 10

Way , Science , People

“He who creates value works, and is a worker. A movement that wants to free labor is a workers’ party.”

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

1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)

“Trust wisdom, the harder you work the better luck you have.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1989

Bad luck , Wisdom

“If you’re the problem, then moving to a new town to start a new life is not going to work.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1998

Problem , Life

“And once, in spite of the men who gripped him by each shoulder, he stepped slightly aside to avoid a puddle on the path. It is curious, but till that moment I had never realised what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, he was alive just as we were alive. All the organs of his body were working – bowels digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails growing, tissues forming – all toiling away in solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop, when he was falling through the air with a tenth of a second to live. His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw, reasoned – reasoned even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone – one mind less, one world less.”

George Orwell book A Hanging

Source: "A Hanging", in The Adelphi (August 1931)

Understanding , Food , World , Life

“I don’t think pro bono work [in architecture] is very common and that is because sustainable and resilient architecture is not currently viewed as a necessity. Unfortunately, it takes large scale disasters to expose the failures and negligence in design and construction.”

Jiri Lev (1979)

Source: The Australian Architects Offering Pro-Bono Design Services to Bushfire Survivors https://hivelife.com/architects-assist/.

Thinking , Failure

“My first job was in a movie theater. I worked at Cinema 6 in New City, New York. I was an usher. I sold popcorn.”

Sebastian Stan (1982) Romanian-American actor

Quote

“When you play a character, you learn the inner workings of someone's heart. I've learned something about myself through every character I've played!”

Debby Ryan (1993) American singer and actress

Debby Ryan's Winter Fashion And Beauty Tips https://www.seventeen.com/celebrity/a19701/debby-ryan-fashion-interview/ (November 8, 2012)

Heart , Learning

“My body is my work. You have to be patient. Maybe you don’t see the difference after a few months, but after a few years you will see why you can play longer and stay on a higher level longer.”

Robert Lewandowski (1988) Polish association football player

"Robert Lewandowski, a force for Bayern Munich, faces an uphill climb with underdog Poland" https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/06/16/robert-lewandowski-poland-euro-2020/ (June 16, 2021)

“I score so many goals, this means a lot. I know I will always be a little bit behind and I have to maybe work harder than those players for my country if we want to achieve something. It’s not an easy job for me, but I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid. It’s a big chance.”

Robert Lewandowski (1988) Polish association football player

Chance , Country

“It just happened. I like to sing, and well, I just started singing and folks just started listening. I can't tell folks that I worked and learned and studied, and overcame disappointments, because I didn't.”

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor

Source: Pop Chronicles, Show 7 – The All American Boy: Enter Elvis and the rock-a-billies. Part 1 http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc19754/m1/; C. Robert Jennings, " Elvis Lives! http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/doc/155809300.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&type=historic&date=Feb+18%2C+1968&author=Jennings%2C+C+Robert&pub=Los+Angeles+Times+%281923-Current+File%29&edition=&startpage=M28&desc=ELVIS+LIVES%21", 1968-Feb-18, L.A. Times Magazine, p. M28.

Singing , Study , Learning , Disappointment

“The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior 'righteous indignation' — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

People , Chance , Way , Behavior

“Your aim is to reduce every thing to your own mean level—to degrade every thing to your malignant standard... In all your conduct it is not difficult to detect the workings of a mean and long mortified spirit suddenly invested with power,—the struggles of a strong ambition attempting, by a wanton exercise of authority, to revenge the disgrace of a feeble intellect.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: 'Letter VII. to Lord John Russell' (30 January 1836), The Letters of Runnymede (1836), pp. 60-61

Strong , Revenge , Exercises

“The freedom to grow personally, the freedom to make mistakes and learn from them, the freedom to work hard and the freedom to be yourself - these four freedoms should be guaranteed by every leader in every organization.”

Mike Krzyzewski (1947) American basketball player and coach

Freedom , Learning , Personality

“The ideal art, the noblest of art: working with the complexities of life, refusing to simplify, to "overcome" doubt.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

Source: The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates: 1973-1982

Life , Art

“It was sad, like those businessmen who came to work in serious clothes but wore colorful ties in a mad, desperate attempt to show there was a free spirit in there somewhere.”

Terry Pratchett book Making Money

Source: Making Money

Sadness , Color , Madness , Clothes

“Would you like to know the great drama of my life? It is that I have put my genius into my life… I have put only my talent into my works.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Life

“You can't copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling. No two people on earth are alike, and it's got to be that way in music or it isn't music.”

Billie Holiday book Lady Sings the Blues

Variant: Everyones got to be different. You can't copy anybody and end up with anything. If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling. And without feeling, whatever you do amounts to nothing.
Source: Lady Sings the Blues

People , Music , Way , Feeling

“You'll never understand the way the worlds really work until you surround yourself with people from all sorts of weird backgrounds.”

Brian K. Vaughan (1976) American screenwriter, comic book creator

Source: Saga, Vol. 6

People , World , Way , Understanding

“We never know how God will answer our prayers, but we can expect that He will get us involved in His plan for the answer. If we are true intercessors, we must be ready to take part in God’s work on behalf of the people for whom we pray.”

Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) Dutch resistance hero and writer

God , People , Parting

“What's terrible is to pretend that the second-rate is the first-rate. To pretend that you don't need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better.”

Doris Lessing book The Golden Notebook

Anna Wulf, in "Free Women: 2"
Source: The Golden Notebook (1962)
Context: It seems to me like this. It's not a terrible thing — I mean, it may be terrible, but it's not damaging, it's not poisoning, to do without something one really wants. It's not bad to say: My work is not what I really want, I'm capable of doing something bigger. Or I'm a person who needs love, and I'm doing without it. What's terrible is to pretend that the second-rate is the first-rate. To pretend that you don't need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better.

Love

“A professional is one who does his best work when he feels the least like working.”

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

Feeling

“The intellect of man is forced to choose
Perfection of the life, or of the work,
And if it take the second must refuse
A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.”

W.B. Yeats book The Winding Stair and Other Poems

The Choice http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1602/, st. 1
The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933)

Life , Rage , Perfection

“There are two ways to reach me: by way of kisses or by way of the imagination. But there is a hierarchy: the kisses alone don't work.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Source: Henry And June

Way , Imagination , Kiss

“The best political, social, and spiritual work we can do is to withdraw the projection of our shadow onto others.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

“A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

Art

“If you trust in yourself… and believe in your dreams… and follow your star… you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

Terry Pratchett book The Wee Free Men

Variant: Now... if you trust in yourself... and believe in your dreams... and follow your star... you'll still get beaten by people who spenttime working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy. Goodbye.
Source: The Wee Free Men

People , Dreams , Star , Learning

“Have you tried talking to her?"
"No. We've been punching her in the face repeatedly. What? You don't think that will work?”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Thinking

“Luck? I don’t know anything about luck. I’ve never banked on it and I’m afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: hard work - and realizing what opportunity is and what isn’t.”

Lucille Ball (1911–1989) American actress and businesswoman

People

“Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them.”

Paul Hawken (1946) American environmentalist

Leadership , Art , Problem

“We work in the dark — we do what we can — we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.”

Henry James book The Middle Years

Source: The Middle Years (1893).

Art , Passion , Madness

“Things usually work out in the end."
"What if they don't?"
"That just means you haven't come to the end yet.”

Jeannette Walls book The Glass Castle

Source: The Glass Castle

“The worst evil which can befall the artist is that his work should appear good in his own eyes.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Appearance , Evil

“I never expect a perfect work from an imperfect man.”

Alexander Hamilton (1757–1804) Founding Father of the United States

Perfection

“Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combatting the forces of evil… prayer, fasting, good works and so on. Up until Doom, no one seemed to have thought about the double-barrel shotgun. Eat leaden death, demon…”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

alt.fan.pratchett (30 May 1998) http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.pratchett/msg/31c9fbae84e0fc8c
Usenet

Death , Way , Evil

“Again and again, the cicada’s untiring cry pierced the sultry summer air like a needle at work on thick cotton cloth.”

Yukio Mishima book Runaway Horses

Source: Runaway Horses

Summer , Cry , Clothes

“well, i don't know about you but I'm going to try everything! War, women, travel, marriage, children, the works. […]. I want to know about things, what makes them work!”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Source: Ham on Rye

Women , Marriage , War , Children

“Bad artists always admire each others work.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“Work is always an antidote to depression.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

“If you’re looking for the full deal, the till-death deal, then look at me. No one’s ever going to love you, stick by you, understand how you work the way I do.
(Malcolm Kavanaugh)”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: Happy Ever After

Love , Death , Way , Understanding

“I do not like work even when someone else is doing it.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“In proportion therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases.”

Karl Marx book The Communist Manifesto

Source: The Communist Manifesto

“Remember me? I'm back to my old self again. No responsibilities, no attachments, no encumbrances. I don't want to own anything, love anyone, or get too attached to people, places or things. It's a rule that seems to work well for me.”

Danielle Steel Second Chance

Source: Second Chance

Love , People

“Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Source: 381 https://cdm15999.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/ItalTravLit/id/22790
Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Mark Twain / Quotes / Mark Twain's Notebook (1935)

God

“Don't ask permission. If it does not work, you can apologize later.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.”

Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist

Source: As quoted in "My Philosophy of Industry" an interview of Ford by Fay Leone Faurote, The Forum, Vol. 79, No. 4 (April 1928), p. 481;

also in "Thinking Is Hardest Work, Therefore Few Engage in It", San Francisco Chronicle (13 April 1928), p. 25;

both articles are cited as the primary sources of other variants which later arose, in https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/04/05/so-few "Thinking Is the Hardest Work There Is, which Is the Probable Reason Why So Few Engage In It" in Quote Investigator (5 April 2016)

Thinking

“The best work that anybody ever writes is the work that is on the verge of embarrassing him, always.”

Arthur Miller (1915–2005) playwright from the United States

“Stolen bodies working stolen land. It was an engine that did not stop, its hungry boiler fed with blood.”

Colson Whitehead book The Underground Railroad

Source: The Underground Railroad

“The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.”

Blaise Pascal Pensées

Source: Pensées

“True kindness isn't something we're born with. It's something we have to work at. Not everyone has it. But I think everyone has the potential. Sometimes you just have to look really close before you can tell it's there."-Kyoko”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

Thinking

“If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a nonworking cat.”

Douglas Adams book The Salmon of Doubt

Douglas Adams. The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time. New York: Random House, 2002, 135–136.
Also quoted by Richard Dawkins in his Eulogy for Douglas Adams (17 September 2001) http://www.edge.org/documents/adams_index.html
Context: If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a nonworking cat. Life is a level of complexity that almost lies outside our vision; it is so far beyond anything we have any means of understanding that we just think of it as a different class of object, a different class of matter; 'life', something that had a mysterious essence about it, was God given, and that's the only explanation we had. The bombshell comes in 1859 when Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species. It takes a long time before we really get to grips with this and begin to understand it, because not only does it seem incredible and thoroughly demeaning to us, but it's yet another shock to our system to discover that not only are we not the centre of the Universe and we're not made by anything, but we started out as some kind of slime and got to where we are via being a monkey. It just doesn't read well.

Cats

“When you play, play hard; when you work, don't play at all.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

“Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Men

“Accept - then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Sad

“work. play. passion.”

Jim Clark (1936–1968) British racecar driver

Source: Making Friends with Candy

Passion

“Punishment is not the answer. Punishment is easy. It’s lazy. Redemption is hard. Redemption makes you work.”
-Skulduggery”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: The Dying of the Light

“Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

“Since this is an era when many people are concerned about 'fairness' and 'social justice,' what is your 'fair share' of what someone else has worked for?”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

Source: Dismantling America and Other Controversial Essays (2011), p.397

People , Justice

“Make your work to be in keeping with your purpose”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Back To Work

“If you do the work you get rewarded. There are no shortcuts in life.”

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

Life

“Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning. Once it does, it becomes the kind of thing that makes you grab your wife around the waist and dance a jig. (150)”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: Outliers: The Story of Success

Dance

“It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don't mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind. -Algernon”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays

“I don't want to express alienation. It isn't what I feel. I'm interested in various kinds of passionate engagement. All my work says be serious, be passionate, wake up.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

"Susan Sontag Finds Romance" http://www.nytimes.com/1992/08/02/books/booksspecial/sontag-romance.html?ex=1168146000&en=d224e29f399a3317&ei=5070, interview with by Leslie Garis, The New York Times (2 August 1992)

Feeling , Passion

“It is not enough for the teacher to love the child. She must first love and understand the universe. She must prepare herself, and truly work at it.”

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

Love , Understanding , Teachers , Universe

“There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win, because it works.”

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

Interview with Diane Sawyer, as quoted in "Stephen Hawking on Religion: 'Science Will Win'" on ABC World News (7 June 2010) http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Technology/stephen-hawking-religion-science-win/story?id=10830164

Religion , Science

“No man needs sympathy because he has to work, because he has a burden to carry. Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Back To Work , Life , Chance

“Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Art

“One day I'll work out what it is you are saying, my lad, and then you'll be in trouble.”

Terry Pratchett book I Shall Wear Midnight

Source: I Shall Wear Midnight

“I'm just an individual who doesn't feel that I need to have somebody qualify my work in any particular way. I'm working for me.”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

Way , Feeling

“I'd like to find whoever taught the Stump that extra work builds character and push him down the stairs," Neal told Kel at lunch.”

Tamora Pierce book First Test

Source: First Test

“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Deep

“It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Variant: It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,' says the White Queen to Alice.
Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

Memory

“if to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair. The rest is in the hands of God.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Attributions in an "Oration upon the Death of General Washington, Delivered at the Request of the Corporation of the City of New York On the 31st of December, 1799", by Gouverneur Morris. Though these words, supposedly given at the opening of the Constitutional Convention, were not recorded in James Madison's summary of the events of 25 May 1787, George Bancroft accepted them as genuine (History of the United States of America, volume VI, Book III, Chapter I). Henry Cabot Lodge however gave cogent reasons for rejecting them (George Washington, Volume II, Chapter I). The attribution to Washington was so widely accepted that it was engraved above the Fifteenth Street entrance to the Department of Commerce Bldg. http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015060022434;view=1up;seq=48 in Washington, D.C., on the arch in Washington Square Park in New York City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Square_Arch and on a bronze plaque above the Eighteenth Street doorway to Constitution Hall http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015060022434;view=1up;seq=50.
Disputed
Context: Americans! let the opinion then delivered by the greatest and best of men, be ever present to your remembrance. He was collected within himself. His countenance had more than usual solemnity; his, eye was fixed, and seemed to look into futurity. "It is (said he) too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God." This was the patriot voice of Washington; and this the constant tenor of his conduct. With this deep sense of duty, he gave to our Constitution his cordial assent; and has added the fame of a legislator to that of a hero.

God , People