Quotes about work
page 74

Friedrich Bauer photo

“[Software engineering is the] establishment and use of sound engineering principles to obtain economically software that is reliable and works on real machines efficiently.”

Friedrich Bauer (1924–2015) German computer scientist

Bauer (1972) "Software Engineering", In: Information Processing. p. 71

Albert Einstein photo
Bill Maher photo

“[Saddam Hussein's execution] was a disaster, an unmitigated disaster. I was just so upset, even on the verge of tears. It was the antithesis of everything I had been working for and hoping for.”

Kanan Makiya (1949) American orientalist

"Edward Wong Interviews Kanan Makiya: Critic of Hussein Grapples with Horrors of Post Invasion Iraq", New York Times (March 25, 2007)

Louis C.K. photo
Hans Arp photo
Boniface Mwangi photo
Arshile Gorky photo

“Art comes instinctively to us, but it is so uncertain. I have in front of me photographs of all Picasso’s best works. The mere I admire them the further I feel myself removed from all art, it seems so easy, so limited! We are part of the world creation, and we ourselves create nothing.”

Arshile Gorky (1904–1948) Armenian-American painter

Source: 1930 - 1941, from 'Arshile Gorky, – Goats on the roof' (2009), p. 168: in a letter to his future wife Agnes Magruder (Mougouch), 7 Mai 1941

Wallace Stevens photo
Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman photo
Michel Seuphor photo
J. B. S. Haldane photo
David Bowie photo
John Maynard Keynes photo

“Capitalism is “the astonishing belief that the nastiest motives of the nastiest men somehow or other work for the best results in the best of all possible worlds.””

John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) British economist

Attributed by Sir George Schuster, Christianity and human relations in industry (1951), p. 109
Recent variant: Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.
As quoted in Moving Forward: Programme for a Participatory Economy (2000) by Michael Albert, p. 128
Attributed

C. Rajagopalachari photo
Northrop Frye photo

“In our day the conventional element in literature is elaborately disguised by a law of copyright pretending that every work of art is an invention distinctive enough to be patented.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

"Quotes", Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (1957), Mythical Phase: Symbol as Archetype

Margaret Cho photo

“My attitude towards peace does not depend on which war we are discussing. I think that words should do the work of bombs”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Books, I Have Chosen To Stay And Fight, WAR

Lauren Bacall photo

“Nicole and I worked together on Dogville and we were friends when we started this. That laid the groundwork for our fabulous relationship on screen and off.”

Lauren Bacall (1924–2014) American actress, model

Interview at Venice Film Festival (8 September 2004)

M. C. Escher photo

“.. and to think now that great mathematicians find my work interesting because I am able to illustrate their theories. They can not imagine that I was such a bad pupil in mathematics. I don't understand it myself neither. I never could understand why it was necessary to prove something that everyone already sees. I saw it, I knew it, so it is how it is… But yes, you had to prove it. I did overcome it when I realized I can make something else - I thought I was a good-for-nothing. In my family there were no other artists to find... I was just a weird duck, right?”

M. C. Escher (1898–1972) Dutch graphic artist

version in original Dutch (origineel citaat van M.C. Escher, in het Nederlands): En als je nu bedenkt dat grote wiskundigen mijn werk interessant vinden, omdat ik in staat ben hun theorieën te illustreren. Ze kunnen zich helemaal niet voorstellen dat ik zo slecht was in wiskunde. Ik snap er zelf ook niets van. Ik begreep niet dat je iets moest bewijzen wat iedereen ziet. Ik zag het, ik wist, het is toch zo.. .Maar jawel hoor, je moest het bewijzen. Ik ben er bovenuit gekomen toen ik me realiseerde, dat ik wat anders kon. Ik dacht, dat ik een nietsnut was. Ik kom uit een milieu waar geen artiesten in waren.. ..Ik was een rare eend in de bijt, he?
1960's, M.C. Escher, interviewed by Bibeb', 1968

Louis Auguste Blanqui photo

“There is a lot of model making in my work, also because I am the son of a sculptor Giannino Castiglioni and I always saw my father working with his hands and shaping material into the desired form.”

Achille Castiglioni (1918–2002) Italian designers and architect

Achille Castiglioni, 1960 - Lierna (Lago di Como), 1971. Scultore. in: Domus Magazine, Achille Effect, Laura Bossi, 13 April 2010, ( Domusweb online https://www.domusweb.it/en/news/2010/04/13/achille-effect.html)

William H. Rehnquist photo

“Perhaps you should say there should be mandatory retirement even of members of the court, members of the federal judiciary. I'm sure there can be questions about whether one does as good work when you get into your—you know, I'm 67.”

William H. Rehnquist (1924–2005) Chief Justice of the United States

Booknotes http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/index_print.asp?ProgramID=1107 television interview (July 5, 1992)

Bob Dylan photo

“I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Maggie's Farm

Charles Stross photo
Adi Da Samraj photo
Wolfgang Pauli photo

“One shouldn’t work on semiconductors, that is a filthy mess; who knows whether any semiconductors exist.”

Wolfgang Pauli (1900–1958) Austrian physicist, Nobel prize winner

Über Halbleiter soll man nicht arbeiten, das ist eine Schweinerei; wer weiss, ob es überhaupt Halbleiter gibt.
Letter to Peierls, 29 September 1931, Wolfgang Pauli – Wissenschaftlicher Briefwechsel mit Bohr, Einstein, Heisenberg u.a. Band II: 1930–1939, Springer, 1985, p. 94

Pope Benedict XVI photo
Wassily Kandinsky photo
Eugene V. Debs photo
Ai Weiwei photo

“My work has always been political, because the choice of being an artist is political in China.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2000-09, Escape from Propaganda, 2009

Cary Grant photo

“Anyone can do well … It’s all out there waiting for you to take. But first you must reach out and get it. You must work for your riches. You cannot expect it to fall into your lap.”

Cary Grant (1904–1986) British-American film and stage actor

Love – That’s All Cary Grant Ever Thinks About (1964)

John Desmond Bernal photo
Miyamoto Musashi photo
Richard Russo photo
Edward Hopper photo

“I find in working always the disturbing intrusion of elements not a part of my most interested vision, and the inevitable obliteration and replacement of this vision by the work itself as it proceeds..”

Edward Hopper (1882–1967) prominent American realist painter and printmaker

1911 - 1940, Notes on Painting - Edward Hopper (1933)

Frederick Douglass photo
Andrei Codrescu photo
Marcus Aurelius photo

“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: ‘I have to go to work – as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for – the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?”

Hays translation
At dawn of day, when you dislike being called, have this thought ready: "I am called to man's labour; why then do I make a difficulty if I am going out to do what I was born to do and what I was brought into the world for?(Farquharson translation)
Ὄρθρου, ὅταν δυσόκνως ἐξεγείρῃ, πρόχειρον ἔστω ὅτι ἐπὶ ἀνθρώπου ἔργον ἐγείρομαι· ἔτι οὖν δυσκολαίνω, εἰ πορεύομαι ἐπὶ τὸ ποιεῖν ὧν ἕνεκεν γέγονα καὶ ὧν χάριν προῆγμαι εἰς τὸν κόσμον; ἢ ἐπὶ τοῦτο κατεσκεύασμαι, ἵνα κατακείμενος ἐν στρωματίοις ἐμαυτὸν θάλπω;
V, 1
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book V

Horace Greeley photo
Giorgio Morandi photo
John Lancaster Spalding photo
James Branch Cabell photo
André Maurois photo
Margaret Thatcher photo
George Eliot photo
Ben Harper photo
Winston S. Churchill photo

“I have worked very hard with Nehru. I told him he should be the light of Asia, to show all those mil­lions how they can shine out, instead of accept­ing the dark­ness of Com­mu­nism.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

18 Feb­ru­ary 1955, WSC to Eden’s pri­vate sec­re­tary Eve­lyn Shuckburgh.
Post-war years (1945–1955)

George Long photo
Alain-Fournier photo
Lee Kuan Yew photo
Jean Cocteau photo

“When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

Le Coq et l’Arlequin (1918)

Larisa Oleynik photo
Emil Nolde photo

“In the working of wood and for the determining of its character I had had enough experience in my five-year pursuit of woodcutting. I also always gladly let the various charming grainings and sometimes the knots become involved in the printing.”

Emil Nolde (1867–1956) German artist

in Nolde's letter, c. 1910; in Alois J. Schardt, 'Nolde als Graphiker', Das Kunstblatt 11, no. 8., 1927, p. 289; as quoted in 'The Revival of Printmaking in Germany', I. K. Rigby; in German Expressionist Prints and Drawings - Essays Vol 1.; published by Museum Associates, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California & Prestel-Verlag, Germany, 1986, p. 52
1900 - 1920

Anne Hathaway photo
Alexander Rodchenko photo

“[my goal is] to photograph not a factory but the work itself from the most effective point of view.... in order to show the grandness of a machine, one should photograph not all of it but give a series of snapshots.”

Alexander Rodchenko (1891–1956) Russian artist and photographer

Quote, 1930: from Rodchenko lecture at the October group's meeting; as quoted by Margarita Tupitsyn in Chapter 'Fragmentation versus Totality: The Politics of (De)framing', in The great Utopia - The Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde, 1915-1932; Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1992, p. 486
the issue was not to take 'photo pictures' of the entire object but to make 'photo stills' of characteristic parts of an object

Henry Miller photo
William Ellery Channing photo
Louis Pasteur photo
Warren Farrell photo
Anthony Trollope photo
John Calvin photo

“If there had been any unbelief in Mary, that could not prevent God from accomplishing his work in any other way which he might choose. But she is called blessed, because she received by faith the blessing offered to her, and opened up the way to God for its accomplishment.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Commentary on Luke 1:45 http://www.biblestudyguide.org/comment/calvin/comm_vol31/htm/ix.viii.htm.
Harmony of Matthew, Mark, Luke

Leonid Brezhnev photo
Miguel de Cervantes photo

“The charging of his enemy was but the work of a moment.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part I, Book I, Ch. 8.

Matthew Henry photo

“In all God's providences, it is good to compare His word and His works together; for we shall find a beautiful harmony between them, and that they mutually illustrate each other.”

Matthew Henry (1662–1714) Theologician from Wales

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 281.

Brewster Kahle photo
Roger Waters photo
Paul Ryan photo
Allen C. Guelzo photo
Francis Escudero photo

“Black propaganda and negative politics don't and won't work here/elsewhere simply because of one thing - it is based on a lie.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Francis Escudero Twitter feed: @SayChiz (3:30 p.m. 2015 December 28).
2015, Twitter Feed

Jean Dubuffet photo
Gordon B. Hinckley photo

“I wanted that work to carry the most important message … that a person mustn't sell himself. I made a chocolate bar that can't be bought, using a giant panel of concrete.”

Pavel 183 (1983–2013) Russian street artist

as reported by Vladimir Isachenkov "P183 Dead: Street Artist Known As 'Russian Banksy' Dies At 29 Years Old" at The Huffington Post (3 April 2013) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/03/p183-dead-street-artist-russian-banksy-dies_n_3006544.html

Neal D. Barnard photo
Joseph Alois Schumpeter photo
Huston Smith photo
Steve Sailer photo

“Privilege is basically a form of property, and as John Locke pointed out, property is what makes a civilization rather than a Libyan war zone of Hobbesian anarchy. The world is a better place when people can work constructively to earn privileges, individual and collective, and pass some of them on to their heirs.”

Steve Sailer (1958) American journalist and movie critic

Checking Iron Age Barbarian Prejudice http://takimag.com/article/checking_iron_age_barbarian_prejudice_steve_sailer/print#ixzz4A7r77jkG, Taki's Magazine, April 22, 2015

Vincent Van Gogh photo
Paul Graham photo
Eduardo Torroja photo
Rollo May photo
Samuel R. Delany photo
Douglas MacArthur photo
Pricasso photo

“How unflappable do you have to be to go to work, find a stone head on the doorstep, and just go about your day sorting the mail as usual? I'll bet she could pose for a portrait by Pricasso and not bat an eye.”

Pricasso (1949) Australian painter

[Intriguing news reports fresh off the Internet, 5 October 2007, Mary Hanna, Tri-Valley Herald, Pleasanton, California]
About

Max Brod photo
Howard S. Becker photo

“Good sociology is sociological work that produces meaningful descriptions of organizations and events, valid explanations of how they come about and persist, and realistic proposals for their improvement or removal.”

Howard S. Becker (1928) American sociologist

Becker (1972) "'Radical politics and sociological research" cited in: John Peter Sugden, Alan Tomlinson (2002) Power Games: A Critical Sociology of Sport. p. 108.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg photo

“The noble simplicity in the works of nature only too often originates in the noble shortsightedness of him who observes it.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

H 1
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook H (1784-1788)

Rosey Grier photo
Vladimir Lenin photo
John Barrowman photo

“It's taken me 30 years to get this way, and I don't intend to let go. I work hard, but I play hard, too, and that's the one part of me that nobody sees. But I intend to be around for a long time yet.”

John Barrowman (1967) Scottish-American actor, singer, dancer, musical theatre performer, writer and television personality

Why Torchwood star and talent show judge John Barrowman would do anything for success, Michael Hellicar, 2008-04-11, 2008-04-11, dailymail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=558746&in_page_id=1773,

S. S. Rajamouli photo

“We're still in a daze. We're still processing it. It's leapt beyond every expectation of ours so right now if you ask me, I feel surreal. It'll take another month or so for me to actually realize the scale at which the film has worked.”

S. S. Rajamouli (1973) Indian film director

EXCLUSIVE: What SS Rajamouli Thinks About Baahubali's 'Lion King' Connection & 'Casteist' Undertones http://www.huffingtonpost.in/2017/05/22/ss-rajamouli-on-baahubalis-lion-king-connection-its-casteist-u_a_22103159/?utm_hp_ref=in-ss-rajamouli (22 May 2017), HuffPost. Retrieved 8 September 2017.