Quotes about working
page 15

Virginia Woolf photo
Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo
Barack Obama photo
Barack Obama photo

“John Kerry believes in an America where hard work is rewarded.”

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

2004, Democratic National Convention speech (July 2004)

W.B. Yeats photo
Jim Caviezel photo
Napoleon I of France photo

“At dinner, he told us that he was much better, and we pointed out to him, about this, that, for some time however, he had not been out, and had been working eight, ten, or twelve hours a day. "That is just it," said he: "work is my element; I was born and made for it. I have found the limits of my legs; I have found the limits of my eyes; but I have never been able to find the limits of my labour."”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

A dîner, il nous disait qu'il se trouvait beaucoup mieux, et nous lui avons fait observer, à ce sujet, que, depuis quelque temps néanmoins, il ne sortait plus, et travaillat huit, dix, douze heures par jour.
«C'est cela même,» disait-il: «le travail est mon élément; je suis né et construit pour le travail. J'ai connu les limites de mes jambes, j'ai connu les limites de mes yeux; je n'ai jamais pu connaître celles de mon travail.»
Mémorial de Sainte Hélène, Volume 6, p. 272 https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=qSliAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA272
About

Theodore Roosevelt photo
Ozzy Osbourne photo
Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“I am not to blame for putting forward, in the course of my work on science, any general rule derived from a previous conclusion.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), I Prolegomena and General Introduction to the Book on Painting

Walter Gropius photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Pope Francis photo
William S. Burroughs photo

“Build a good name. Keep your name clean. Don’t make compromises, don’t worry about making a bunch of money or being successful — be concerned with doing good work and make the right choices and protect your work. And if you build a good name, eventually, that name will be its own currency.”

William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, painter, and spoken word performer

Recounted by Patti Smith in an Interview by Christian Lund http://vimeo.com/57857893, the Louisiana Literature festival August 24, 2012, at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art

Theodor W. Adorno photo
Mark Twain photo
Karl Marx photo
Art Spiegelman photo

“There's a therapeutic aspect to all making, but the nature of working is to compress, condense, and shape stuff, not to just expunge it. It's not just an exorcism.”

Art Spiegelman (1948) cartoonist from the United States

As quoted in "Art Spiegelman on ‘Breakdowns’ Redux and the Dark Side of Tina Fey" by Rebecca Milzoff in New York magazine (8 October 2008).

Otto Dix photo

“Lice, rats, barbed wire, fleas, shells, bombs, underground caves, corpses, blood, liquor, mice, cats, gas, artillery, filth, bullets, mortars, fire, steel: that is what war is! It is all the work of the Devil!”

Otto Dix (1891–1969) German painter and printmaker

Quote from Dix' War Diary 1915–1916, Städtische Gallery, Albstadt, p. 25; as cited by Eva Karcher, Otto Dix, New York: Crown Publishers, 1987, p. 14

José Saramago photo
Barack Obama photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo
Jordan Peterson photo

“"What's common across all human experience across all time? That's what Jung essentially meant by an archetype. We tend to think that what we see with our senses is real. And of course that's true, but what we see with our senses is what's real that works in the time frame that we exist in. So we see things that we can touch and pick up - we see tools, essentially, that are useful for our moment to moment activities. We don't see the structures of eternity, and we especially don't see the abstract structures of eternity. We have to imagine those with our imagination. Well that's partly what those stories are doing. They're saying that there are forms of stability that transcend our capacity to observe, which is hardly surprising. We know that if we are scientists, because we are always abstracting out things that we can't immediately observe. But there are moral, or metaphysical, or phenomenological realities that have the same nature. You can't see them in your life by observing them with your senses, but you can imagine them with your imagination, and sometimes the things that you imagine with your imagination are more real than the things that you see. Numbers are like that, for example. There are endless things like that. Same with fiction. A good work of fiction is more real than the stories from which it was derived. Otherwise it has no staying power. It's distilled reality. And some would say "it never happened," but it depends on what you mean by "happened." If it's a pattern that repeats in many many places, with variation, you can abstract out the central pattern. So the pattern never purely existed in any specific form, but the fact that you pulled a pattern out from all those exemplars means that you've extracted something real. I think the reason that the story of Adam and Eve has been immune to being forgotten is because it says things about the nature of the human condition that are always true."”

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

Concepts

Leonardo Da Vinci photo
Emile Coué photo
Barack Obama photo
Krist Novoselic photo
Barack Obama photo
Arnold Schwarzenegger photo
Martin Lewis Perl photo
Saul Bellow photo
Huey Long photo

“We started them to school. They learned to read. They learned to work simple arithmetic problems. Now some of our plantation owners can't figure the poor devils out of everything at the close of each year.”

Huey Long (1893–1935) American politician, Governor of Louisiana, and United States Senator

Huey Long on African American Education (Williams p. 524)

Leonardo Da Vinci photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Marcel Proust photo

“And not only does one not seize at once and retain an impression of works that are really great, but even in the content of any such work (as befell me in the case of Vinteuil’s sonata) it is the least valuable parts that one at first perceives… Less disappointing than life is, great works of art do not begin by giving us all their best.”

Et non seulement on ne retient pas tout de suite les œuvres vraiment rares, mais même au sein de chacune de ces œuvres-là, et cela m'arriva pour la Sonate de Vinteuil, ce sont les parties les moins précieuses qu'on perçoit d'abord... Moins décevants que la vie, ces grands chefs-d'œuvre ne commencent pas par nous donner ce qu'ils ont de meilleur.
Source: In Search of Lost Time, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol II: Within a Budding Grove (1919), Ch. I: "Madame Swann at Home"

Francois Villon photo

“But whatever may be said about the life of work,
There is no treasure quite like living at one's ease.”

Mais, quoy que soit du laboureux mestier,
Il n'est tresor que de vivre a son aise.
Source: Le Grand Testament (The Great Testament) (1461), Line 1501; "Ballade: Les Contrediz de Franc Gontier (Ballade: Franc Gontier Refuted)".

Charles Reade photo
Maria Montessori photo
Slavoj Žižek photo
Barack Obama photo
Francis of Assisi photo

“All those men and women … who in their body serve the world through the desires of the flesh, the concerns of the world and the cares of this life: They are held captive by the devil, whose children they are, and whose works they do.”

Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) Catholic saint and founder of the Franciscan Order

“Earlier Exhortation to the Brothers and Sisters of Penance,” Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, Volume 1, p. 43.

Joseph Goebbels photo
Cate Blanchett photo
Gabriel Iglesias photo

“The next thing I know, I'm on the set of the movie Magic Mike. The movie is directed by a director named Steven Soderbergh, who's an amazing, amazing director, he's done a lot of great films. And, of course, Channing Tatum's in the movie. In addition, there's an actor by the name of Matthew McConaughey, who's attached to the movie. [Several audience members cheer] I'm a huge fan of Matthew McConaughey, okay? When I found out that I was gonna work with him, I was so excited, you know? People ask me, "Really, you get star-struck?" Hell yeah! I'm a comedian, not an actor. So, I show up, and, immediately, they send me to the makeup trailer that's outside. So, I go into the makeup trailer, I sit down, they start working on my hair, they start putting makeup on me, and in comes Matthew McConaughey, and he sits down on the chair right next to me. And I start freaking out, "Oh, my God, that's Matthew McConaughey!" [Stutters excitedly] And, now, I decide to introduce myself before I did or said something stupid, right? So, I look over to him, and I say, "Excuse me, Mr. McConaughey? How are you doing? My name's Gabriel Iglesias, I'm going to be playing the role of Tobias, the club DJ, and I just wanted to say Hello, and that it's an honor to work with you." And, in my head, I'm thinking, "I hope he's the same guy. I hope he's the same person in the movies, I hope his voice is the same, I hope his accent's the same." And he turns to me, and he says, [Imitating Matthew McConaughey] "All riiight." [Audience cheers] "How you doin' there, big man? You doin' good?" "I'm doing good." "All riiight."”

Gabriel Iglesias (1976) American actor

And, I'm spazzing out. [Gives excited gibberish]
Aloha, Fluffy (2013)

Isa Genzken photo
Hermann Grassmann photo
Leonardo DiCaprio photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo
Fortunato Depero photo
Vera Brittain photo

“Great people have a vision of their lives that they practice emulating each and every day. They go to work on their lives, not just in their lives.”

Michael E. Gerber (1936) American business writer

Cited in: Tom Butler-Bowdon (2010), 50 Prosperity Classics. p. 133
The E-Myth Revisited, 1995

Bertrand Russell photo
Barack Obama photo

“[D]emocracy is not something that is static; it’s something that we constantly have to work on. […]democracy is a little messier than alternative systems of government, but that’s because democracy allows everybody to have a voice. And that system of government lasts, and it’s legitimate, and when agreements are finally struck, you know that nobody is being left out of the conversation. And that’s the reason for our stability and our prosperity.”

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

Joint news conference with Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra at Government House, Bangkok, Thailand on November 18, 2012 http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/11/18/remarks-president-obama-and-prime-minister-shinawatra-joint-press-confer
2012

Edward VIII of the United Kingdom photo

“These works brought all these people here. Something should be done to get them at work again.”

Edward VIII of the United Kingdom (1894–1972) king of the United Kingdom and its dominions in 1936

Spoken at an abandoned colliery, November 19, 1936. Often wrongly quoted as "something must be done".
Source: Matthew, H. C. G., ‘Edward VIII [later Prince Edward, duke of Windsor] (1894–1972)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 accessed 21 Nov 2008 http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/31061,

Johann Friedrich Herbart photo
John Ruskin photo

“If you want to work for the kingdom of God, and to bring it, and enter into it, there is just one condition to be first accepted. You must enter into it as children, or not at all.”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 269.

Barack Obama photo

“And one of the rules of good civil society I believe is that you’re respectful of the people who disagree with you. And that's part of what makes civil society work. If you can have civil disagreements, and you can listen to each other and not just shout, that's what creates an environment that leads to progress over the long term.”

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

Remarks by President Obama in Conversation with Members of Civil Society at YALI Regional Leadership Center, Kenyatta University,Nairobi, Kenya https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/07/26/remarks-president-obama-conversation-members-civil-society (July 26, 2015)
2015

Theodore Roosevelt photo

“We shall make mistakes; and if we let these mistakes frighten us from our work we shall show ourselves weaklings.”

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

1900s, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (1900), National Duties

Barack Obama photo
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada photo
Bertrand Russell photo

“When, in youth, I learned what was called "philosophy" … no one ever mentioned to me the question of "meaning." Later, I became acquainted with Lady Welby's work on the subject, but failed to take it seriously. I imagined that logic could be pursued by taking it for granted that symbols were always, so to speak, transparent, and in no way distorted the objects they were supposed to "mean." Purely logical problems have gradually led me further and further from this point of view. Beginning with the question whether the class of all those classes which are not members of themselves is, or is not, a member of itself; continuing with the problem whether the man who says "I am lying" is lying or speaking the truth; passing through the riddle "is the present King of France bald or not bald, or is the law of excluded middle false?" I have now come to believe that the order of words in time or space is an ineradicable part of much of their significance – in fact, that the reason they can express space-time occurrences is that they are space-time occurrences, so that a logic independent of the accidental nature of spacetime becomes an idle dream. These conclusions are unpleasant to my vanity, but pleasant to my love of philosophical activity: until vitality fails, there is no reason to be wedded to one's past theories.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1920s, Review of The Meaning of Meaning (1926), p. 114

Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Quote is actually from Tom Peters: The Best Corporate Strategy? None, Of Course. Chicago Tribune July 11, 1994 http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1994-07-11/business/9407110026_1_silicon-graphics-customers-richard-branson
Misattributed

Martin Luther photo
Ludwig Wittgenstein photo
Orhan Pamuk photo

“The question we writers are asked most often, the favorite question, is: Why do you write? I write because I have an innate need to write. I write because I can’t do normal work as other people do. I write because I want to read books like the ones I write. I write because I am angry at everyone. I write because I love sitting in a room all day writing. I write because I can partake of real life only by changing it. I write because I want others, the whole world, to know what sort of life we lived, and continue to live, in Istanbul, in Turkey. I write because I love the smell of paper, pen, and ink. I write because I believe in literature, in the art of the novel, more than I believe in anything else. I write because it is a habit, a passion. I write because I am afraid of being forgotten. I write because I like the glory and interest that writing brings. I write to be alone. Perhaps I write because I hope to understand why I am so very, very angry at everyone. I write because I like to be read. I write because once I have begun a novel, an essay, a page I want to finish it. I write because everyone expects me to write. I write because I have a childish belief in the immortality of libraries, and in the way my books sit on the shelf. I write because it is exciting to turn all life’s beauties and riches into words. I write not to tell a story but to compose a story. I write because I wish to escape from the foreboding that there is a place I must go but—as in a dream—can’t quite get to. I write because I have never managed to be happy. I write to be happy.”

Orhan Pamuk (1952) Turkish novelist, screenwriter, and Nobel Prize in Literature recipient

" My Father's Suitcase", Nobel Prize for Literature lecture http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2006/pamuk-lecture_en.html (December 7, 2006).

Pope Francis photo
Sukirti Kandpal photo
Ronald Fisher photo

“There is, then, in this analysis of variance no indication of any other than innate and heritable factors at work. (Coining of the phrase ‘analysis of variance’.)”

Ronald Fisher (1890–1962) English statistician, evolutionary biologist, geneticist, and eugenicist

The causes of human variability. Eugenics Review 10, 213-220, 1918.
1910s–1920s

Luther H. Gulick photo

“The efficiency of a group working together is directly related to the homogeneity of the work they are performing.”

Luther H. Gulick (1892–1993) American academic

Source: "Notes on the Theory of Organization," 1937, p. 9-10

Robert Browning photo
Ludwig Wittgenstein photo

“Bach wrote on the title page of his Orgelbüchlein: "To the glory of the most high God, and that my neighbour may be benefited thereby." That is what I would have liked to say about my work.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Wittgenstein in conversation with Maurice O'Connor Drury, cited in Rush Rhees (eds.) Recollections of Wittgenstein: Hermine Wittgenstein--Fania Pascal--F.R. Leavis--John King--M. O'C. Drury, Oxford University Press, 1984; p. xvi, and p. 168.
Attributed from posthumous publications

Stephen Hawking photo

“If you are disabled, it is probably not your fault, but it is no good blaming the world or expecting it to take pity on you. One has to have a positive attitude and must make the best of the situation that one finds oneself in; if one is physically disabled, one cannot afford to be psychologically disabled as well. In my opinion, one should concentrate on activities in which one's physical disability will not present a serious handicap. I am afraid that Olympic Games for the disabled do not appeal to me, but it is easy for me to say that because I never liked athletics anyway. On the other hand, science is a very good area for disabled people because it goes on mainly in the mind. Of course, most kinds of experimental work are probably ruled out for most such people, but theoretical work is almost ideal. My disabilities have not been a significant handicap in my field, which is theoretical physics. Indeed, they have helped me in a way by shielding me from lecturing and administrative work that I would otherwise have been involved in. I have managed, however, only because of the large amount of help I have received from my wife, children, colleagues and students. I find that people in general are very ready to help, but you should encourage them to feel that their efforts to aid you are worthwhile by doing as well as you possibly can.”

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

"Handicapped People and Science" http://books.google.com/books?id=9LVFAAAAYAAJ&q=%22handicapped+people+and+science%22#search_anchor by Stephen Hawking, Science Digest 92, No. 9 (September 1984): 92 (details of citation from here http://www.enotes.com/stephen-hawking-criticism/hawking-stephen/further-reading).

Claude Monet photo

“I won't be here long, I am working as hard as I can, as I told you [in a letter] yesterday, I am very happy to be here Etretat, Normandy] and I hope to come up with something good, in any case I will bring lots of studies back with me so I can work on some big things at home.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

Quote in Monet's letter from Etretat to his second [future] wife Alice Hoschedé, 1883; as cited in: K.E. Sullivan. Monet: Discovering Art, Brockhampton press, London (2004), p. 51
1870 - 1890

Robert Browning photo
Jeremy Bentham photo
Nastassja Kinski photo
Barack Obama photo
William Ewart Gladstone photo

“As the British Constitution is the most subtile organism which has proceeded from the womb and the long gestation of progressive history, so the American Constitution is, so far as I can see, the most wonderful work ever struck off by the brain and purpose of man.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Kin Beyond Sea https://books.google.com/books?id=R5M2AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA179, published in The North American Review, pp. 179-202
1870s

Barack Obama photo
Lady Gaga photo
Paul Dirac photo
Louis Althusser photo
Barack Obama photo
Paul Graham photo
Jerry Goldsmith photo
Bobby Fischer photo
Theodore Dalrymple photo

“The main difference between working in an NHS hospital in Britain and a prison is that prison is much safer.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

CBC Ideas Interview (podcast) (September 25, 2006)

Hasan ibn Ali photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is destroyed. I feel at the moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of the war. God grant that my suspicions should prove groundless.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Purportedly in a letter to Colonel William F. Elkins (21 November 1864) http://www.ratical.org/corporations/Lincoln.html after the passage of the National Bank Act (3 June 1864), these remarks were attributed to Lincoln as early as 1887 but were denounced by John Nicolay, Lincoln's private secretary and biographer. Knights of Labor, "What Will The Future Bring," Journal of United Labor, Vol 8, no. 20, Nov. 19, 1887, pg. 2. Nicolay: "This alleged quotation from Mr. Lincoln is a bald, unblushing forgery. The great President never said it or wrote it, and never said or wrote anything that by the utmost license could be distorted to resemble it." "A Popocratic Forgery" in The New York Times (3 October 1898), p. 1 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C0DEFDE133BEE33A25750C0A9669D94679ED7CF [moneypowers]The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace and conspire against it in times of diversity. It is more despotic then monarchy. More insolent than autocracy. More selfish then bureaucracy. I see the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned. An era of corruption will follow and the money power of the country, will endeavor to prolong it's reign by working upon the prejudices of the people. Until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. A variant cited to The Lincoln Encyclopedia (1950) by Archer H. Shaw, p. 40, a collection of Lincoln quotations or attributions which has been criticized for including dubious material and known forgeries. I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country... corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. An additional last line is included in David McGowan's Derailing Democracy: The America The Media Don't Want You To See, p.33. The money power preys upon the nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. A corruption of remarks by William Jennings Bryan at Madison Square Garden (30 August 1906)
Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Abraham Lincoln / Misattributed
Disputed

Stanley Tookie Williams photo
Olly Blackburn photo

“Nic Roeg inspires me. He’s one of the greatest British film directors. His work is bold, challenging, cinematic and full of mesmerising ideas.”

Olly Blackburn Film director and screenwriter

Olly Blackburn meets Nic Roeg, TimeOut London, Olly Blackburn, Time Out Group Ltd and Time Out Digital Ltd., 9 July 2008, 23 February 2012 http://www.timeout.com/film/features/show-feature/5148/olly-blackburn-meets-nic-roeg.html,

Ronald Reagan photo

“When the chips are down and the decisions are made as to who the candidates will be, then the 11th commandment prevails and everybody goes to work, and that is: Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Remarks in New York City at a Reception for Delegates to the State Republican Convention http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1982/61782e.htm (17 June 1982), this is a restatement of "The Eleventh Commandment" by California Republican Party Chairman Gaylord Parkinson, which Reagan first used in 1966
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

Ayn Rand photo
Brian Keith photo
Antonio Moreno photo
Aurelius Augustinus photo
Leonardo Da Vinci photo
Thomas Mann photo
Neil Gaiman photo
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