Quotes about working
page 20

“What was novel in Voegelin’s thought was that he wedded that commonplace to a theory of history, suggesting that a universal process of symbolization was surreptitiously at work in human civilization, giving world history a discernible direction.”

Eric Voegelin (1901–1985) American philosopher

Mark Lilla, "Mr. Casaubon in America", The New York Review of Books (June 28, 2007)

World, Wedding, History, Universe

“I saw full surely that ere God made us He loved us; which love was never slacked, nor ever shall be. And in this love He hath done all His works; and in this love He hath made all things profitable to us; and in this love our life is everlasting. In our making we had beginning; but the love wherein He made us was in Him from without beginning: in which love we have our beginning. And all this shall we see in God, without end.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 86

Love, Life, Making love, God

“The dynamic principle of fantasy is play, a characteristic also of the child, and as such it appears inconsistent with the principle of serious work. But without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable. It is therefore short-sighted to treat fantasy, on account of its risky or unacceptable nature, as a thing of little worth.”

C.G. Jung book Psychological Types

Source: Psychological Types, or, The Psychology of Individuation (1921), Ch. 1, p. 82

Imagination, Appearance, Birth, Nature

“God is not interested merely in the freedom of black men and brown men and any other men. God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race and the creation of a society where all men will live together as brothers and where every man will respect the dignity and the worth of human personality. This is what we work for and this is the good society which we must seek in America. But it will not come until enough people are willing to stand up and mobilize forces of good will, to seek to implement that which is just and right.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Address to Cornell College (1962)

God, Freedom, Personality, People

“You can only build a life from what is real. Unless you know and admit to what you really think, really feel, really want, really need and actually do, you are working with illusion and you are going nowhere.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Life, Thinking, Feeling

“One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important. If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considered his work important.”

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

Holiday

“Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.
It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out.
It doesn't matter much to me. Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
Strawberry Fields forever.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

"Strawberry Fields Forever" (1967)
Lyrics

“I've had this TV for 7 years, this is how it works. Power on - it comes on. Simple clicker, volume control - piece of piss. Works every time…. what the fuck's this? What am I doing? JACK!!”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

The Osbournes television show

Time

“[after one of his dogs urinated in the bedroom] Who pissed!!? Who pissed on my fucking carpet!?! That bastard fucking dog man. I'm going to throw you in the pool! Get the fuck out of my house! Why do they do it Sharon? Whats the deal man? It's a fucking terrorist man! It's fucking part of Bin Laden's gang! Fucking Ali Baba used to go work on this rug.”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

The Osbournes television show

Dogs, Housing, Parting

“I'm a big fan of working out on my own. I put my headphones on and I'm pretty good at self-motivating. At the end of the day, I enjoy it. Once I'm there and once I get going, I tend to love it, and I feel good.”

Chris Evans (actor) (1981) American actor

Self-confidence, Motivation, Love, Making love

“Laws, at best, are attempts to control a population, and work only sporadically with great expense and hardship. Other common behaviorcontrol methods are patriotism, religion, propaganda, and nationalism. All manmade laws are developed to preserve the established order.”

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

Source: The Best That Money Can't Buy: Beyond Politics, Poverty, & War (2002), p. 72

Religion, Law

“As we enhance the lives of others, protect our environment, and work toward abundance, all our lives can become richer and more secure. If these values were put into practice, it would enable all of us to achieve a much higher standard of living within a relatively short period of time; a standard of living that would be continuously improved.”

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

Designing the Future (2007)

Time

“This new patriarch Fox said one day to a justice of peace, before a large assembly of people. "Friend, take care what thou dost; God will soon punish thee for persecuting his saints." This magistrate, being one who besotted himself every day with bad beer and brandy, died of apoplexy two days after; just as he had signed a mittimus for imprisoning some Quakers. The sudden death of this justice was not ascribed to his intemperance; but was universally looked upon as the effect of the holy man's predictions; so that this accident made more Quakers than a thousand sermons and as many shaking fits would have done. Cromwell, finding them increase daily, was willing to bring them over to his party, and for that purpose tried bribery; however, he found them incorruptible, which made him one day declare that this was the only religion he had ever met with that could resist the charms of gold.
The Quakers suffered several persecutions under Charles II; not upon a religious account, but for refusing to pay the tithes, for "theeing" and "thouing" the magistrates, and for refusing to take the oaths enacted by the laws.
At length Robert Barclay, a native of Scotland, presented to the king, in 1675, his "Apology for the Quakers"; a work as well drawn up as the subject could possibly admit. The dedication to Charles II, instead of being filled with mean, flattering encomiums, abounds with bold truths and the wisest counsels. "Thou hast tasted," says he to the king, at the close of his "Epistle Dedicatory," "of prosperity and adversity: thou hast been driven out of the country over which thou now reignest, and from the throne on which thou sittest: thou hast groaned beneath the yoke of oppression; therefore hast thou reason to know how hateful the oppressor is both to God and man. If, after all these warnings and advertisements, thou dost not turn unto the Lord, with all thy heart; but forget Him who remembered thee in thy distress, and give thyself up to follow lust and vanity, surely great will be thy guilt, and bitter thy condemnation. Instead of listening to the flatterers about thee, hearken only to the voice that is within thee, which never flatters. I am thy faithful friend and servant, Robert Barclay."”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

The most surprising circumstance is that this letter, though written by an obscure person, was so happy in its effect as to put a stop to the persecution.
The History of the Quakers (1762)

God, Peace, Religion, Beer

“But, gathering in its ancient market-place,
Talked group with restless group; and not a face
But wrath made livid, for among them were
Death's staunch purveyors, such as have in care
To feast him. Fear had long since taken root
In every breast, and now these crushed its fruit,
The ripe hate, like a wine: to note the way
It worked while each grew drunk! men grave and grey
Stood, with shut eyelids, rocking to and fro.
Letting the silent luxury trickle slow
About the hollows where a heart should be;
But the young gulped with a delirious glee
Some foretaste of their first debauch in blood
At the fierce news”

Robert Browning book Sordello

Book the First
Sordello (1840)

Hate, Wine, Heart, Way

“The reason i am a communist is because I believe in a total revolution which is going to overthrow the capitalist control of the economy, which will seize the wealth from all of the giant corporations that exploit and control the lives of all working people.”

Angela Davis (1944) American political activist, scholar, and author

From an interview https://www.facebook.com/Redfishstream/videos/184844339473961/.

Wealth, People

“we must fight against an opponent which is different from us. Their faces are not visible, but are hidden from view; they do not fight directly, but by stealth; they are not honourable, but unprincipled; they are not national, but international; they do not believe in work, but speculate with money; they have no homeland, but feel that the whole world is theirs.”

Viktor Orbán (1963) Hungarian politician, chairman of Fidesz

Ceremonial speech on the 170th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 https://www.kormany.hu/en/the-prime-minister/the-prime-minister-s-speeches/orban-viktor-s-ceremonial-speech-on-the-170th-anniversary-of-the-hungarian-revolution-of-1848, 15 March 2018 This speech attacking George Soros was widely reported. Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-speech-hungarys-orban-attacks-enemy-who-speculates-with-money/ Source: https://www.jta.org/2018/03/16/politics/hungarian-prime-minister-orban-attacks-enemy-speculates-money-election-rally-speech

Fight, Money, Feeling, World

“If it works against the general welfare, then it is treason against the fatherland.”

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

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

“Work is not mankind’s curse, but his blessing. A man becomes a man through labor. It elevates him, makes him great and aware, raises him above all other creatures.”

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

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

Making love

“The bourgeois is about to leave the historical stage. In its place will come the class of productive workers, the working class, that has been up until today oppressed. It is beginning to fulfill its political mission. It is involved in a hard and bitter struggle for political power as it seeks to become part of the national organism. The battle began in the economic realm; it will finish in the political.”

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

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

Parting

“Socialism is the doctrine of liberation for the working class. It promotes the rise of the fourth class and its incorporation in the political organism of our Fatherland, and is inextricably bound to breaking the present slavery and regaining German freedom. Socialism, therefore, is not merely a matter of the oppressed class, but a matter for everyone.”

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

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

Freedom

“The strength of Soviet patriotism lies in the fact that it is based not on racial or nationalistic prejudices, but on the peoples’ profound loyalty and devotion to their Soviet Motherland, on the fraternal partnership of the working people of all the nationalities in our country. Soviet patriotism harmoniously combines the national traditions of the peoples and the common vital interests of all the working people of the Soviet Union. Far from dividing them, Soviet patriotism welds all the nations and peoples of our country into a single fraternal family. This should be regarded as the basis of the inviolable friendship of the peoples of the Soviet Union which is growing ever stronger. At the same time the peoples of the U.S.S.R. respect the rights and independence of the peoples of foreign countries and have always shown themselves willing to live in peace and friendship with neighbouring states.”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Speech at Celebration Meeting of the Moscow Soviet of Working People’s Deputies and Moscow Party and Public Organizations https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1944/11/06.htm (6 November 1944) Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Family, Peace, Partnership, Time

“The sweet spot is acknowledging that we have pressure on our infrastructure. And I think, actually, that is common ground between all parties that will form this government because there is undoubtedly strain based on the fact that we have had a government that’s entire growth agenda has been based on population growth rather than focusing on making sure that we move to a productive economy. Our view is that it is about the settings. It is about making sure that we are meeting the skills gaps that we have – and we do have them in New Zealand – meeting those skills gaps by making sure that we are undertaking those work tests, by making sure that our export education industry isn’t exploiting people, and by making sure that people on temporary work visas aren’t exploited either. That’s the area we’re focused on, and there’s agreement there.”

Jacinda Ardern (1980) Prime Minister of New Zealand

On her immigration policy.
Interview with Lisa Owen at Newshub Nation, 21 October 2017

Education, Thinking, Making love, People

“Therefore it seems to me that I am no longer of this world, since I can no longer do the work of the world like the others; indeed, every action of others that I see disturbs me, for I do not work as they do, nor as I myself used to do. I feel myself altogether estranged from earthly affairs, and from my own most of all”

Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510) Italian author and nurse

World, Feeling

“Whether or not we can get together, remember well that art “lives” where absolute freedom is. With all the training thrown to nowhere, with a mind (if there is such a verbal substance) perfectly unaware of its own working, with the “self” vanishing nowhere, the art of JKD attains its perfection.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Source: The Warrior Within: The Philosophies of Bruce Lee (1996), p. 156

Freedom, Art, Perfection, Self-confidence

“We regard society as the ensemble and union of men engaged in useful work. We can conceive of no other kind of society.”

Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825) French early socialist theorist

"Declarations of Principles"

Men

“S funny. Piotr, toward the end of his life, looked at our district and only saw how much better it was. All the backbreaking, heartbreaking work he did cleaning up the messes after the war is taken for granted now, or mostly just forgotten. Instead, we look around and only see how much better it could be. And neither of us is wrong, exactly.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, "The Flowers of Vashnoi" (2018)

War, Life

“Think of Krishna always and try to work sincerely, and everything will come automatically.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Thinking, Sincerity

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men and women to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944) French writer and aviator

Disputed

Sea, Relation ships, Women, Men

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944) French writer and aviator

Disputed

Sea, People, Relation ships

“God's great work in man takes place in the Interior. The order that appears and is shown outside is the work and effect of the order inside.”

Francisco Palau (1811–1872) Beatified Spanish Discalced Carmelite friar and priest

Letter to Juana Gratia (1857)

God, Appearance

“I am excited about this role in Savdhaan India. I have never been a part of a project like this in my career. Saundarya was a complex character to play and I cannot wait to see the audience reaction for my work on the show. I would define my character in Savdhaan India as the ‘mysterious girl.”

Sukirti Kandpal (1987) Indian actress

On her role in Savdhaan India mini crime thriller series https://dbpost.com/sukirti-kandpal-excited-about-her-role-in-special-crime-series-of-savdhaan-india/ On her shows

Girl, Waiting, Parting

“Looking good and feeling good go hand in hand. If you have a healthy lifestyle, your diet and nutrition are set and you're working out, you're going to feel good.”

Jason Statham (1967) English actor, film producer, martial artist and former diver

Feeling

“I had all but decided to take a break and do some plays, and to see plays and read books and not work – literally not work – until I was going to burn for something.”

Tessa Thompson (1983) American actresse

On turning down the roles Hollywood was offering to her in “Tessa Thompson: ‘I decided not to work until I burned for something’” https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/feb/16/tessa-thompson-interview-decided-not-to-work-until-i-burned-for-something in The Guardian (2018 Feb 16)

Books, Reading

“Working hard for something we do not care about is called stress, working hard for something we love is called passion.”

Simon Sinek (1973) British/American author and motivational speaker

Source: Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

Passion, Love, Making love

“Determination, knowledge, and wisdom work in collaboration; determination dominates, for without persistence, knowledge and wisdom never attain their full potential.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1979

Knowledge, Wisdom

“I am working from morning to evening, brimming with energy.. I'm fencing and wrestling with the sun. And what a sun it is! In order to paint here, one would need gold and precious stones. It is quite remarkable.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

Quote in a letter from Cote d'Azure to sculptor and friend Auguste Rodin, 1 February 1888; as cited in R. Gordon and A. Forge (1983), Monet, p. 123
1870 - 1890

Sun, Painting

“Coral reefs are farmers. They provide food, income and food security for hundreds of millions of people around the world. Coral reefs are security guards. The structures that they build protect our shorelines from storm surge and waves, and the biological systems that they house filter the water and make it safer for us to work and play. Coral reefs are chemists. The molecules that we're discovering on coral reefs are increasingly important in the search for new antibiotics and new cancer drugs. And coral reefs are artists. The structures that they build are some of the most beautiful things on planet Earth. And this beauty is the foundation of the tourism industry in many countries with few or little other natural resources.”

Kristen Marhaver American marine biologist

Source: How we're growing baby corals to rebuild reefs https://www.ted.com/talks/kristen_marhaver_how_we_re_growing_baby_corals_to_rebuild_reefs (October 2015)

Housing, Search, Food, Country

“The fact that labour is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his intrinsic nature; that in his work, therefore he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself.”

Karl Marx book Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
Estranged Labour, p. 30.

Feeling, Nature

“Political Economy regards the proletarian … like a horse, he must receive enough to enable him to work. It does not consider him, during the time when he is not working, as a human being. It leaves this to criminal law, doctors, religion, statistical tables, politics, and the beadle. … (1) What is the meaning, in the development of mankind, of this reduction of the greater part of mankind to abstract labor? (2) What mistakes are made by the piecemeal reformers, who either want to raise wages and thereby improve the situation of the working class, or — like Proudhon — see equality of wages as the goal of social revolution?.”

Karl Marx book Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

Source: First Manuscript – Wages of Labour, p. 6.
Source: Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

Religion, Time, Law, Horse

“The development of fixed capital indicates in still another respect the degree of development of wealth generally, or of capital…
The creation of a large quantity of disposable time apart from necessary labour time for society generally and each of its members (i.e. room for the development of the individuals’ full productive forces, hence those of society also), this creation of not-labour time appears in the stage of capital, as of all earlier ones, as not-labour time, free time, for a few. What capital adds is that it increases the surplus labour time of the mass by all the means of art and science, because its wealth consists directly in the appropriation of surplus labour time; since value directly its purpose, not use value. It is thus, despite itself, instrumental in creating the means of social disposable time, in order to reduce labour time for the whole society to a diminishing minimum, and thus to free everyone’s time for their own development. But its tendency always, on the one side, to create disposable time, on the other, to convert it into surplus labour...
The mass of workers must themselves appropriate their own surplus labour. Once they have done so – and disposable time thereby ceases to have an antithetical existence – then, on one side, necessary labour time will be measured by the needs of the social individual, and, on the other, the development of the power of social production will grow so rapidly that, even though production is now calculated for the wealth of all, disposable time will grow for all. For real wealth is the developed productive power of all individuals. The measure of wealth is then not any longer, in any way, labour time, but rather disposable time. Labour time as the measure of value posits wealth itself as founded on poverty, and disposable time as existing in and because of the antithesis to surplus labour time; or, the positing of an individual’s entire time as labour time, and his degradation therefore to mere worker, subsumption under labour. The most developed machinery thus forces the worker to work longer than the savage does, or than he himself did with the simplest, crudest tools.”

Karl Marx book Grundrisse

Grundrisse (1857-1858)
Source: Notebook VII, The Chapter on Capital, pp. 628–629.

Time, Wealth, Art, Appearance

“I really believe in the art of storytelling and as an actor, I think it’s such a great opportunity to be able to do what we do because so many people are trying to do that and I’ve worked for so long to try to get interesting opportunities that I just wanna make sure I do the character justice. I guess you could call it method in many ways but for me, it’s just trying to commit to the character in the best way possible, whatever that entails, whether it’s giving yourself acne or diving into a very dark place.”

Calum Worthy (1991) Canadian actor

Calum Worthy (‘The Act’) on the ‘harsh’ sentence Nicholas Godejohn received https://www.goldderby.com/article/2019/calum-worthy-the-act-hulu-nicholas-godejohn-video-interview-transcript/ (April 29, 2019)

Justice, People, Art, Thinking

“Never play to the gallery... Never work for other people in what you do. Always remember that the reason that you initially started working was that there was something inside yourself that you felt that if you could manifest in some way, you would understand more about yourself and how you co-exist with the rest of society... I think it's terribly dangerous for an artist to fulfil other people's expectations.”

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

Inspirations (1997), quoted in "Looking back at David Bowie's invaluable advice for young artists" https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/david-bowie-advice-young-artists/

Way, Thinking, People, Understanding

“Your heart has to break because love does not work with you but what you feel”

wickliffe

Love, Making love, Feeling, Heart

“Dream big dreams, and work hard to achieve them - you will do great things”

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

“Western philosophy and science have for the most part been committed to the Simplicity Theory of Truth: the simplest theory that accounts for the data is the true theory. (Theories are simplest which postulate the fewest entities, require the fewest hypotheses, generate predictions by the fewest calculations, etc.) ...If someone believes that the world is made for him to have dominion over and he is made to exploit it, he must believe that he and the world are so made that he can, at least in principle, achieve and maintain dominion over everything. But you can’t put things to use if you don’t know how they work. So he must believe that he can, at least in principle, understand everything. If the world exists for man, it must be usably intelligible, which means it must be simple enough for him to understand. A usable universe is an intelligible universe is a simple universe. ...And so it goes with the philosophy and the science of The Arrogant Eye.”

Marilyn Frye book The Politics of Reality

Source: The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory (1983), p. 71

Understanding, Intelligence, Universe, Truth

“Efficient exploitation requires that those exploited be relatively mobile, self-animating and self-maintaining—the more so as the work in question requires greater intelligence, attention or ingenuity. But it also requires that they not be free enough, strong enough or willful enough to resist, escape or significantly misfit the situation of exploitation.”

Marilyn Frye book The Politics of Reality

Source: The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory (1983), p. 59

Question, Strong, Intelligence, Animals

“It is better, then, to save the work while it is begun. You have done the labor; maintain it—keep it. If men choose to serve you, go with them; but as you have made up your organization upon principle, stand by it; for, as surely as God reigns over you, and has inspired your mind, and given you a sense of propriety and continues to give you hope, so surely you will still cling to these ideas, and you will at last come back again after your wanderings, merely to do your work over again.”

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

1850s, Speech at Chicago (1858)

God, Hope, Sense, Idea

“In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don't try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.”

Laozi (-604) semi-legendary Chinese figure, attributed to the 6th century, regarded as the author of the Tao Te Ching and fou…

Family, Thinking, Life

“You can be working endlessly for more than 7 years, but there is always light at the end of the tunnel and your time to shine will come.”

Vladimer Botsvadze

Time, Light

“When words stop meaning anything, when truth doesn’t matter, when people can just lie with abandon, democracy can’t work.”

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

Speech at political rally on November 2, 2018. Source: Obama rips hecklers: Why are the people who won the last election ‘so mad all the time?' https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/11/03/obama-rips-hecklers-why-are-people-who-won-last-election-so-mad-all-time/ 2018

Democracy, People, Truth, Lie

“Citizenship demands a sense of common purpose; participation in the hard work of self-government; an obligation to serve to our communities.”

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

2014, Sixth State of the Union Address (January 2014)

Communication, Sense

“Everyone owes his country an obligation to work hard, create income, and pay taxes. A tax is an obligation every citizen owes his country if indeed such citizen wants to see their country develop.”

Hamis Kiggundu (1984) Ugandan business magnate, Internet entrepreneur, philanthropist, and author

Quoted from his book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Success_and_Failure_Based_on_Reason_and_Reality, "Success and Failure Based on Reason and Reality" https://www.amazon.co.uk/SUCCESS-FAILURE-BASED-REASON-REALITY/dp/9970983903/ 2018

Country

“You see, God is nobody's father. We are not even qualified to be His slaves or work under His full service like the angels. We must bow down while praying.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

God, Angels

“Please tell my family that I was not able to say goodbye, but that I died with my true friends around me… Pray to God for the good fortune of our country. Continue with your work to attain the happiness and freedom of our beloved country.”

Marcelo H. del Pilar (1850–1896) Filipino writer, lawyer, and journalist (1850-1896)

Source: Marcelo H. del Pilar's last words to Mariano Ponce (4 July 1896)

God, Freedom, Happiness, Family

“Making or writing a movie, to me, is like building a watch because a watch is so small and you only can fit so many things inside it that all the pieces really do need to work together.”

William Eubank (1982) American film director

[Eubank, William, Ash Thorp, Episode 182 — William Eubank, Interview (event occurs at 43:37–43:50), https://www.thecollectivepodcast.com/episodes/182-william-eubank, MP3; 1h 44m, The Collective Podcast, Los Angeles, California, June 25, 2018, 2018, June]

“I think an Oscar nomination does open doors. I have been fortunate to have had some incredible roles since the movie. [Whether] the nomination had anything to do with that, I don’t know – I just know I am incredibly grateful to be getting the work that I am.”

Timothée Chalamet (1995) French-American Actor (1995)

Source: "Interview: Timothée Chalamet on being a young Hollywood actor" in SilverKris https://www.silverkris.com/interview-timothee-chalamet/ (13 December 2019)

Thinking

“We believe in freedom with a passion that only those who have been denied it for so long can understand it. We believe in equality because so many in our nation have been denied for so long, we believe in human worth for that is the basis for all our current work in India.”

Indíra Gándhí (1917–1984) Indian politician and Prime Minister

Jul 29 1982 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHk9zoG6PXw

Freedom, Passion, Understanding

“If those democrats really think slavery wrong they will be much pleased when earnest men in the slave states take up a plan of gradual emancipation and go to work energetically and very kindly to get rid of the evil. Now let us test them. Frank Blair tried it; and he ran for Congress in '58, and got beaten. Did the democracy feel bad about it? I reckon not, I guess you all flung up your hats and shouted 'Hurrah for the Democracy!'”

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

1860s, Speech at Hartford (1860)

Democracy, Evil, Thinking, Feeling

“It would be better if they [rulers] compelled the Jews to work for their living, as they do in parts of Italy, than that, living without occupation, they can grow rich only by usury”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

solis usuris ditentur
Source: On the Governance of the Jews (c. 1263–1265) art. 2

Parting

“You take one thing and add it to another and you get two. Two and two is four; and five'll get you ten if you know how to work it!”

Mae West (1893–1980) American actress and sex symbol

Source: My Little Chickadee (1940)

“If seafood is expensive then don't eat it. Leave it to the wealthy. I cannot ensure equality in this manner. If you want to eat expensive items then you must work hard and find a lot of money....We cannot pull everyone to the same level.”

Prayut Chan-o-cha (1954) Thai military officer, junta chief, and politician

3 July 2015
Source: [National Broadcast by General Prayut Chan-o-cha, Prime Minister –July 3, 2015, http://www.thaigov.go.th/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=93453:93453&Itemid=399&lang=en, Royal Thai Government, 8 August 2015]

Money

“Microorganisms are at work. Molecules are rearranging themselves. So death isn’t to be found anywhere. There is only the metamorphosis of life forms. What can you learn from this?”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: Stillness Speaks (2003), Ch 9

Death, Learning, Life

“How often each day, if you were to verbalize your inner reality at that moment, would you have to say, “I don't want to be where I am?” What does it feel like when you don't want to be where you are–the traffic jam, your place of work, the airport lounge, the people you are with?”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: Stillness Speaks (2003), Ch 6

People, Reality, Feeling

“The glory which is built upon a lie soon becomes a most unpleasant incumbrance. ... How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again!”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Source: Autobiographical dictation, 2 December 1906. Published in Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 2 (University of California Press, 2013)

People, Lie

“I am extremely grateful for all the attention and anticipation for my work, but I will admit that sometimes it does put pressure on me. Honestly speaking, I tend to be someone who follows my own heart and is drawn to and chooses productions that resonate with me.”

Gong Yoo (1979) South Korean actor

Source: "Interview with Gong Yoo and Bae Doona, stars of The Silent Sea" in The Hindu https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/movies/watch-interview-with-gong-yoo-and-bae-doona-stars-of-the-silent-sea/article38024567.ece (24 December 2021)

Heart

“If you come to a spiritual teacher — or this book — looking for stimulating ideas, theories, beliefs, intellectual discussions, then you will be disappointed. This is not a book to be read from cover to cover and then put away. Live with it, pick it up frequently, and more importantly, put it down frequently, or spend more time holding it than reading it. Many readers will feel naturally inclined to stop reading after each entry, to pause, reflect, become still. It is always more helpful and more important to stop reading than to continue reading. Allow the book to do its work, to awaken you from the old grooves of your repetitive and conditioned thinking.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: Stillness Speaks (2003), intro

Idea, Nature, Thinking, Teachers

“Men never respect what they have made themselves. This is why an elective king never possesses the moral power of a hereditary sovereign, because he is not noble enough, that is to say he does not possess that kind of greatness independent of men and that is the work of time.”

Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821) Savoyard philosopher, writer, lawyer, and diplomat

"Of Founders and the Political Constitution," p. 72
Against Rousseau (1795)

Time, Men

“Modern man no longer works at what cannot be abbreviated.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Source: Unsourced

“Today, I seem to have developed a new, clear and sharper vision of my life and it's
events that were never evident to me pendant the moments that I was experiencing them as they occurred in my microcosmic world, where I was, "The Bubble Boy".
I felt that I had to clear myself of toxins which were spewed onto my entire existence through an insidious series of betrayals.
I have changed and evolved so much in my lifetime(s) and continue to everyday…every moment.
I have worked on MYSELF.
I have healed myself.
I have gotten to know who I am and know very clearly and sans doubt what a prodigious, rare and special catch I am for the correct person who will actually see and KNOW how fortunate they are to be with Me!
And I they…….. of course.
I am not nor never have I been an ordinary person in any shape or form……. I am black and white………. I possess a vast array of remarkable, innate and perfectly educated qualities which span from one end of the spectrum to the other.
I have lived the most extraordinary, privileged and charmed life. However I have experienced intense loss, pain and sorrow as well…most people are fortunate enough not to ever even be capable of fathoming such extremes."”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Personality, Boy, Life, Pain

“I am absolutely dumbfounded
by people
who feel they can spew out hatred and negativity like a violently sick Dragon…
but do not think of Retribution
nor the black soot that their filthy Karma is heavy with.
Karma is a real true Bitch!
She always comes to pay you a visit
when you least expect it.
I count on it…
because I work so hard to keep my side of the street clean.
The evil shan't ever win.
I'll stand there while you are burned to a crisp before me.
Good always prevails
in the End.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Bitch, Thinking, People, Evil

“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."”

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

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.
Other

Dependency, Reality

“I don’t know if watching your own work is a good or bad thing. I don’t know how much I learn from it. Each individual circumstance holds its own world of singularities and peculiarities. But among that, you can go: “Oh yeah, I remember that was what I tried to do.””

Benedict Cumberbatch (1976) English actor and film producer

Sometimes it doesn’t fit with the cast or the energy of the scene or the beat of another character. But to sit down in the audience and go: “Oh my God, I think that was what I intended”, was great. "Benedict Cumberbatch: ‘I loved not being a people-pleaser’" in The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/dec/17/benedict-cumberbatch-i-loved-not-being-a-people-pleaser (17 December 2021)

Learning, World

“Science is not the latest religion and scientists are not exalted priests. We have to think of science as a powerful tool that works. Using it requires responsibility. Science gives us vaccines one moment, nuclear warheads the next. It’s up to be wise tool users.”

Guy P. Harrison (1963) American skeptic author

Science, Religion, Thinking

“Our youth education is based on three pillars: belief, science and work.”

Faisal of Saudi Arabia (1906–1975) King of Saudi Arabia

https://www.kff.com/king-faisal-bin-abdulaziz/

Youth, Education, Science

“An illiterate, underbred book it seems to me; the book of a self-taught working man, and we all know how distressing they are, how egotistic, insistent, raw, striking, and ultimately nauseating. When one can have the cooked flesh, why have the raw?”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Diary entry on James Joyce's Ulysses (16 August 1922), quoted in Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary (1953; 1965), p. 47

Books, Cooking

“Words are always getting conventionalized to some secondary meaning. It is one of the works of poetry to take the truants in custody and bring them back to their right senses. Poets are the policemen of language; they are always arresting those old reprobates the words.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Letter to Ellen O'Leary (3 February 1889)

Sense

“The fastest and most efficient means of establishing a quick working relationship is to acknowledge the negative and diffuse it.”

Chris Voss book Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It

“Nature herself, indeed, seems to have given music to us as a benefit, to enable us to endure labors with greater facility, for musical sounds cheer even the rower; and it is not only in those works in which the efforts of many, while some pleasing voice leads them, conspire together that music is of avail, but the toil even of people at work by themselves finds itself soothed by song, however rude.”

Quintilian (35–96) ancient Roman rhetor

H. E. Butler's translation:
Indeed nature itself seems to have given music as a boon to men to lighten the strain of labour: even the rower in the galleys is cheered to effort by song. Nor is this function of music confined to cases where the efforts of a number are given union by the sound of some sweet voice that sets the tune, but even solitary workers find solace at their toil in artless song.
Book I, Chapter X, 16
De Institutione Oratoria (c. 95 AD)
Original: (la) Atque eam natura ipsa videtur ad tolerandos facilius labores velut muneri nobis dedisse, si quidem et remigem cantus hortatur; nec solum in iis operibus in quibus plurium conatus praeeunte aliqua iucunda voce conspirat, sed etiam singulorum fatigatio quamlibet se rudi modulatione solatur.

People, Nature, Music, Effort

“Go to the people. Live with them. Learn from them. Love them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have. With the best leaders when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will say, "We have done this ourselves.”

Laozi (-604) semi-legendary Chinese figure, attributed to the 6th century, regarded as the author of the Tao Te Ching and fou…

Only the final bold section is connected to Laozi (see Ch. 17 of Tao Te Ching above). The origin of the added first section is unclear.
Misattributed

People, Learning, Love

“Do your best. That's all you can ask of yourself. If you did your best and things just didn't work out, you don't owe an apology to anyone. And you certainly don't need to feel 'bad' about it -- or, worse yet, guilty.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Feeling

“In using God’s Energy, the word “I” is the ignition key of creation. What follows the word “I” turns the key and starts the engine of manifestation.
Thus, when it “looks as if” Personal Creation is not working it is only because the Primal Energy has brought you what you inadvertently selected rather than what you thought you chose.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

God, Personality

“It doesn't stop being magic just because you know how it works.”

Terry Pratchett book The Wee Free Men

Source: The Wee Free Men

This quote waiting for review.

“If an anonymous reader finds in a fragment the key to name their own shame or their own tenderness, then the work has fulfilled its most precious social function.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: https://www.mundoclasico.com/articulo/45227/entrevista-intrapersonal-confrontada-omar-jerez-con-jose-baroja

This quote waiting for review.

“With time, one learns that one’s work is never finished.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: Manuel Raya Escritor. (2026, 21 marzo). ENTREVISTA AL ESCRITOR CHILENO JOSÉ BAROJA 🇨🇱✍🏼 [Vídeo]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBrHyubZCFM

Time, Learning

This quote waiting for review.

“The best work one can create is yet to be written.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: Manuel Raya Escritor. (2026, 21 marzo). ENTREVISTA AL ESCRITOR CHILENO JOSÉ BAROJA 🇨🇱✍🏼 [Vídeo]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBrHyubZCFM