Work Quotes

[...] but just as formerly these pursuits and ideas had seemed petty and insignificant in comparison with the darkness that overshadowed all existence, so now they seemed as petty and insignificant in comparison with the brilliant sunshine in which the future was bathed. He went on with his work but now he felt that the centre of gravity of his attention had shifted, making him look at his work quite differently and with greater clarity. Formerly this work had been an escape from life: he used to feel that without it life would be too gloomy. Now he needed it so that life might not be too uniformly bright.

Leo Tolstoy

In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.

Karl Marx

The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.

Karl Marx

A man's labor is not only his capital but his life. When it passes it returns never more. To utilize it, to prevent its wasteful squandering, to enable the poor man to bank it up for use hereafter, this surely is one of the most urgent tasks before civilization.

William Booth

The world is moved along not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.

Helen Keller

My share of the work may be limited, but the fact that it is work makes it precious.

Helen Keller

My work is magnified by the fact that the streets of heaven are too crowded with angels -- we know their names, they number a thousand for each red ribbon we wear here tonight. Accepting his Best Actor Oscar for Philadelphia

Tom Hanks

To work all the time is to be incredibly lucky.

Harvey Fierstein

In no direction that we turn do we find ease or comfort. If we are honest and if we have the will to win we find only danger, hard work and iron resolution.

Wendell Willkie

I went back to work because someone had to pay for the groceries.

Bette Davis

Work is the open sesame of every portal, the great equalizer in the world, the true philosopher's stone which transmutes all the base metal of humanity into gold.

William Osler

By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

What moves those of genius, what inspires their work is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough.

Eugene Delacroix

I believe that good things come to those who work.

Wilt Chamberlain

I don't have anything against work. I just figure, why deprive somebody who really loves it.

Dobie Gillis

More men are killed by overwork than the importance of the world justifies.

Rudyard Kipling

Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work.

Bette Davis

Talent in cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.

Stephen King

I have learned not to read reviews. Period. And I hate reviewers. All of them, or at least all but two or three. Life is much simpler ignoring reviews and the nasty people who write them. Critics should find meaningful work.

John Grisham

If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six sharpening my ax.

Abraham Lincoln