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Quotations about work

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

 - Stephen King

Michael CrichtonWorking inspires inspiration. Keep working. If you succeed, keep working. If you fail, keep working. If you are interested, keep working. If you are bored, keep working.

 - Michael Crichton

Susan CainOpen-plan offices have been found to reduce productivity and impair memory. They're associated with high staff turnover. They make people sick, hostile, unmotivated, and insecure.

 - Susan Cain

Anne FrankEarning happiness means doing good and working, not speculating and being lazy. Laziness may look inviting, but only work gives you true satisfaction.

 - Anne Frank

From a Buddhist point of view, this is standing the truth on its head by considering goods as more important than people and consumption as more important than creative activity. It means shifting the emphasis from the worker to the product of work, that is, from the human to the sub-human, surrender to the forces of evil.

 - E. F. Schumacher

Susan CainThe secret to life is to put yourself in the right lighting. For some, it's a Broadway spotlight; for others, a lamplit desk. Use your natural powers -- of persistence, concentration, and insight -- to do work you love and work that matters. Solve problems. make art, think deeply.

 - Susan Cain

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

 - Carl Jung

Kenzaburo OeUnderstanding comes hard to persons of high rank who are accustomed to phony lifestyles that involve no daily work.

 - Kenzaburo Oe

Abdul KalamBe active! Take on responsibility! Work for the things you believe in. If you do not, you are surrendering your fate to others.

 - A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

Richard FeynmanFall in love with some activity, and do it!

Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best.

Don't think about what you want to be, but what you want to do. Keep up some kind of a minimum with other things so that society doesn't stop you from doing anything at all.

 - Richard Feynman

Henry Wadsworth LongfellowThe every-day cares and duties which men call drudgery are the weights and counterpoises of the clock of Time, giving its pendulum a true vibration, and its hands a regular motion; and when they cease to hang upon the wheels, the pendulum no longer sways, the hands no longer move, the clock stands still.

 - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Thomas EdisonIt has been just so in all my inventions. The first step is an intuition--and comes with a burst, then difficulties arise. This thing gives out and then that --'Bugs'--as such little faults and difficulties are called -- show themselves and months of anxious watching. Study and labor are requisite before commercial success -- or failure -- is certainly reached.

 - Thomas Edison

I am proud that I am an Australian, a daughter of the Southern Cross, a child of the mighty bush. I am thankful I am a peasant, a part of the bone and muscle of my nation, and earn my bread by the sweat of my brow, as man was meant to do. I rejoice I was not born a parasite, one of the blood-suckers who loll on velvet and satin, crushed from the proceeds of human sweat and blood and souls.

 - Miles Franklin

Elbert HubbardI believe in the hands that work, in the brains that think, and in the hearts that love...I believe in sunshine, fresh air, friendship, calm sleep, beautiful thoughts.

 - Elbert Hubbard

Martin Luther KingIf a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.

 - Martin Luther King

Abraham LincolnIf ever this free people, if this Government itself is ever utterly demoralized, it will come from this incessant human wriggle and struggle for office, which is but a way to live without work.

 - Abraham Lincoln

We all know the troubles of old age. The bones creak: the eyes get dim, one forgets names.... The spark does not ignite; adrenalin has lost its potency. But there is some thing to be said on the other side. It is pleasant to rise in the morning, look out at the snow, and remark "I'm not going to the office today." The beauty of nature has lost none of its charm; the beauty of women none of its benediction. There is. . .a possibility of growing old gracefully, and with content in one's heart.

 - Vannevar Bush

David HumeThe great end of all human industry is the attainment of happiness.

 - David Hume

My mother drew a distinction between achievement and success. She said that achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is in you. Success is being praised by others. That is nice but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget about success.

 - Helen Hayes

Stephen HawkingOne, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away.

 - Stephen Hawking

Mahatma GandhiThe things that will destroy us are: politics without principle; pleasure without conscience; wealth without work; knowledge without character; business without morality; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice.

 - Mahatma Gandhi

One of the most insistent things in life is that you are ultimately judged by what you actually accomplish. The busy world of workers gives scant attention to assertion, explanation, protest, apology or complaint. What counts most is not promise, but performance. Good work speaks for itself, therefore achieve something first, and talk about it afterward if you must. Time spent in promises, regrets, and professions, is usually unavailing. The way to do things is not to dream about them nor wish for them, but to do them. The distinguished men in all times have been prodigious workers, earnestly intent upon securing actual results.

 - Grenville Kleiser

Elon MuskPeople are mistaken when they think that technology just automatically improves. It does not automatically improve. It only improves if a lot of people work very hard to make it better, and actually it will, I think, by itself degrade

 - Elon Musk

Steve JobsYour work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you 'Il know when you find it.

 - Steve Jobs

William DemingEvaluation of performance, merit rating, or annual review nourishes short-term performance, annihilates long-term planning, builds fear, demolishes teamwork, nourishes rivalry and politics. It leaves people bitter, crushed, battered, desolate, despondent, rejected, feeling inferior, some even depressed, unfit for work for weeks after receipt of rating, unable to comprehend why they are inferior.

 - William Deming