quotations about work
People say they love hard workers but they really love natural talent--a bias with troubling implications when it comes to hiring.
ERIC JAFFE
"Hard Work Is Overrated", fastcodesign, January 19, 2016
Formerly when a man worked ten hours a day, it was called economic slavery; nowadays it is called moonlighting.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
Anyone can do the job when things are going right.
ERNEST K. GANN
Fate is the Hunter
A friendly dynamic among co-workers is so integral to our well-being, in fact, that economists say having a work pal increases your happiness as much as a $100,000 raise would.
KATIE UNDERWOOD
"Why developing friendships at work is so important", Canadian Business, January 27, 2016
"Do what you love" has become a modern-day mantra that devalues actual work while obscuring the vast majority of workers. After all, if some work is elevated to being worthy of love, where does that leave all those doing unglamorous and menial work? They are nowhere, blanked from the culture, their lowly status even seen as somehow deserved because they didn't love hard enough.... We need to acknowledge all work as work, whatever it is, and to stand in solidarity with all who labour, whether they love their job or not. Our concern should not be with the select few occupations that are loveable but with making all employment more likeable -- through fair wages, job security, safe conditions and reasonable hours.
SIMON CASTLES
"Do what you love mantra devalues hard work", The Age, February 9, 2016
The poor man with industry is happier than the rich man in idleness.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Slow work produces fine goods.
CHINESE PROVERB
Many companies see happiness at work as an intangible "nice to have", rather than an important organisational priority. While you can't force employees to be happy -- or control every factor that contributes to happiness -- it's still possible to create the conditions that will help to promote happiness and positivity at work.
ROBERT HALF
"Happiness at work -- is it natural or necessary?", Business Zone, March 31, 2017
Fast forward to today, and it's clear that the definition of work is continuing to morph, now even faster than before. Savvy employers realize there is little time to waste and that they must adapt to a variety of cultural and technological changes if they want to attract and retain talent.
PAIGE O'NEILL
"The definition of work is shifting", Network World, March 13, 2017
Labor produces marvels for the rich but it produces deprivation for the worker. It produces palaces, but hovels for the worker. It produces beauty, but deformity for the worker. It replaces labor by machines, but it throws one section of the workers back to barbaric labor, and it turns the remainder into machines.
KARL MARX
"Alienated Labor", Economic and Philosophic
If you care about what you do and work hard at it, there isn't anything you can't do if you want to.
JIM HENSON
It's Not Easy Being Green: And Other Things to Consider
Every man is better for a period of work under the open sky.
HENRY FORD
My Life and Work
Remember, work, well done, does good to the man who does it. It makes him a better man.
GEORGE S. CLASON
The Richest Man in Babylon
Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
ARISTOTLE
attributed, Wisdom for the Soul
A man who looks for easy work goes to bed tired.
KEN ALSTAD
Savvy Sayin's
Work that is pure toil, done solely for the sake of the money it earns, is also sheer drudgery because it is stultifying rather than self improving.
MORTIMER ADLER
A Vision of the Future: Twelve Ideas for a Better Life and a Better Society
Why should I let the toad work
Squat on my life?
Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork
And drive the brute off?
Six days of the week it soils
With its sickening poison--
Just for paying a few bills!
That's out of proportion.
PHILIP LARKIN
"Toads"
None but those who work are entitled to eat.
AESOP
"The Brazier and His Dog", Aesop's Fables
Looking for work in order to be paid: in civilized countries today almost all men are at one in doing that. For all of them work is a means and not an end in itself. Hence they are not very refined in their choice of work, if only it pays well. But there are, if only rarely, men who would rather perish than work without any pleasure in their work. They are choosy, hard to satisfy, and do not care for ample rewards, if the work itself is not to be the reward of rewards. Artists and contemplative men of all kinds belong to this rare breed, but so do even those men of leisure who spend their lives hunting, traveling, or in love affairs and adventures. All of these desire work and misery only if it is associated with pleasure, and the hardest, most difficult work if necessary. Otherwise their idleness is resolute, even if it spells impoverishment, dishonor, and danger to life and limb. They do not fear boredom as much as work without pleasure.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
The Gay Science
It is useless work that darkens the heart.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Dispossessed