WORK QUOTES VII

quotations about work

Work is the activity undertaken with our hands which gives objectivity to the world.

KEITH GRINT

The Sociology of Work


"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


Anyone can do the job when things are going right.

ERNEST K. GANN

Fate is the Hunter

Tags: Ernest K. Gann


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


Inter-cubicle friendship is every bit as good for your health and your output as an ergonomically correct ball chair. Even in our furiously multi-tasking world, work should still come with a good dose of play. And, okay, maybe some free pretzels too.

KATIE UNDERWOOD

"Why developing friendships at work is so important", Canadian Business, January 27, 2016


Most work, let's face it, is not the least bit loveable, and a good deal of it is barely tolerable. And this isn't going to change, no matter how many Steve Jobs quotes we share on Facebook. Tough, low-wage work isn't going away. In fact, jobs in the service and care industries are booming. But a "do what you love" ethos hides such work, and the conditions of its workers, by keeping individuals focused on the self and the belief that there is bliss to be found in a job if only they strive harder than those around them.

SIMON CASTLES

"Do what you love mantra devalues hard work", The Age, February 9, 2016


The chances of a man's succeeding who does not love his work are very small. For all success costs labor.

FRANK CHAPMAN SHARP

Success: A Course in Moral Instruction

Tags: Frank Chapman Sharp


If we look at things from a results level -- what hours one puts in -- which is, I think, where we're going in the future of work, then we're going to have to balance our lives a little better. And, therefore, the organisational challenge really will be how we facilitate people to do that.

MARGOT SLATTERY

"Data is absolutely essential to the future of work", Silicon Republic, March 23, 2017


Work is the Rent we pay for our time on Earth.

TUBBY CLAYTON

attributed, Saga Magazine, January 2009


The humblest workman has his place,
Which no one else can fill.

MAUD LINDSAY

"The Little Gray Pony", Mother Stories

Tags: Maud Lindsay


Slow work produces fine goods.

CHINESE PROVERB


The philosophers of antiquity taught contempt for work, that degradation of the free man, the poets sang of idleness, that gift from the Gods.

PAUL LAFARGUE

The Right to Be Lazy


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


There is no substitute for hard work.

THOMAS EDISON

Life

Tags: Thomas Edison


A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.

L. P. JACKS

Education Through Recreation


Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.

ARISTOTLE

attributed, Wisdom for the Soul

Tags: Aristotle


Have you beheld a man skillful in his work? Before kings is where he will station himself; he will not station himself before commonplace men.

SOLOMON

Proverbs 22:29


Work restores humankind and all its attributes to the savage animal condition that was its original intended state.

ELFRIEDE JELINEK

Lust

Tags: Elfriede Jelinek


Every man is better for a period of work under the open sky.

HENRY FORD

My Life and Work

Tags: Henry Ford


The truth is, any of us in a position to choose and chase work out of love do so from a place of relative privilege. Overwhelmingly, work in the world is done for income, and income alone, and love doesn't even get a look-in.

SIMON CASTLES

"Do what you love mantra devalues hard work", The Age, February 9, 2016