Quotes About Work

We will have to see whether the practicing through the years has prepared me for the writing of a book. For this is the book I have always wanted and have worked and prayed to be able to write. We shall see whether I am capable. Surely I feel humble in the face of this work. And as our Roman friends would say when casting outside themselves for help, Ora pro mihi. February

Mind, I congratulate you. You jumped me to sex, translated it to aesthetics, and ended with sour grapes. How dishonest can I be? And all because I don't want to go to work. I'll work my head off to avoid work. Come, mind. This time you don't get away with it - back to the desk.

Just set one day's work in front of the last day's work. That's the way it comes out. And that's the only way it does.

We were born on it, and we got killed on it, died on it. Even if it's no good, it's still ours. That's what makes it ours--being born on it, working it, dying on it. That makes ownership, not a paper with numbers on it.

we Americans bring in mercenaries to do our hard and humble work. I hope we may not be overwhelmed one day by peoples not too proud or too lazy or too soft to bend to the earth and pick up the things we eat.

Coming in from his work, he gorged himself on fried food and went to bed and to sleep in the resulting torpor.

Si uno tiene un tiro de caballos no pone el grito en el cielo si los tiene que alimentar cuando no están trabajando. Pero si uno tiene hombres trabajando para él, le importa un comino. Los caballos valen mucho más que los hombres.

You're buying years of work, toil in the sun; you're buying a sorrow that can't talk.

Adam went on, "Every morning in the army that damned bugle would sound. And I swore to God if I ever got out I would sleep till noon every day. And here I get up a half-hour before reveille. Will you tell me, Charles, what in hell we're working for?" "You can't lay in bed and run a farm," said Charles. He stirred the hissing bacon around with a fork.

If a fella owns a team a horses, he don't raise no hell if he got to feed 'em when they ain't workin'. But if a fella got men workin' for him, he jus' don't give a damn. Horses is a hell of a lot more worth than men. I don' understan' it.

Isn't it funny, my two pet horrors, incapacity and ledgers and they both hit at once. I write columns of figures in big ledgers and after about three hours of it I am so stupefied that I can't get down to my own work. I can see very readily how office workers get the way they are. There is something soddenly hypnotic about the columns of figures.

It occurs to me that, just as the Carthaginians hired mercenaries to do their fighting for them, we Americans bring in mercenaries to do our hard and humble work. I hope we may not be overwhelmed one day by peoples not too proud or too lazy or too soft to bend to the earth and pick up the things we eat.

The turntable drops down and the record swings into its place in the pile. The purple light goes off. The nickel, which has caused all this mechanism to work, has caused Crosby to sing and an orchestra to play—this nickel drops from between the contact points into the box where the profits go. This nickel, unlike most money, has actually done a job of work, has been physically responsible for a reaction.

Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don't belong no place. They come to a ranch an' work up a stake and then they go inta town and blow their stake, and the first thing you know they're poundin' their tail on some other ranch. They ain't got nothing to look ahead to.

He ain't no cuckoo," said George. "He's dumb as hell, but he ain't crazy. An' I ain't so bright neither, or I wouldn't be buckin' barley for my fifty and found. If I was bright, if I was even a little bit smart, I'd have my own little place, an' I'd be bringin' in my own crops, 'stead of doin' all the work and not getting what comes up outta the ground.

Well, we all got to make a livin'.'' "Yeah,'' Tom said. "On'y I wisht they was some way to make her 'thout takin' her away from somebody else.

He remembered hearing a doctor say, I love to deliver a baby, because if I do my work well, there's joy at the end of it. The sheriff had thought often of that remark. It seemed to him that if he did his work well there was sorrow at the end of it for somebody. The fact that it was necessary was losing its weight with him. He would be retiring soon whether he wanted to or not.

He took no rest, no recreation, and he became rich without pleasure and respected without friends.

We measured it and broke it up. We were born on it, and we got killed on it, died on it. Even if it's no good, it's still ours. That's what makes it ours--being born on it, working it, dying on it. That makes ownership, not a paper with numbers on it.

It wasn't laziness if he was a rich man. Only the poor were lazy just as only the poor were ignorant. A rich man who didn't know anything was spoiled or independent.

There always comes in September a parched brightness to the air that hits Rabbit two ways, smelling of apples and blackboard dust and marking the return to school and work in earnest, but then again reminding him he's suffered another promotion, taken another step up the stairs that has darkness at the head.

If each day is a gift, I'd like to know where to return Mondays!

The only thing we wanted our young organization to give was an opportunity. We would say to children and to their families: If you are willing to work hard and make sacrifices and think long term, then Room to Read is the best organization for you. If you're looking for a handout, then you should look elsewhere.

Work without joy is drudgery. Drudgery does not produce champions, nor does it produce great organizations.