Quotes About Labor

The world doesn't pay you for what you know; it pays you for what you do.

I was shown, not told, the workingman's belief in hard labor,

Money is just a way of measuring work, but you don't need money if everyone agrees that trading one kind of work for another will do just as well.

Casi nada sabemos [...] del macehualli cuyo trabajo alimentaba a los habitantes de la ciudad [...]. Por ello es necesario mencionarlo [...] tanto más cuanto que después del desastre de 1521, después de la destrucción total de las fuerzas y de las ideas, de las estructuras sociales y de las religiones, sólo él sobrevivió y sobrevive todavía.

If only Mexico paid their workers a decent wage.

the first sections of the Border Fence went up in San Diego sector—the contractor used undocumented workers to build it.

God has worker's hands. Just remember—angels carry no harps. Angels carry hammers.

He had worked spasmodically

This nation, this generation, in this hour has man's first chance to build a Great Society, a place where the meaning of man's life matches the marvels of man's labor.

What most upset her, was the widespread use of slave labor. ...It is true Republicanism that drives the slaves half fed, and destitute of clothing...to labor...while the owner walks about idle...white men considered idleness a virtue even if they owned only one slave or none. No white man would do work considered too menial for his race.

Prudence, patience, labor, valor; these are the stars that rule the career of mortals.

Depressed? Of course we're all depressed. We've been so quickly, violently, and irreconcilably plucked from nature, from physical labor, from kinship and village mentality, from every natural and primordial antidepressant. The further society "progresses," the grander the scale of imbalance. Just as fluoride is put in water to prevent dental caries, we'll soon find government mandating Prozac to prevent mental caries.

The hafts of the tools were stained black with th sweat of us all, our contributions, black and white alike.

Aint no good place to look for a job, young feller. . . . There's jobs all right. . . . I'll be sixty-five years old in a month and four days an I've worked sence I was five I reckon, an I aint found a good job yet.

There's a rattle of chains and a clatter from the donkeyengine where a tall man in blue overalls stands at a lever in the middle of a cloud of steam that wraps round your face like a wet towel.

The gates of Hell are open night and day Smooth the descent, and easy is the way But, to return, and view the cheerful skies In this, the task and mighty labor lies.

Corporate policies and procedures are designed with one aim: to harness a man to the plow and make him produce.

In the economies of late capitalism leisure displaces labor, consumption displaces production, and commodities become the instruments of leisure, identity, and social relations.

Labor is a man crowning glory. Not this man's. I quote Marx I raised my hands. The pickaxe handle had been rough. I quote blisters.

Writing is a manual labor of the mind: a job, like laying pipe.

Always be suspicious of easy work, Dr. Wilbur Larch once said to Homer Wells.

Let me write not for fame and laurel, but from the mere yearning and fondness I have for the beautiful even if my night's labors be burnt each morning and no eye ever shine upon them.

Then, too, if I were a Negro, I would not be pressured by my mother to find a good job, for no good jobs would be available. My mother herself, a worn old Negress, would be too broken by years of underpaid labor as a domestic to go out bowling at night. She and I could live most pleasantly in some moldy shack in the slums in a state of ambitionless peace, realizing contentedly that we were unwanted, that striving was meaningless.

Men can labor to make sense out of single steps toward the goal without ever pausing to reflect that the goal itself is ludicrous.