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Quotes about work

220 quotes from 151 people

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A cartoonist is someone who has to draw the same thing day after day without repeating himself.
Charles M. Schulz1922–2000You Don’t Look 35, Charlie Brown! (1985)
- Art
It’s no fish ye’re buying, it’s men’s lives.
Walter Scott1771–1832The Antiquary (1816), Volume I, Ch. 11.
- Life & Death
O, how full of briers is this working-day world!
William Shakespeare1564–1616As You Like It (c. 1599), Act I, Scene III, spoken by RosalindIn context
To business that we love we rise betime
And go to’t with delight.
William Shakespeare1564–1616Antony and Cleopatra (c. 1606), Act IV, Scene IV, spoken by AntonyIn context
- Motivation & Goals
Hal, ’tis my vocation, Hal, ’tis no sin for a man to labour in his vocation.
William Shakespeare1564–1616Henry IV, Part 1 (c. 1597), Act I, Scene II, spoken by FalstaffIn context
- Comedy
If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work
William Shakespeare1564–1616Henry IV, Part 1 (c. 1597), Act I, Scene II, spoken by PrinceIn context
- Holidays
All professions are conspiracies against the laity.
George Bernard Shaw1856–1950The Doctor’s Dilemma (1911), Act I
- Clever Jabs
No man who is occupied in doing a very difficult thing, and doing it well, ever loses his self-respect.
George Bernard Shaw1856–1950The Doctor’s Dilemma (1911), Preface
- Pride
There’s always something professional about doing a thing superlatively well.
George Bernard Shaw1856–1950Pygmalion (1912), Act IV, spoken by PickeringIn context
A gardener who cultivates his own garden with his own hands, united in his own person the three different characters, of landlord, farmer, and labourer. His produce, therefore, should pay him the rent of the first, the profit of the second, and the wages of the third.
Adam Smith1723–1790The Wealth of Nations (1776)In context
- Money
In the long-run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him, but the necessity is not so immediate.
Adam Smith1723–1790The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book I, Chapter VIII, p. 80.In context
- Economics
The greatest improvements in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment, with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.
Adam Smith1723–1790The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book I, Chapter IIn context
- Economics
We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject.
Adam Smith1723–1790The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book I, Chapter VIIIIn context
- Business
No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged.
Adam Smith1723–1790The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book I, Chapter VIIIIn context
- Economics
- Justice
As the little boy said when asked if he wanted to be a lawyer like his mother, “Oh no, that’s women’s work.” Logic has nothing to do with oppression.
Gloria Steinem1934–2026Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (1983), p. 367
- Women