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Quotes about work

220 quotes from 151 people

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Diligence is the mother of good fortune
Miguel de Cervantes1547–1616Don Quixote (1605–1615), Part I, Chapter XLVIIn context
- Luck
Our labour preserves us from three great evils⁠—weariness, vice, and want.
Voltaire1694–1778Candide (1759), Chapter XXXIn context
Let us cultivate our garden.
Voltaire1694–1778Candide (1759), Chapter XXXIn context
- Wisdom
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
There’s always something professional about doing a thing superlatively well.
George Bernard Shaw1856–1950Pygmalion (1912), Act IV, spoken by PickeringIn context
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
Let not Ambition mock their useful Toil,
Their homely Joys and Destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful Smile,
The short and simple Annals of the Poor.
Thomas Gray1716–1771Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751)In context
- History
Under a spreading chestnut-tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands,
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1807–1882The Village Blacksmith (1840)In context
Death is the end of life; ah! why
Should life all labour be?
Alfred, Lord Tennyson1809–1892The Lotos-Eaters (1832)In context
- Life & Death
What from your fathers’ heritage is lent,
Earn it anew, to really possess it!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe1749–1832Faust (1808), Scene I, spoken by FaustIn context
- Family
The words you’ve bandied are sufficient;
’Tis deeds that I prefer to see:
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe1749–1832Faust (1808), Prelude at the Theatre, spoken by ManagerIn context
- Talking
The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.
Karl Marx1818–1883The Communist Manifesto (1848)In context
- Economics
The working men have no country.
Karl Marx1818–1883The Communist Manifesto (1848)In context
- Patriotism