Famously Said Random quote

Quotes about work

220 quotes from 151 people

Most readBy personPage 4 of 15

Now I saw, though too late, the folly of beginning a work before we count the cost, and before we judge rightly of our own strength to go through with it.
Daniel Defoe1660–1731Robinson Crusoe (1719), Chapter IXIn context
My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest.
Charles Dickens1812–1870David Copperfield (1850), Chapter 42In context
- Motivation & Goals
They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains,” he remarked with a smile. “It’s a very bad definition, but it does apply to detective work.
Arthur Conan Doyle1859–1930A Study in Scarlet (1887), Part I, Chapter IIIIn context
- Genius
My mind,” he said, “rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation.
Arthur Conan Doyle1859–1930The Sign of the Four (1890), Chapter IIn context
- Thinking
My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people don’t know.
Arthur Conan Doyle1859–1930The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1891–1892), The Adventure of the Blue CarbuncleIn context
- Knowledge
The worker must work for the glory of his handiwork, not simply for pay; the thinker must think for truth, not for fame.
W. E. B. Du Bois1868–1963The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Chapter VIn context
- Fame
There is a great satisfaction in building good tools for other people to use.
Freeman Dyson1923–2020Disturbing the Universe (1979)
There is no substitute for hard work.
Thomas Edison1847–1931
I continue to find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success.
Thomas Edison1847–1931
- Success
It is astonishing what an effort it seems to be for many people to put their brains definitely and systematically to work.
Thomas Edison1847–1931
I owe my success to the fact that I never had a clock in my workroom. Seventy-five of us worked twenty hours every day and slept only four hours — and thrived on it.
Thomas Edison1847–1931Diary entry, as quoted in Defending and Parenting Children Who Learn Differently : Lessons from Edison’s Mother (2007) by Scott Teel, p. 12
- Success
Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work.
Albert Einstein1879–1955The World As I See It (1949)
- Government
Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all.
Albert Einstein1879–1955Why Socialism? (1949)
- Technology
Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.
Dwight D. Eisenhower1890–1969
The blessed work of helping the world forward, happily does not wait to be done by perfect men.
George Eliot1819–1880“Janet’s Repentance” Ch. 10 in Scenes of Clerical Life (1858)