quotations about labor
It is better to drink the wine of industry from an earthen cup, than the wine of indolence from a silver tankard.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
The lot of man is ceaseless labor, Or ceaseless idleness, which is still harder.
T. S. ELIOT
The Rock
I have two problems with hard labor: hard and labor.
JAROD KINTZ
$3.33
The motto marked upon our foreheads, written upon our door-posts, channeled in the earth, and wafted upon the waves, is and must be, "Labor is honorable, and idleness is dishonorable."
T. CARLYLE
attributed, Life's Common Way
Fame lightens labour.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
The truth beyond the fetish's glimmering mirage is the relationship of laborer to product; it is the social account of how that object came to be. In this view every commodity, beneath the mantle of its price tag, is a hieroglyph ripe for deciphering, a riddle whose solution lies in the story of the worker who made it and the conditions under which it was made.
LEAH HAGER COHEN
Glass, Paper, Beans: Revolutions on the Nature and Value of Ordinary Things
Communism deprives no man of the ability to appropriate the fruits of his labour. The only thing it deprives him of is the ability to enslave others by means of such appropriations.
KARL MARX
The Communist Manifesto
All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence. If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
attributed, A Martin Luther King Treasury
Think about these imprints left by the material processes of work as the evidence of our presence on the earth, and ... think about how contemporary human beings, living in a western urban environment, can relate to the metaphysics of the labor which enables our lives.
JACKIE NICKERSON
"Exhibit: Jackie Nickerson", Crave, March 14, 2016
He who labors diligently need never despair.
MENANDER
attributed, Day's Collacon
It has so happened in all ages of the world, that some have laboured, and others have, without labour, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong, and should not continue. To each labourer the whole product of his labour, or as nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
"Fragments of a Tariff Discussion", December 1, 1847
The only real riches are labor; everything else is but the sign or abuse of it.
LEMONTEY
attributed, A Concise Exposition of the Doctrine of Association
Our experience tells us what is labour and recreation.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
The qualities of labor, like tools,
Grow brighter when used.
SUSAN H. BOGGS
"Labor", Poems
As salt savors the broth, so does labor give a relish to pleasure.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
Labor, laughing at difficulties, spans majestic rivers, carries viaducts over marshy swamps, suspends bridges over deep ravines, pierces the solid mountains with the dark tunnel, blasting rocks and filling hollows, and, while linking together all nations of the earth pities the proud fool and laughs him to scorn. He shall pass to dust, forgotten; but Labor will live forever, glorious in its conquests and monuments, and will keep organized no matter how many temporary defeats it endures.
NEWMAN HALL
"The Dignity of Labor", The Golden Treasury of Poetry and Prose
There can be no general prosperity where labor has small reward.
LEWIS F. KORNS
Thoughts
Labour, though it was at first inflicted as a curse, seems to be the gentlest of all punishments, and is fruitful of a thousand blessings.
JOHN ROGERS PITMAN
"Goodness of God", A Second Course of Sermons for the Year
Labour is the source of every blessing.
AESOP
"The Brazier and His Dog", Aesop's Fables
But every acquisition that is disproportionate to the labor spent on it is dishonest.
LEO TOLSTOY
Anna Karenina