Work Quotes
On this page Carlyle is first by count, followed by Shakespeare, Lincoln, Karl Marx and Albert Pike. The line most worth keeping is Mark Twain’s from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876): work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and play of whatever a body is not obliged to do. Emerson’s May-Day and Other Pieces (1867) has a good one on the crowded hour, and Woody Allen’s joke about immortality through not dying is here as well.
Three entries are flagged. “I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours” is credited to Oscar Wilde and marked misattributed. Two sayings credited to Publilius Syrus, about doing nothing both hastily and prudently and about the man who loves labour always having something to do, are disputed.
In a society such as ours, it is almost impossible for a person to be responsible.
The land of easy mathematics where he who works adds up and he who retires subtracts.
It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?
The capitalists soon had everything in their hands and nothing remained to the workers.
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
The world is full of willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.
If you want work well done, select a busy man ‚ the other kind has no time.
The finest eloquence is that which gets things done; the worst is that which delays them.
If one man has a dollar he didn't work for, some other man worked for a dollar he didn't get.