Work quotes
2.4K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside work — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Man is a shrewd inventor, and is ever taking the hint of a new machine from his own structure, adapting some secret of his own anatomy in iron, wood, and leather, to some required function in the work of the world."
"I can do nothing for you but work on myself...you can do nothing for me but work on yourself!"
"It is the first of all problems for a man to find out what kind of work he is to do in this universe."
"Someone who values fairness and expects or, even better, wants to do his share in the home. These men exist and, trust me, over time, nothing is sexier."
"Inanimate objects can be classified scientifically into three major categories: those that don't work, those that break down and those that get lost."
"Soldiers generally win battles; generals get credit for them."
"I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works."
"Do every act of your life as if it were your last."
"Good for the body is the work of the body, good for the soul the work of the soul, and good for either the work of the other."
"The wishbone will never replace the backbone."
"To do the same thing over and over again is not only boredom: it is to be controlled by rather than to control what you do."
"The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art."
"Progress everywhere today does seem to come so very heavily disguised as Chaos."
"Father asked us what was God's noblest work. Anna said men, but I said babies. Men are often bad, but babies never are."
"And, inasmuch [as] most good things are produced by labour, it follows that all such things of right belong to those whose labour has produced them. But 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 [secure] to each labourer the whole product of his labour, or as nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government."
"Whatever prevents you from doing your work has become your work."
"As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey."
"What you do is infinitely more important than how you do it."
"What I still ask for daily-for life as long as I have work to do, and work as long as I have life."
"If your team is filled with people who work for the company, you'll soon be defeated by tribes of people who work for a cause."
