Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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“Private ownership, originally a means to give everybody the possibility of productive work, now has turned into the means to prevent the workers from the free use of the instruments of production. Originally a means to ascertain to the workers the fruits of their labor, it now turned into a means to deprive the workers of the fruits of their labor for the benefit of a class of useless parasites.”
Antonie Pannekoek (1873–1960) said by 1960 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Zulus in South Africa were being treated, like the dock labourers at home, as a means for making money for an unscrupulous and conscienceless gang. As a member of the Labour party he was going to stand up for the Zulus or for any other race or people who were being treated unjustly under the British flag. He stood up for working men at home, and he did so for working men in South Africa.”
Keir Hardie (1856–1915) first seen 1906 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Ayr to the Glasgow branch of the National Union of Dock Labourers (25 August 1906), quoted in The Times (27 August 1906), p. 4
“We should not replace pity with fear in our relationship with the working class. It is a source of shame that Labour did not and does not represent the hopes and fears of the working class, by becoming a party that disapproves of their fears and is nervous of their hopes.”
Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We believe a leave vote will put many of those things seriously and immediately at risk. We also want to extend those rights and we best extend those rights by working with trade unions, labour parties and socialist parties all across Europe in the interest of the working people all across the continent.”
Jeremy Corbyn (born 1949) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Labour's Tom Watson: EU free movement rules must change BBC News (14 June 2016).
“Only up to 3pc of Pakistan's is unionised, and there are few opportunities for for fair wages or safe working conditions. The last year banned 62 labour unions in the province. The disregard for will take on new dimensions during a pandemic, when workers should have ample rights to demand safe working conditions and job protection in the event of sickness.”
Huma Yusuf wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I want Labour solidly to be the party of working class people and working class communities and that requires a lot of change.”
Andy Burnham (born 1970) first seen 2026 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Burnham says he's running for selection in Makerfield by-election to 'save Labour'", BBC News (16 May 2026)
“All day long they work so hard Till the sun is goin' down. Working on the highways and byways And wearing, wearing a frown. You hear them moanin' their lives away. Then you hear somebody say:"That's the sound of the men working on the chain gang. That's the sound of the men working on the chain gang.”
Sam Cooke (1931–1964) said by 1964 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He was of opinion that we should be able to convince the general English public, the working man particularly, that the reforms that I advanced would be far more beneficial to the English nation, particularly to the working man...If India is prosperous and rich, she would buy far more English produce and give work proportionately to the working man.”
Dadabhai Naoroji (1825–1917) first seen 1886 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: His noting in his dairy after his contesting election in 1886 page=10.
“Live for the other life. Endure as seeing Him who is invisible. Work by faith; work by hope; work by love; work by courage; work by trust; work by the sweet side of your mind; and so be like Christ, until you dwell with Him.”
Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Work! work! work! While the cock is crowing aloof! And work—work—work, Till the stars shine through the roof!”
Thomas Hood (1799–1845) said by 1845 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The fact that labour is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his intrinsic nature; that in his work, therefore he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself.”
Karl Marx (1818–1883) said by 1883 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Work, and thou wilt bless the day Ere the toil be done; They that work not, can not pray, Can not feel the sun. God is living, working still, All things work and move; Work, or lose the power to will, Lose the power to love.”
John Sullivan Dwight (1813–1893) said by 1893 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Any genuine experience of God will send us out to serve those whom God loves. And working with people will make us aware of how much we are in need of God, of God’s help and guidance. This will gradually usher in a rhythm of prayer and work – prayer leading to work and work leading to prayer. So the integration of prayer and work takes place existentially.”
Kurien Kunnumpuram (1931–2018) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Kunnumpuram, K. (ed) (2006) Life in Abundance: Indian Christian Reflections on Spirituality. Mumbai: St Pauls
“When Keynes’s General Theory was published in February 1936, it obliterated all else on the scene in academic economics. Hayek was known to be working on a treatise on capital as Keynes’s work was published (the work that became The Pure Theory of Capital). While there was some anticipation in academia for this forthcoming major work, interest even by economists in Hayek’s work waned.”
Alan O. Ebenstein (born 1959) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Early rising, honesty, and work. There is a great difference in merit between being awakened and waking up someone else. Working in the shadows and praising others is honesty. If you do not put into practice what you hear, you will become a lie. Work on top of work, saying to yourself, ‘Just a little more, just a little bit more’; this is not greed, it is work that comes from true sincerity.”
Nakayama Miki (1798–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You have to be able to live with uncertainty. You really have to dig in and persist because every deal gets tough. But to me it is all about the people that I am working with. I didn’t set this up to work with people I don’t want to work with. I set it up to work with people that I want to work with.”
Lorraine Heggessey (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Centuries of their labor would not reveal to them any more of Creation than they already knew. Yet through their endeavor, men would glimpse the unimaginable artistry of Yahweh's work, in seeing how ingeniously the world had been constructed. By this construction, Yahweh's work was indicated, and Yahweh's work was concealed.”
Ted Chiang (born 1967) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Tower of Babylon; first appeared in Omni, 1990.
“In the field of socialist revolution, party building work must be associated with the renovation and economic construction, cultural renovation and development. The strengthening of ideological and political work, organization and inspection work must be really associated with the productive labor movement, with striving for the implementation of economic and social plans.”
Lê Duẩn (1907–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am a humble artist moulding my earthly clod, adding my labour to nature's, simply assisting God. Not that my labour is needed, yet somehow I understand, my Maker has deemed it that I too should have Unmoulded clay in my hand.”
Piet Hein (1905–1996) said by 1996 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“LABOUR, like all other things which are purchased and sold, and which may be increased or diminished in quantity, has its natural and its market price. The natural price of labour is that price which is necessary to enable the labourers, on with another, to subsist and to perpetuate their race, without either increase or diminution.”
David Ricardo (1772–1823) said by 1823 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am in the Labour Party because I am a feminist. I am in the Labour Party because I believe in equality.”
Harriet Harman (born 1950) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In an interview following her election as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, 10 November 2007.
“There is nothing economically unsound in increasing temporarily and artificially the demand for labour during a period of temporary and artificial contraction. There is a plain need of some averaging machinery to regulate and even-up the general course of the labour market. ... by every step in that direction you would free thousands of your fellow-countrymen from undeserved agony and ruin.”
Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1909 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The People's Rights [1909] (1970), pp. 133-134
“He that in his studies wholly applies himself to labour and exercise, and neglects meditation, loses his time, and he that only applies himself to meditation, and neglects labour and exercise, only wanders and loses himself.”
Confucius (551–479 BC) said by 479 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Morals of Confucius, 2nd edition (London, 1724), Maxim X, p. 114
“Surplus value is exactly equal to surplus labour; the increase of the one [is] exactly measured by the diminution of necessary labour.”
Karl Marx (1818–1883) said by 1883 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So far as living instruments of labour are concerned, for instance horses, their reproduction is timed by nature itself. Their average lifetime as instruments of labour is determined by the laws of nature. As soon as this term has expired they must be replaced by new ones. A horse cannot be replaced piecemeal; it must be replaced by another horse.”
Karl Marx (1818–1883) said by 1883 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We labour soon, we labour late, To feed the titled knave, man; And a' the comfort we're to get, Is that ayont the grave, man.”
Robert Burns (1759–1796) said by 1796 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Tree of Liberty (1838)
“Why the ILP more than another? Because the ILP is the only British party — at any rate the only one large enough to be worth considering — which aims at anything I should regard as Socialism. I do not mean that I have lost all faith in the Labour Party. My most earnest hope is that the Labour Party will win a clear majority in the next General Election.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) said by 1950 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The programme of the British Labour Party under Neil Kinnock is so wildly irresponsible, so separate and apart from the historic NATO strategy, that I think a Labour government that stood by its present policies—and I rather doubt that they would—would, if it didn't destroy the Alliance, at least diminish its effective ability to do the task for which it was created.”
Richard Perle (born 1941) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Times (25 September, 1986).
“The progressive historical role of capitalism may be summed up in two brief propositions: increase in the productive forces of social labour, and the socialisation of that labour. But both these facts manifest themselves in extremely diverse processes in different branches of the national economy.”
Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The possession of self-conscious reason, which belongs to us of the present world, did not arise suddenly, nor did it grow only from the soil of the present. This possession must be regarded as previously present, as an inheritance, and as the result of labour — the labour of all past generations of men. Introduction p. 2”
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) said by 1831 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Labour is the source of all wealth, the political economists assert. And it really is the source -- next to nature, which supplies it with the material that it converts into wealth. But it is even infinitely more than this. It is the prime basic condition for all human existence, and this to such an extent that, in a sense, we have to say that labour created man himself.”
Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) first seen 1876 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1876)
“Men of genius do not excel in any profession because they labour in it, but they labour in it because they excel.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greatest part of skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is any where directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.”
Adam Smith (1723–1790) said by 1790 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thus the labour of a manufacture adds, generally, to the value of the materials which he works upon, that of his own maintenance, and of his masters profits. The labour of a menial servant, on the contrary, adds to the value of nothing.”
Adam Smith (1723–1790) said by 1790 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the end, the Labour party could cease to represent labour. Stranger historic ironies have happened than that.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Article for The Sunday Telegraph, citing the swing to the Conservatives in his constituency and others with large working-class electorates (18 October 1964), quoted in Simon Heffer, Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Po…
“The British Labour Party has always been nationalist, if not insular, and...not just democratic but parliamentarian. But it is confrontation with the EEC that has presented the Labour Party with an uninhibited appeal to patriotism. Internationalist it may be in phrases; when it comes to policy, it is nationalist.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'In judgment on political casebooks', The Saturday Times (9 April 1983), p. 5
“The Labour Party cannot make up its mind whether to treat the Liberal plan as a freak or to claim its paternity. Mr. Thomas has said it is an absurd abortion, but Mr. Henderson says it is the child of the Labour Party. Mr. MacDonald, as usual tries to have it both ways. He says—often in the same speech—"This is a stunted thing." Then looking at it fondly, he says, "This is my child.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, on the Liberal Party's "Orange Book", We Can Conquer Unemployment (12 April 1929), quoted in John Campbell, Lloyd George: The Goat in the Wilderness, 1922–1931 (1977), p. 226
“Surely then some distinction between the different kinds of labour, with reference to their different effects on national wealth, must be admitted to be not only useful, but necessary; and if so, the question is what this distinction should be, and where the line between the different kinds of labour should be drawn.”
Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) said by 1834 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I've always been a Labour man. I consider myself real Labour. I've never been a Marxist, or a Trotskyist, or any other kind of –ist other than a Labourist. If it weren't for Mr Blair and the Iraq war, I would never have been out of the party in the first place.”
George Galloway (born 1954) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: LBC Radio interview, July 2015, quoted in Lucy Fisher and Ashley Cowburn, "Labour tells Galloway he isn’t welcome", The Times, 18 September 2015.
“We look out of date, with too little to say about the contemporary world [...] The truth is we talk endlessly about the 'same old Tories', what the voters are talking about is the 'same old Labour'. We've got to wake up to that. For many voters, there is a simple question: what is the point of voting Labour?”
Peter Mandelson (born 1953) first seen 2021 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From an interview with Anoosh Chakelian, as cited in "Peter Mandelson: 'I'm afraid Keir Starmer has come badly unstuck", New Statesman (11 May 2021).
“Nothing should be made by man's labour which is not worth making; or which must be made by labour degrading to the makers.”
William Morris (1834–1896) said by 1896 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I joined the Labour Party not because it was Left Wing, but because it was definitely internationalists and would seem to be the group in the Labour Party which would serve my purpose best for propaganda along internationalist lines.”
Norman Angell (1872–1967) first seen 1951 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: After All (1951)
“Their only labour was to kill the time; And labour dire it is, and weary woe, They sit, they loll, turn o'er some idle rhyme, Then, rising sudden, to the glass they go, Or saunter forth, with tottering steps and slow.”
James Thomson (poet, born 1700) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are all of us taxed, and taxed heavily. Is that a system of forced labour? To say that because we put a tax on the native therefore he is reduced to a condition of servitude and of forced labour is, to my mind, absolutely ridiculous. It is perfectly fair to my mind that the native should contribute something towards the cost of administering the country.”
Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914) first seen 1903 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Casement Report, Page 5 House of Commons, tbe 9th March, 1903.
“I am bitterly opposed to any form of legislation, particularly legislation introduced by a Labour Government, which involves an element of colour bar. It is an appalling thing to have happened. I want to see us returning as swiftly as possible to a situation where we wipe away this stain on the reputation of the Labour movement.”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (23 November 1965)
“Much more should have been achieved by a Labour Government in office and Labour pressure in opposition. Against the dogged resistance to change, we should have pitted a stronger will to change. I conclude that a move to the Left is needed.”
Anthony Crosland (1918–1977) first seen 1974 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Anthony Crosland, Socialism Now (1974), p. 44
“No. Absolutely not. I think that the Russians are praying for a Labour victory...praying is perhaps an unfortunate choice of words. I think that they would much prefer a Labour government and that the idea that they would prefer a Tory government, I think is utter bunkum, and they [the Soviets] authorized me to say so.”
Denis Healey (1917–2015) first seen 1987 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Answering a suggestion that the Soviets would prefer a Conservative government led by Margaret Thatcher than a Labour government headed by Neil Kinnock at a press conference in Moscow after a meeting with Anatoly Dobryn…
“The cause of labour is the cause of Ireland, the cause of Ireland is the cause of labour.”
James Connolly (1868–1916) first seen 1916 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Workers' Republic 8 April, 1916. Reprinted in P. Beresford Ellis (ed.), James Connolly - Selected Writings, p. 145.
“There are some so restless that when they are free from labour they labour all the more, because the more leisure they they have for thought, the worse interior turmoil they have to bear.”
Pope Gregory I (540–604) said by 604 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1809–1865) first seen 1847 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume I, "Fragments of a Tariff Discussion" (1 December 1847)