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Work

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“If the world is ever conquered for our Lord, it is not by ministers, nor by office-bearers, nor by the great, and noble and mighty, but by every member of Christ's body being a working member; doing his work; filling his own sphere; holding his own post; and saying to Jesus, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?”
Thomas Guthrie (1803–1873) said by 1873 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It's not working from home, it's living at work.”
Johannes Grenzfurthner (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Happiness does not fall out of the blue and dreams will not come true by themselves. We need to be down-to-earth and work hard. We should uphold the idea that working hard is the most honorable, noblest, greatest and most beautiful virtue.”
Xi Jinping (born 1953) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Xi Jinping meets model workers" in cctv.com English (1 May 2013).
“The tribesmen understand this very well, although they would not describe it in the same terms I have. It is simply a working part of their lives. Do you think they would continue to consult me if they found that the advice that I gave them did not work? They are uncivilized, but they are not insane.”
James Blish (1921–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And he related also, with much gusto, how in a country-house he had told his host one evening that he had spent the day in hard literary work, and that, when asked what he had done, he had said, "I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning and took out a comma." "And in the afternoon?" "In the afternoon–well, I put it back again.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in "Oscar Wilde: The Story of an Unhappy Friendship" (1905) by Robert Harborough Sherard,. Greening & Company, London. Quote Page 72. (The original edition was privately printed; the author's note from Robert She…
“My work is the only ground I've ever had to stand on. I seem to have a whole superstructure with no foundation — but I'm working on the foundation.”
Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Marilyn Monroe: In Her Own Words (1983), edited by Roger Taylor
“Kate Bush makes a record, and you don't hear from her. And you play the stuff she has made, and one day you are surprised, and she brings out something else, and she's been quietly working away on it, for however long she wanted to work on it, and I love that. I love the willingness to be quiet, until its time to speak — which is something that she does over and over.”
Neil Gaiman (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“..by going on drawing those types of working people, etc., I hope to arrive at the point of being able to do illustration work for papers and books.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1881 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In his letter to brother Theo, from Brussels, Belgium (January 1881, letter 140); as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, p. 19
“My dear Brother, - I am working like one actually possessed, more than ever I am in a dumb fury of work.. .Perhaps something will happen to me like what Eug. Delacroix spoke of, "I discovered painting when I had no longer teeth or breath." What I dream of in my best moments is not so much of striking color effects as once more the half tones.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1889 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Sept. 1889; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, p. 33 (letter 604)
“God is Nature in His being: that is to say, that Goodness that is Nature, it is God. He is the ground, He is the substance, He is the same thing that is Nature-hood. And He is very Father and very Mother of Nature: and all natures that He hath made to flow out of Him to work His will shall be restored and brought again into Him by the salvation of man through the working of Grace.”
Julian of Norwich (1342–1500) said by 1500 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ben Bova seems to work very hard at working in new discoveries into his Glum Future but alas, his future is glum and not that well written.”
James Nicoll (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Niven made a name for himself as a author, which is to say, someone whose SF provides enough technical detail that the reader can be certain that various mechanisms and events couldn't work the way the author has them working.”
James Nicoll (born 1961) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: review of All the Myriad Ways by Larry Niven, 2015
“A breath of our inspiration Is the life of each generation; A wondrous thing of our dreaming Unearthly, impossible seeming — The soldier, the king, and the peasant Are working together in one, Till our dream shall become their present, And their work in the world be done.”
Arthur O'Shaughnessy (1844–1881) said by 1881 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We must work with all of our allies who share our goal of destroying ISIS and stamping out Islamic terror. This includes working with our greatest ally in the region, the State of Israel.”
Donald Trump (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We heard moving accounts from two working miners about just what they have to face as they try to make their way to work. The sheer bravery of those men and thousands like them who kept the mining industry alive is beyond praise. “Scabs” their former workmates call them. Scabs? They are lions!”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to Conservative Party Conference (12 October 1984)
“I find in working always the disturbing intrusion of elements not a part of my most interested vision, and the inevitable obliteration and replacement of this vision by the work itself as it proceeds..”
Edward Hopper (1882–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Personally we look forward to an old age of dissipation and indolence and unreverend disrepute. In fifty years we shall be ninety-two years old. We intend to work rather hard during those fifty years and accumulate enough to live on without working any more for the next ten years, for we have determined to die at the age of one hundred and two.”
Don Marquis (1878–1937) said by 1937 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don't ask writers about their work habits. I really don't care. Joyce Carol Oates says somewhere that when writers ask each other what time they start working and when they finish and how much time they take for lunch, they're actually trying to find out, "Is he as crazy as I am?" I don't need that question answered.”
Philip Roth (1933–2018) said by 2018 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This is a work that cannot be completed except by a society of men of letters and skilled workmen, each working separately on his own part, but all bound together solely by their zeal for the best interests of the human race and a feeling of mutual good will.”
Denis Diderot (1713–1784) said by 1784 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Article on Encyclopedia, as translated in The Many Faces of Philosophy : Reflections from Plato to Arendt (2001), "Diderot", p. 237
“A man, by working 24 hours a day, could multiply himself 3 times. To multiply himself more than 3 times the only recourse is to train others to take over some of his work.”
Hyman G. Rickover (1900–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I see the work as a whole first. Then I compose the details. In working out, I always lose something. This cannot be avoided. There is always some loss when we materialize. But there is compensating gain in vitality.”
Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in an interview with José Rodriguez (c. 1936) in Schoenberg‎ (1971) by Merle Armitage, p. 149
“I sometimes wish the trade unionists who work in the mass media, those who are writers and broadcasters and secretaries and printers and lift operators of Thomson House would remember that they too are members of our working class movement and have a responsibility to see that what is said about us is true.”
Tony Benn (1925–2014) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chairman's closing address to the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool (6 October 1972); Labour Party Annual Conference Report 1972, p. 349
“It is a nice thing to be working and believing in my work again. I hope I can keep the drive. I only feel whole and well when it is this way.”
John Steinbeck (1902–1968) first seen 1938 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Elizabeth Otis, once he had begun The Grapes of Wrath (1 June 1938)
“Of course in the present day […] the world of work begins to become — threatens to become — our only world, to the exclusion of all else. The demands of the working world grow ever more total, grasping ever more completely the whole of human existence.”
Josef Pieper (1904–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I learned the value of hard work by working hard.”
Margaret Mead (1901–1978) said by 1978 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Attributed in You Vs. You: Sport Psychology Got Life (2005) by Wayne Mazzoni, p. 90
“I have my team focused on the front end, working on the user experience, and making sure we have all the wiki-like tools people need to work on the site. We're just cranking away.”
Jimmy Wales (born 1966) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: About Wikia Search, in an interview with Susan Kuchinskas in iMediaConnection, March 26, 2009 (only days before Wales would shut down Wikia Search and lay off two developers)
“Efforts that promote hard work and personal responsibility over government dependency make America strong. When the economy is growing and Americans are working, everyone involved has a shared sense of achievement, not to mention the basic sense of pride that comes with the paycheck they earn.”
Mitt Romney (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I won't retire. When you're an actor, you're forced to retire every few months. John Gielgud was 96 when he died, and he was working. It's good to work, whatever it is that keeps you interested. I would like to do that, I would like to keep going. I don't have kids, and I don't have hobbies. I don't particularly like to travel. If you're an actor, you have to travel anyway.”
Christopher Walken (born 1943) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dixie Reid (October 24, 2004) "'Bend' it like Walken - Actor has more to say about food and hair than acting", The Sacramento Bee, p. TK31.
“If the peoples of great nations can work, sacrifice, fight, and die together because they share common fears and common hatreds in war, why can we not find a way to tap the great spiritual reservoir that lies deep within each of us and get people and nations working, sacrificing, and building together in peacetime because they share common hopes and common aspirations.”
Walter Reuther (1907–1970) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address before the Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi, India, April 5, 1956, as quoted in Walter P Reuther: Selected Papers (1961), by Henry M. Christman, p. 141
“Hollywood, television and film is not my prime area of interest. Because I would never have any control, working in those areas. It’s nice to get the money from a Hollywood project, but whatever they do with it, it would be their piece of work, and not mine.”
Alan Moore (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I wasn't in the room with the president and Mr. Tenet. But I can tell that you that the people who were working against Osama bin Laden were assured from the first day that much of the work we had done in the last decade would be undone by that war.”
Michael Scheuer (born 1952) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Hardball with Chris Matthews, November 16 2004
“The product of movement and counter-movement is tension. When tension — working strength — is expressed, it endows the work of art with the living effect of coordinated, though opposing, forces.”
Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) said by 1966 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One great lesson that we can learn from its systematic absence in the work of the grand theorists is that every self-conscious thinker must at all times be aware of — and hence be able to control — the levels of abstraction on which he is working. The capacity to shuttle between levels of abstraction, with ease and with clarity, is a signal mark of the imaginative and systematic thinker.”
C. Wright Mills (1916–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The fraction of Americans working in occupations concerned primarily with information has increased from 20 to nearly 50 percent of the work force.”
E. O. Wilson (1929–2021) said by 2021 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I so want you to realise this principle of working with God and asking Him for everything. If the work is at the command of God, then we can go to Him in full confidence for workers; and when God gives the workers, we can go to Him for means to supply their needs.”
James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) said by 1905 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am not an artist and never have been. Rather I am like a craftsman and feel very close to the mediaeval artisans who produced their work anonymously and who, along with their apprentices, had a true feeling for the physical materials they were working with.”
Werner Herzog (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is never easy to demand the most from ourselves, from our lives, from our work. To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society is to encourage excellence. But giving in to the fear of feeling and working to capacity is a luxury only the unintentional can afford, and the unintentional are those who do not wish to guide their own destinies.”
Audre Lorde (1934–1992) said by 1992 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I remember a very important lesson that my father gave me when I was twelve or thirteen. He said, "You know, today I welded a perfect seam and I signed my name to it." And I said, "But, Daddy, no one's going to see it!" And he said, "Yeah, but I know it's there." So when I was working in kitchens, I did good work.”
Toni Morrison (1931–2019) first seen 1994 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in the New York Times Magazine (11 September 1994).
“UNICEF does amazing work. I thought I was a worldly person, and then I started working with them and realized I don’t know as much of my world as I need to. And if I don’t know as much about my world as I need to, then many, many, many people don’t. So I’m thrilled to be in a position to be able to talk about it. And so I’m gonna. —FLY (online) magazine, November, 2005 issue”
Clay Aiken (born 1978) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You know, when the season is over a lot of guys go home and eat peanuts and drink beer and they show up in spring training with a big belly. I will go home and start working on my body right away. My right shoulder is not the way it is supposed to be. I'm not going to wait until spring training and hope it is all right. I will work on it when I get home.”
Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) first seen 1971 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speaking during the 1971 World Series, as quoted in The Chicago Tribune by Bob Markus, reprinted in I'll Play These: From Ecstacy to Angst, A Sports Writer’s Journey (2011), p. 219
“This idea of working just to make money or setting up in business just as a means to a livelihood is all wrong...It seems to me absolutely necessary, and in reality a joy, that a young man starting out in the world should be imbued with a desire to benefit mankind and society by his work and service - whether that be in the field of business, law, or something else.”
Nile Kinnick (1918–1943) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to his parents (January 13, 1939)
“The means whereby this work of Nature is brought to its consummate issue are forces of Nature working under her Laws by the method of cause and effect. The principle, or "law," of causation is a metaphysical postulate; in the sense that such a fact as causation is unproved and unprovable. No man has ever observed a case of causation, as is a commonplace with the latterday psychologists.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On the January 19 2006 edition of Fox News's The Big Story, after the release of a tape by Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, Gibson stated, "(Bin Laden) is talking to America's far left and saying, 'You know what. We're on the same side. So why don't you work on that hardhead George W. Bush? Bin Laden told us Thursday that our far left has been working for him. It's their poll results he quotes.'”
John Gibson (media host) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bin Laden's Talking Points From Far Left? Editorial by John Gibson, published on FOXNews.com on January 19, 2006
“I am not at their orders, but at those of Nature! My confreres doubtless have their reasons for working as you have said. But in thus doing violence to nature and treating human beings like puppets, they run the risk of producing lifeless and artificial work...”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I won't be here long, I am working as hard as I can, as I told you [in a letter] yesterday, I am very happy to be here Etretat, Normandy] and I hope to come up with something good, in any case I will bring lots of studies back with me so I can work on some big things at home.”
Claude Monet (1840–1926) first seen 1883 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in Monet's letter from Etretat to his second [future] wife Alice Hoschedé, 1883; as cited in: K.E. Sullivan. Monet: Discovering Art, Brockhampton press, London (2004), p. 51
“All my life I've been working on the work - every canvas a sentence or paragraph of it. Each picture is only an approximation of what you want. That's the beauty of being an artist; you can never make the absolute statement, but the desire to do so as an approximation keeps you going.”
Robert Motherwell (1915–1991) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: as cited by Grace Glueck, in 'Robert Motherwell, Master of Abstract, Dies', by Grace Glueck, 'New York Times, 18 July 1991
“If I feel a painting I'm working on doesn't have imagery or emotion, I paint it out and work over it until it does.”
Franz Kline (1910–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The best thing you can do is just keep busy, keep working hard, so you’re not dwelling on it all the time. Work is the best antidote for sorrow.”
Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Discussing the death of his wife with Larry King, 2004.
“Whoever wins, whoever gets to lead our country, let us pledge to work together and rally behind him. By working as a team, by going together, it is a certainty that we will go farther.”
Francis Escudero (born 1969) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working ; and just so you learn to love God and man by loving. All those who think to learn in any other way deceive themselves.”
Francis de Sales (1567–1622) said by 1622 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted by Bishop Jean-Pierre Camus in The Spirit of Saint Francis de Sales, ch. 1, Pg. 3 (1880)