Famous quotes
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“Enthusiasm is the element of success in everything. It is the light that leads, and the strength that leads men on and up, in the great struggles of scientific pursuit, of professional labor. It robs endurance of difficulty and makes a pleasure of duty.”
William Croswell Doane (1832–1913) first seen 1881 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address to the Tenth Graduating Class" (1881), in Addresses to the Graduating Classes of St. Agnes School (New York: Thomas Whittaker, 1891), p. 121.
“[I]f you think you have the right to health care, you are saying basically that I am your slave. I provide health care. … My staff and technicians provide it. … If you have a right to health care, then you have a right to their labor.”
Rand Paul (born 1963) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Town hall meeting in Lexington, 2009-11
“Global poverty is an "input" on the supply side; the global economic system feeds on cheap labor.”
Michel Chossudovsky (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Macro-economic policy had accelerated the "expulsion" of landless peasants from the countryside leading to the formation of a nomadic migrant labor force moving from one metropolitan area to another.”
Michel Chossudovsky (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Marx saw exploitation in terms of the rewards of human labor, but we can see it in terms of all the values of our society.”
Charles A. Reich (1928–2019) said by 2019 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor — not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules.”
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Today Negroes want above all else to abolish poverty in their lives and in the lives of the white poor. This is the heart of their program. To end the humiliation was a start, but to end poverty is a bigger task. It is natural for Negroes to turn to the labor movement because it was the first and pioneer anti-poverty program....”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Your old friend Congressman Hartley of the Taft Hartley team ... has written a book ... The title of this book is Our New National Labor Policy, the Taft-Hartley Act and the Next Steps. Get that: "The Next Steps" ... They're going even further! ... The Republicans favor a minimum wage — the smaller the minimum the better.”
Harry S. Truman (1884–1972) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Harry Truman at Akron (October 11, 1948), Good Old Harry
“Labor, n. One of the processes by which A acquires property of B.”
Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Yet the promise of this life is imperiled by the very genius that has made it possible. Nations amass wealth. Labor sweats to create—and turns out devices to level not only mountains but also cities. Science seems ready to confer upon us, as its final gift, the power to erase human life from this planet.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The whole mystery of commodities, all the magic and necromancy that surrounds the products of labor as long as they take the form of commodities, vanishes therefore, so soon as we come to other forms of production.”
Karl Marx (1818–1883) said by 1883 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The directing motive, the end and aim of capitalist production, is to extract the greatest possible amount of , and consequently to exploit labor-power to the greatest possible extent.”
Karl Marx (1818–1883) said by 1883 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is so rare to meet with a man out-doors who cherishes a worthy thought in his mind, which is independent of the labor of his hands.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The rush to California, for instance, and the attitude, not merely of merchants, but of philosophers and prophets, so called, in relation to it, reflect the greatest disgrace on mankind. That so many are ready to live by luck, and so get the means of commanding the labor of others less lucky, without contributing any value to society!”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.”
Albert Camus (1913–1960) said by 1960 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The happiness of men consists in life. And life is in labor.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) first seen 1886 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: What Is To Be Done? (1886) Chap. XXXVIII, as translated in The Novels and Other Works of Lyof N. Tolstoï (1902) edited by Nathan Haskell Dole, p. 259
“Division of labor is a justification for sloth.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A pleasant natural environment is a good — a luxury good, philosophical good, a moral goody-good, a good time for all. Whatever, we want it. If we want something, we should pay for it, with our labor or our cash. We shouldn't beg it, steal it, sit around wishing for it, or euchre the government into taking it by force.”
P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every man among us is more fit to meet the duties and responsibilities of citizenship because of the perils over which, in the past, the nation has triumphed; because of the blood and sweat and tears, the labor and the anguish, through which, in the days that have gone, our forefathers moved on to triumph.”
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) first seen 1897 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech before the Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island (June 1897), reported in "Washington’s Forgotten Maxim", American Ideals (1926), vol. 13 of The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, national ed., chapter 12, p. 198
“I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph.”
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) said by 1919 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Peaceful nations must stand for the advance of democracy. No other system of government has done more to protect minorities, to secure the rights of labor, to raise the status of women, or to channel human energy to the pursuits of peace.”
George W. Bush (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.”
Robert Frost (1874–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With the destructive power of today's weapons, keeping the peace is not just a goal; it's a sacred obligation. But maintaining peace requires more than sincerity and idealism—more than optimism and good will. As you know well, peace is a product of hard, strenuous labor by those dedicated to its preservation. It requires realism, not wishful thinking.”
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) first seen 1982 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Toasts of the President and United Nations Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar at a Luncheon in New York City " (17 June 1982); online at The American Presidency Project by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley
“For him who loves labor, there is always something to do.”
Publilius Syrus (101–101 BC) said by 101 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To an active mind, indolence is more painful than labor ...”
Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) said by 1794 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let us, then, be up and doing. With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sublime tobacco! which from east to west Cheers the tar's labor or the Turkman's rest.”
Lord Byron (1788–1824) said by 1824 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He who first shortened the labor of copyists by device of movable types was disbanding hired armies, and cashiering most kings and senates, and creating a whole new democratic world: he had invented the art of printing.”
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) said by 1881 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones, The labor of an age in pilèd stones, Or that his hallowed relics should be hid Under a star-y-pointing pyramid? Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?”
John Milton (1608–1674) first seen 1630 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Shakespeare (1630)
“By labor and intent study (which I take to be my portion in this life), joined with the strong propensity of nature, I might perhaps leave something so written to after-times, as they should not willingly let it die.”
John Milton (1608–1674) first seen 1641 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Reason of Church Government (1641), Book II, Introduction
“The people are weary of being oppressed, persecuted, exploited to the maximum. They are weary of the wretched selling of their labor-power day after day — faced with the fear of joining the enormous mass of unemployed — so that the greatest profit can be wrung from each human body, profit later squandered in the orgies of the masters of capital.”
Che Guevara (1928–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think the place to start is to recognize the individual's quality of incompleteness, of being an unfinished product. The vestiges of the past are brought into the present in one's consciousness, and a continual labor is necessary to eradicate them.”
Che Guevara (1928–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The individual will reach total consciousness as a social being, which is equivalent to the full realization as a human creature, once the chains of alienation are broken. This will be translated concretely into the reconquering of one's true nature through liberated labor, and the expression of one's own human condition through culture and art.”
Che Guevara (1928–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The time for your labor has been granted.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What I know at sixty, I knew as well at twenty. Forty years of a long, a superfluous, labor of verification.”
Emil Cioran (1911–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One grasps incomparably more things in boredom than by labor, effort being the mortal enemy of meditation.”
Emil Cioran (1911–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We never thought, sitting in my office on those afternoons, discussing Voltaire and Ingersoll, that we would ever be brought to this, did we?You, the atheist whom the mere sight of a church spire on the sky could enrage; and I who have never been able to divorce myself from reason enough even to accept your pleasant and labor-saving theory of nihilism.”
William Faulkner (1897–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor.”
Bret Harte (1836–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The gates of hell are open night and day; Smooth the descent, and easy is the way: But to return, and view the cheerful skies, In this the task and mighty labor lies.”
John Dryden (1631–1700) said by 1700 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Another of my wishes is to depend as little as possible on the labor of slaves.”
James Madison (1751–1836) first seen 1785 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Edmund Randolph (26 July 1785)
“There is no higher honor than to serve free men and women, no greater privilege than to labor in government beneath the Great Seal of the United States and the American flag.”
George H. W. Bush (1924–2018) said by 2018 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The consistent anarchist, then, should be a socialist, but a socialist of a particular sort. He will not only oppose alienated and specialized labor and look forward to the appropriation of capital by the whole body of workers, but he will also insist that this appropriation be direct, not exercised by some elite force acting in the name of the proletariat.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Notes on Anarchism," in: Daniel Guérin Anarchism: From Theory to Practice (1970).
“The record of atrocities in Cambodia is substantial and often gruesome, but it has by no means satisfied the requirements of Western propagandists, who must labor to shift the blame for the torment of Indochina to the victims of France and the United States. Consequently, there has been extensive fabrication of evidence, a tide that is not stemmed even by repeated exposure.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thomas Jefferson, the leading Enlightenment figure in the United States, along with Benjamin Franklin, who took exactly the same view, argued that dependence will lead to "subservience and venality", and will "suffocate[s] the germs of virtue". And remember, by dependence he meant wage labor, which was considered an abomination under classical liberal principles.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me – The Carriage held but just Ourselves – And Immortality.We slowly drove – He knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility –”
Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) said by 1886 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A self-supporting and self-respecting democracy can plead no justification for the existence of child labor, no economic reason for chiseling workers' wages or stretching workers' hours.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Here, on this side of the grave, Here, should we labor and love.”
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) said by 1919 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The proprietor, producing neither by his own labor nor by his implement, and receiving products in exchange for nothing, is either a parasite or a thief.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At the present time, the bourgeoisie and the opportunists in the labor movement concur in this "revision" of Marxism. They omit, obliterate and distort the revolutionary side of its doctrine, its revolutionary soul. They push to the foreground and extol what is or seems acceptable to the bourgeoisie.”
Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1.1, Essential Works of Lenin (1966)
“It is probably true that business corrupts everything it touches. It corrupts politics, sports, literature, art, labor unions and so on. But business also corrupts and undermines monolithic totalitarianism. Capitalism is at its liberating best in a noncapitalist environment.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) first seen 1971 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Thoughts of Eric Hoffer, Including: 'Absolute Faith Corrupts Absolutely'", The New York Times Magazine (April 25, 1971), p. 50.