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Work

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“You ever wonder why Silicon Valley even exists? I have always wondered, why do these people all live and work in that location? They have all this insane technology; why don't they all just spread out wherever they want to be and connect with their devices? Because it doesn't work, that's why.”
Jerry Seinfeld (born 1954) first seen 2020 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: in his New York Times op-ed "So You Think New York Is 'Dead'" (24 August 2020)
“Work democracy does not wish to prevent or prohibit anything. Its only intention is the fulfilment of the biological life functions, of love, work and knowledge.”
Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957) said by 1957 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If something seems possible, that's probably because someone is already doing it. When something seems that it can't possibly work, nobody tries it. Real innovation happens when someone tries anyway, overlooking an obvious flaw, and finds a way to make an idea work.”
Joel Spolsky (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tell yourself every morning as you go to work that you love your job. Think of it as interesting, even fascinating. By so doing you will ultimately get enthusiastic about your work — and you will undoubtedly do a better job.”
Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Uncertain of principles, we fall back on emotion; unfamiliar with the past, we are afraid of the future. Increasingly we look to men, ideas, and institutions not from the point of view of how they work, but from the point of view of how they ought to work…”
Henry Steele Commager (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The notion of making money by popular work, and then retiring to do good work on the proceeds, is the most familiar of all the devil's traps for artists.”
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It always amuses me that the biggest praise for my work comes for the imagination, while the truth is that there's not a single line in all my work that does not have a basis in reality. The problem is that Caribbean reality resembles the wildest imagination.”
Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) said by 2014 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You mustn't force sex to do the work of love or love to do the work of sex.”
Mary McCarthy (1912–1989) said by 1989 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[About Pascal] That is the great strength of PASCAL, that there are so few unnecessary features and almost no need for subsets. That is why the language is strong enough to support specialized extensions--Concurrent PASCAL for real time work, PASCAL PLUS for discrete event simulation, UCSD PASCAL for microprocessor work stations.”
C. A. R. Hoare (1934–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How to work so as to make work a pleasure.”
Frank Crane (1861–1928) said by 1928 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I would never condone the burning of a Dan Brown novel, much though I loathe and detest his work. Well, I say "work", you know, words, randomly arranged to form millions of dollars... I'm not bitter at all...”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Conservative Back Bench Members have an unseemly and shabby desire to rubbish and eventually smash a section of the British work force that has served this country well. ... There are few less pleasant sights than to see well-upholstered, sleek and wealthy Conservative Members insulting a body of men who work hard for a living and who have done so for many centuries.”
George Galloway (born 1954) first seen 1989 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (24 May 1989), against the abolition of the National Dock Labour Board.
“Play makes a human being! Work just means you don’t have to feel guilty about playing, which I don’t feel much anyway. Mainly work means I don’t have to suffer the taunts of my friends who wonder why I’m playing as hard as I do!”
Samuel R. Delany (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The legal system doesn't work. Or more accurately, it doesn't work for anyone except those with the most resources. Not because the system is corrupt. I don't think our legal system (at the federal level, at least) is at all corrupt. I mean simply because the costs of our legal system are so astonishingly high that justice can practically never be done.”
Lawrence Lessig (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Programs do not come out of the minds of any one person or two people such as ourselves, but out of day-to-day work, out of interaction between organizers and the communities in which they work.”
Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton
“First of all, you have to marry the right person. If you marry the wrong person for the wrong reasons, then no matter how hard you work, it's never going to work, because then you have to completely change yourself, completely change them, completely — by that time, you're both dead. So I think you have to marry for the right reasons, and marry the right person.”
Anne Bancroft (1931–2005) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On successful marriage. Associated Press interview (1997).
“I identified with both women. But Emma had a stronger message for the women I want to speak to now— women who work. I wanted to tell them that choosing to work doesn't make them oddballs and isn't antisocial.”
Anne Bancroft (1931–2005) first seen 1977 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On her decision to play Emma, in The Turning Point (1977). Interview People magazine, quoted in "Anne Bancroft" at Salon.com (18 September 2001).
“Pytheos made a mistake by not observing that the arts are each composed of two things, the actual work and the theory of it. One of these, the doing of the work, is proper to men trained in the individual subject, while the other the theory is common to all scholars.”
Vitruvius (80–15 BC) said by 15 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[I]t is necessary to insist upon this extraordinary but undeniable fact: experimental science has progressed thanks in great part to the work of men astoundingly mediocre, and even less than mediocre. That is to say, modern science, the root and symbol of our actual civilization, finds a place for the intellectually commonplace man and allows him to work therein with success.”
José Ortega y Gasset (1883–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[visiting Jackson Pollock’s studio]: You do not work from nature. This is no good, you will repeat yourself. You work by heart, not from nature. [Pollock reacted: 'I am nature]”
Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) said by 1966 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My song can make you cry, take you by surprise At the same time, can make your dry your eyes with the same rhyme See what you're seeing is a genius at work Which to me isn't work, so it's easy to misinterpret it at first”
Eminem (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My work is writing, but my real work is being.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Yesterday I was on the edge Hoping everything was going to work itself out A good honest man doing the work of God Trying to make things better for Him A lover of life in a school for fools Trying to find another way to survive”
Cat Stevens (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The thing that interests me is that today painters do not have to go to a subject-matter outside themselves. Modern painters work in a different way. They work from within.”
Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) first seen 1951 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pollock in a radio interview (1951), as quoted in Edward Lucie-Smith Lives of the Great Twentieth Century Artists' (1986), p. 263
“Now in the 1980's, a moment of history and a sense of hope call your generation to work as great as any that has gone before -- the work of peace. The challenge comes with special warning now because the danger has become so present and so clear. The difference each of you can make, if all of you try, may mean the difference between peace and war, between a just society and a garrison state.”
Ted Kennedy (1932–2009) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address at Brown University (4 June 1983)
“Teaching with excellence and being rewarded for this work by excellent student work is a truly ecstatic experience.”
Bell hooks (1952–2021) said by 2021 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was early taught to work as well as play, My life has been one long, happy holiday; Full of work and full of play — I dropped the worry on the way — And God was good to me every day.”
John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937) first seen 1925 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Verses written on his eighty-sixth birthday (8 July 1925)
“Every now and then it's nice to stop and just look over what you've been writing and the way you've been writing it and sort of reassess it, and see if you've fallen into bad habits or there's something you'd like to get better at. One way of reexamining your own work is to work with somebody else. It's a learning experience. I don't want to get into a rut.”
Roger Zelazny (1937–1995) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Forever Amber" (October 1991)
“In high school in the early Sixties, I dreamed of intellectual work by women that would match the highest male standards and set men on their ear. A lot of women have done a lot of academic work since then, but most of them fall short of that standard.”
Camille Paglia (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The title of poet's a noble thing, worth living and dying for, Though all the devils on earth and in Hell spit at me their disdain. It is stern work, it is perilous work, to thrust your hand in the sun And pull out a spark of immortal flame to warm the hearts of men: But Prometheus, torn by the claws and beaks whose task is never done, Would be tortured another eternity to go stealing fire again.”
Joyce Kilmer (1886–1918) said by 1918 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The work of a true missionary is work indeed, often very monotonous, apparently not very successful, and carried on through great and varied but unceasing difficulties.”
James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) said by 1905 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (A.J. Broomhall. Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Five: Refiner’s Fire. London: Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1985, 350).
“Three is the number of those who do holy work; Two is the number of those who do lover's work; One is the number of those who do perfect evil Or perfect good.”
Clive Barker (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Mastership hath many shifts whereby it striveth to keep itself alive in the world. And now hear a marvel: whereas thou sayest these two times that out of one man ye may get but one man's work, in days to come one man shall do the work of a hundred men — yea, of a thousand or more: and this is the shift of mastership that shall make many masters and many rich men.”
William Morris (1834–1896) said by 1896 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Doing GPL work is doing charity work in our current legal and economic framework.”
Hans Reiser (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The man who truly loves his work returns to it after the briefest rest with a curious kind of voluptuousness. When he is completely absorbed in his job, the end of work seems like the end of life.”
André Maurois (1885–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(…) make your world perfect, by all means. If you believe in God, work with Him. If you do not, become one. Either see the world as a play or work at it with all your might. (...).”
Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now, of all acts the most complete is that of constructing. A work demands love, meditation, obedience to your finest thought, the invention of laws by your soul, and many other things that it draws miraculously from your own self, which did not suspect that it possessed them. This work proceeds from the most intimate center of your existence, and yet it is distinct from yourself.”
Paul Valéry (1871–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We must live fully in order to secrete the substance of our work, but we have to work alone.”
Nadine Gordimer (1923–2014) said by 2014 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Work first and then rest. Work first, and then gaze, but do not use golden ploughshares, nor bind ledgers in enamel.”
John Ruskin (1819–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Garfield: "Old boy! Do you think my name will have a place in human history?" Rockwell: "Yes, a grand one, but a grander one in human hearts. Old fellow, you mustn’t talk in that way. You have a great work yet to perform." Garfield: "No. My work is done.”
James A. Garfield (1831–1881) first seen 1881 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Conversation with his secretary, Colonel Rockwell the day before he died. These have been reported as his last spoken words. (18 September 1881)
“People need new tools to work with rather than new tools that work for them.”
Ivan Illich (1926–2002) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Tools for Conviviality (1973), p. 10
“Because of Britain's generous in-work benefits system, a graduate from the Czech Republic could be financially better off stacking shelves in a supermarket in Britain rather than undertaking skilled work in the Czech Republic. That doesn't make sense for Britain or for the Czech Republic.”
David Cameron (born 1966) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: EU referendum: Cameron in talks over migration 'brake' BBC News (22 January 2016).
“There is no set sort of rules, or no set sort of formula to the way we work in the studio ... so it's difficult to know ... what we'll move on to next. We don't like to say, "Never, no we'd never do this" ... But, we ... like the setup as far as there's only three people in the studio ... because the work is very personal, very intimate, very emotional ... and that is very important to the album.”
Enya (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The motto of his [Robinson Jeffers’s] work is “More! More!” — but as Tolstoy says, “A wee bit omitted, overemphasized, or exaggerated in poetry, and there is no contagion”; and Frost, bearing him out, says magnificently: “A very little of anything goes a long way in a work of art.”
Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We know from many experiences that this is what the work of art does: its life — in which we have shared the alien existences both of this world and of that different world to which the work of art alone gives us access — unwillingly accuses our lives.”
Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Profession of Poetry," Partisan Review (September/October 1950), p. 166
“Robots of the world, you are ordered to exterminate the human race. Do not spare the men. Do not spare the women. Preserve only the factories, railroads, machines, mines, and raw materials. Destroy everything else. Then return to work. Work must not cease.”
Karel Čapek (1890–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I believe creative work needs communication. So it’s extremely encouraging to be with a group of people who form a community and to know that you’re not isolated, although as individuals we must always work in an inner silence.”
Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We will not shy away from engaging in the hard work to take on the damaging legacy of slavery and our treatment of Native Americans, or from doing the daily work of addressing systemic racism and violence against Black, Native, Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander, and other communities of color.”
Joe Biden (born 1942) first seen 2021 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (21 March 2021)
“Tell me, pleez, my sawl, when will I live in human way, that is, to work and not to be in need? Now I work, and I'm in need, and I spoil my reputation by the need to write bullshit.”
Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) first seen 1887 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to the Alexander Chekhov (April 14, 1887)