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Work

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“Every great work of art should be considered like any work of nature. First of all from the point of view of its aesthetic reality and then not just from its development and the mastery of its creation but from the standpoint of what has moved and agitated its creator.”
Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920) said by 1920 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You cannot place a mother breastfeeding her baby on an equal footing with men. You cannot make women work in the same jobs as men do, as in communist regimes. You cannot give them a shovel and tell them to do their work. This is against their delicate nature.”
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (born 1954) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: ‘women not equal to men’", The Guardian (November 24, 2014)
“Work is the call. Work at war speed. Good-night—and go to it.”
Herbert Morrison (1888–1965) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Radio broadcast as Minister of Supply, 22 May 1940; reported in the Daily Herald (23 May 1940)
“I want to finish work on my mother's juvenile (Farmer Boy manuscript) by the end of June. There's a curious half-angry reluctance in my writing for other people. I say to myself that whatever earnings there may be are all in the family. Also I seize upon this task as an excuse to postpone my own work.”
Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diary (May 29, 1933).
“I don't suppose that hard work, discipline, and a perfectionist attitude toward my work did me any harm. They are a big part of my makeup today, as any of my co-workers will tell you. And when life seemed unbearable, I learned to live in my imagination, and to step inside other people's skins- indispensable abilities for an actress.”
Lucille Ball (1911–1989) said by 1989 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Mani Madhava Chakyar's forte was Satwikabhinaya. Endowed with expressive eyes; that can speak a thousand moods and a countenance that can reflect the range of human emotions in its entirety, Mani Madhava Chakkiar was the master at work" - Mani Madhava Chakkyar: The Master at Work (film), 1994”
Mani Madhava Chakyar (1899–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I can't even really tell a joke. I find being funny very hard work. I am always asked about it and I feel guilty saying that, but it's the truth. I love my work but it ain't easy.”
Madeline Kahn (1942–1999) first seen 1993 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Michael Specter, (April 8, 1993) "At Home With: Madeline Kahn; Funny? Yes, but Someone's Got to Be", The New York Times, The New York Times Company
“Therefore THE IDEA OF 'ARTISTIC WORK' MUST BE ABOLISHED AS A COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY CONCEPT OF WHAT IS CREATIVE and work must be accepted as one of the functions of the living human organism in the same way as the beating of the heart or the activity of the nerve centers, so that it will be afforded the same protection.”
El Lissitsky (1890–1941) said by 1941 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The complete and definitive work of art is created beyond one's individuality.. .The universal transcends such a level. Mere spontaneity has never created a work of art which possesses a lasting cultural value. The method leading to universal form is based upon calculations of measure and number.”
Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in his article 'Elementarism', as cited in De Stijl – Van Doesburg Issue, January 1932, pp. 17–19
“My work is not, of course, pure art in the sense that Schmidt-Rottluff's is, but it is art nonetheless... It is all right with me that my work serves a purpose. I want to have an effect on my time, in which human beings are so confused and in need of help.”
Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Käthe Kollwitz: Graphics, Posters, Drawings (1981) by Renate Hinz(Random House, , Introduction, p. xxiii
“Nobody has to go hungry today. There is plenty of work for a man who wants to work. A kid can make plenty of dough for himself doing almost anything. I was hungry. I had to fight my way along. Freights and the like, fight, fight all the time. The life was tough, but it hardened you.”
Jack Dempsey (1895–1983) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Jack speaking to The Ring Magazine (May 1956)
“People under pressure don’t work better; they just work faster.”
Tom DeMarco (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The manager's function is not to make people work, but to make it possible for people to work.”
Tom DeMarco (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A proper autobiography is a death-bed confession. A true man finds so much work to do that he has no time to contemplate his yesterdays; for to-day and to-morrow are here, with their impatient tasks. The world is so busy, too, that it cannot afford to study any man's unfinished work; for the end may prove it a failure, and the world needs masterpieces.”
Mary Antin (1881–1949) said by 1949 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On the lines of the mighty and simple strains dominating the movement, and felt intuitively and studied out by him, the master artist groups with full intention, his muscular forms. No detail contradicts. His men and animals live. Such is the work of three or four modern artists. Such was the work of many an old Greek sculptor.”
Thomas Eakins (1844–1916) first seen 1894 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Differential Action of Certain Muscles Passing More than One Joint," lecture, Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia (1 May 1894)
“Although Freud said happiness is composed of love and work, reality often forces us to choose love or work.”
Letty Cottin Pogrebin (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was all a matter of hard work and luck, and Ryan didn't mind either of those. No, the stuff that wore you down was the parts where no amount or work seemed to make the difference, where luck simply wasn't there and wasn't coming and you couldn't seem to explain that to someone who had their heart set on the world being the way it was supposed to be, instead of the way it was.”
Michael Marshall Smith (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All our work, our whole life is a matter of semantics, because words are the tools with which we work, the material out of which laws are made, out of which the Constitution was written. Everything depends on our understanding of them.”
Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reply to counsel who said a challenge from the bench was “just a matter of semantics,” Reader’s Digest (June 1964).
“Freud's prescription for personal happiness as consisting of work and love must be taken with the proviso that the work has to be loved, and the love has to be worked at.”
Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When He comes Whom angels and men await, and Whose work it is to inaugurate the New Age and so complete the work He began in Palestine two thousand years ago, He will bring with Him some of the great Angels, as well as certain of the Masters. p. 508”
Alice Bailey (1880–1949) said by 1949 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you want to build a service which is not just serving rich people, then you need to have something that people can afford. ... At Facebook, we are squarely in the camp of the companies that work hard to charge you less ... I think it's important that we don't all get Stockholm syndrome and let the companies that work hard to charge you more convince you that they actually care more about you.”
Mark Zuckerberg (born 1984) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted: Mark Zuckerberg calls Tim Cook's comments on Facebook 'extremely glib' , The Verge, 2 April 2018
“There’s always work that must be done...Life’s so simple when we simply work to make it fun.”
Dawud Wharnsby (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So long as a single one amongst your brothers has no vote to represent him in the development of the national life, so long as a single man, able and willing to work, languishes in poverty through want of work to do, you have no country in the sense in which country ought to exist-the country of all and for all.”
Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872) said by 1872 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“His work is full of the signs of those two cardinal sins from which (as Kafka pointed out) all the others spring: impatience and laziness. The work of every artist is conditioned by the way in which he resists or yields to these temptations.”
Patrick Swift (1927–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The great genius does not let his work be determined by the concrete finite conditions that surround him, whilst it is from these that the work of the statesman takes its direction and its termination. … It is the genius in reality and not the other who is the creator of history, for it is only the genius who is outside and unconditioned by history.”
Otto Weininger (1880–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There has been over a decade of work worldwide in Darwinian approaches to generating software, and... nothing has arisen from the work that would make software in general any better.”
Jaron Lanier (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I help people as a way to work on myself, and I work on myself to help people… To me, that’s what the emerging game is all about.”
Ram Dass (1931–2019) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Baba Ram Dass in the realm of Visionary Artist Martina Hoffmann: in the end there’s only one spirit and one humanness", by yeye, at Elephant Journal (9 October 2010)
“in the precise sense that it violates my integrity and identity . . . When I violate myself, I invariably end up violating the people I work with. How many teachers inflict their own pain on their students, the pain that comes from doing what never was, or no longer is, their true work.”
Parker Palmer (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Those Oriental people work like dogs. They work their hearts out. They are workers non-stop. They sleep beside their machines. That's why they're successful in life. I went to Seoul, South Korea, I went to Taipei, Taiwan. I went to Tokyo, Japan. That's why these people are so hard workers (sic). I'm telling you, the Oriental people, they're slowly taking over.”
Rob Ford (1969–2016) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks at a council meeting 14 March 2008
“Half or more of the best new work in the last few years has been neither painting nor sculpture. Usually it has been related, closely or distantly, to one or the other. The work is diverse, and much in it that is not in painting and sculpture is also diverse. But there are some things that occur nearly in common.”
Donald Judd (1928–1994) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 74; Lead paragraph; partly cited in: Diane Waldman. Carl Andre. Published 1970 by Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. p. 6
“It takes a great deal of time and thought to install work carefully. This should not always be thrown away. Most art is fragile and some should be placed and never moved again. Some work is too large, complex and expensive to move. Somewhere a portion of contemporary art has to exist as an example of what the art and its context were meant to be.”
Donald Judd (1928–1994) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Donald Judd (1987) Complete writings, 1975-1986. p. 111
“I have always known that I want to be a scholar. That it is a worthy thing for a man to work at the university and discover the secrets of nature. Scientific work was not a revelation, it was not a change in life direction – except my first dream to be a pearl diver. It was all from the nature, from home.”
Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (2013): Macanie świata, interview. Focus (in Polish).
“My father taught me that in scientific work even the most brilliant intelligence won't be useful if it won't be supported by a long, hard work.”
Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017) first seen 1901 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Adam Vetulani. 1901–1976. Kraków: Polish Acadcemy of Learning, 2005, p. 77.
“...But he had known the answer all along, even while the white doctors were telling him he could get well and he was trying to believe them: medicine didn't work that way, because the world didn't work that way. His sickness was only part of something larger, and his cure would be found only in something great and inclusive of everything. (p116)”
Leslie Marmon Silko (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To continue in poverty for any long period means in the end the loss of the power of doing work, and to be unable to work means in the end pauperism.”
Robert Hunter (author) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have found philanthropy deeply satisfying work. I encourage all people to engage in giving to others, be it through time or money. The point is to be involved. Helping is a joyful experience and enriches the giver as much as those who receive. By enabling people to do good work, I participate in a brighter future for the Jewish people and, I hope, all of humanity.”
Edgar Bronfman Sr. (1929–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our community can’t stake its future on telling young people whom they should or should not marry. The goal of outreach work should not be convincing Jews why they should marry other Jews. Outreach work should instead be about making Judaism relevant and providing substantive educational opportunities.”
Edgar Bronfman Sr. (1929–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Having women work with men is like having a grizzly bear work with salmon . . . dipped in honey.”
Patrice O'Neal (1969–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have been blessed to see my work flourish. Many people in history — Marcus Garvey, Ida B. Wells, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X — never lived to see their work flourish. I have seen people around the world embrace my philosophy and principles, involving themselves in a cultural institution that my organization and I created. That's something.”
Maulana Karenga (born 1941) first seen 1998 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Man Who Invented Kwanzaa" in Ebony (January 1998)
“I am honored to receive the Templeton Prize. The field of philosophy has transformed over the course of my career. If my work played a role in this transformation, I would be very pleased. I hope the news of the prize will encourage young philosophers, especially those who bring Christian and theistic perspectives to bear on their work, toward greater creativity, integrity and boldness.”
Alvin Plantinga (born 1932) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you do not have the means to marry, marry a slave woman and give her freedom.." He said this is what the Quran encourages. However, he said it can't work vice-versa. According to Naik, it can't work if a woman wants to do the same. Only a man has such rights.”
Zakir Naik (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A scientist can hardly meet with anything more undesirable than to have the foundations give way just as the work is finished. I was put in this position by a letter from Mr. Bertrand Russell when the work was nearly through the press.”
Gottlob Frege (1848–1925) said by 1925 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We have, all of us, with a few unlucky exceptions, for which special schools are required, hands, eyes, and ears; and all these members should be trained and practiced in elementary education, as a means of improving the use of these organs, and so improving the great organ which directs and oversees the work of hands, eyes, and ears, and judges of its own work and its own acts.”
George Long (scholar) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The audience is unpredictable, and the people who produce and distribute the artistic work have no real contact with it. They market the work in large quantities as with books and records, or through a mechanical system, as with radio and television, so that they could not, if they tried, know audience members personally.”
Howard S. Becker (1928–2023) said by 2023 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[ Folk art, consists of] work done by ordinary people in the course of their lives, work seldom thought of by those who make or use it as art at all.”
Howard S. Becker (1928–2023) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 245 as quoted in: John Ross Hall, Mary Jo Neitz, Marshall Battani (2003) Sociology On Culture. p. 196.
“Writing is hard work. Even when you start with the raw ingredients – a mad family, a sense of humour, talent…it’s hard work. But you do get to sit around in silk pyjamas all day.”
Carole Morin wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Murder and sex are both Dionysian. Creative work is first anarchic; and then it’s structured. It’s right brain then left brain. Anarchic then controlled. To be a really good writer, you have to be able to do both. It’s hard work and it takes longer than murder or sex.”
Carole Morin wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He believed in walking beautifully, elegantly. It had to work as a kind of faith that he would get to the other side. He had fallen once while training - once exactly, so he felt it couldn't happen again, it was beyond possibility. A single flaw was necessary anyway. In any work of beauty there had to be one small thread left hanging.”
Colum McCann (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Even people who do cleaning work can write fairy tales. And they can even make better work than me. The problem is that no one encourages them to do so. The most essential thing that people seek is appreciation by others. That is what largely decides one's success or failure.”
Zheng Yuanjie (born 1955) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Zheng Yuanjie (2004) in: "Zheng Yuanjie's 19 years in fairy tales" on chinadaily.com.cn, May 10, 2004 (online).
“Thomas Kuhn (1962) in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions divides all scientists into those who create new paradigms of science and those who work within the established paradigms. The same division may be applied to scholars and philosophers, namely into those who create new paradigms and into those who work within the established ones.”
Thaddus E. Weckowicz (1919–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source