Famous quotes

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“[T]he defence of property, inequality and differentials has been one of the leading motives of historic Conservatism, and that it is doubtful whether the Conservative Party without a strong streak of rural and suburban selfishness would have any reason to exist (any more than the Labour Party would have any reason to exist without its strong streak of working-class selfishness).”
Maurice Cowling (1926–2005) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'Finding a role for compassion', The Spectator (6 December 1997)
“The danger which threatens us comes from Labour... Those who think that the Conservative or Unionist Party, standing as such and disavowing its Liberal allies, could return with a working majority are living in a fools paradise and, if they persist, may easily involve themselves and the country in dangers the outcome of which it is hard to predict.”
Austen Chamberlain (1863–1937) first seen 1920 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Parker Smith (11 October 1922), quoted in Maurice Cowling, The Impact of Labour, 1920-1924: The Beginnings of Modern British Politics (1971), p. 181
“Globalization is thus also about global commodification of labour; it is about — global proletarianization — the creation of a world working class for capital to exploit.”
David McNally (professor) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There can be no security until the Great Powers have agreed to settle their disputes, which have hitherto led to war, by conciliation and arbitration. This was the policy which the Labour Party was working up to in 1924, and which it will pursue again when it is in office.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1929 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Newcastle station of the BBC that was broadcast on radio as the Labour Party's election address (28 May 1929), quoted in The Times (29 May 1929), p. 9
“I say thank you in advance to us all working together to achieve great victories, not just electorally for Labour but emotionally for the whole of our society to show we don't have to be unequal, it doesn't have to be unfair, poverty isn't inevitable, things can and they will change. Thank you very much.”
Jeremy Corbyn (born 1949) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech Jeremy Corbyn’s victory speech as Labour leader (12 September 2015).
“[Labour will be] looking for a Brexit that puts the working people first”
Jeremy Corbyn (born 1949) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Jeremy Corbyn backs permanent customs union after Brexit, BBC News (26 February 2018).
“The Labour Party I lead is patriotic. It is a party of public service, not protest. It is a party of equality, justice and fairness; one that proudly puts the needs of working people above any fringe interest. It is a party that doesn't just talk about change – it delivers it.”
Keir Starmer (born 1962) first seen 2023 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Keir Starmer: My Labour is patriotic, a party of equality not protest" The Times (14 February 2023)
“Frankly, it’s a shame and a disgrace that the Equality and Human Rights Commission have been brought in to look at the Labour party, but they have. And I think we should now welcome it, open our doors up and say to them, right we have been trying to improve our processes, clearly it’s still not working, can you help us?”
Emily Thornberry (born 1960) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Said after the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) was asked to form an independent inquiry in regards allegations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. Quoted by The Guardian. End the antisemitism soap opera, E…
“His role in the expulsion of Michael O’Riordan (who founded the Communist Party of Ireland) from the Labour Party served to underline his assertion that ‘the working men of Ireland...have neither room nor scope for fascism or communism’.”
Timothy Quill (1901–1960) said by 1960 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lee Valley Outlook (2022)
“An impression has been left that the government "represented the establishment, not working people. At worst, we became it...the very survival of the Labour Party is at stake – as a party and a movement we cannot hide, we cannot go through the motions in the face of decline. We are running out of time.”
Angela Rayner (born 1980) first seen 2026 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in "Angela Rayner's explosive speech reignites leadership speculation", BBC News (18 March 2026)
“The Labour Party’s commitment to continued austerity and Brexit will further undermine jobs, education, and opportunities in our city. This abandonment of the working class is inexcusable.”
Claire Darke first seen 2024 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ex-mayor criticises Starmer in resignation letter BBC News, 24 June 2024.
“Right now, the bane of the world is just that human beings are working with limited individualistic ambition. Instead of working with ambition, if people work for a deeper vision of life for themselves and for everything around them, there is no need to scale anything down. -Sadhguru”
Sadhguru (born 1957) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Isha Insights Magazine, Spring Edition 2009
“When I’m not working, I read a review, and it’s all fine. When I’m working, a review of my work interferes with my intimate life, so I stop writing in order to forget the review. Even the positive ones, since I take care to cultivate humility. So sometimes I even feel attacked by praise.”
Clarice Lispector (1920–1977) said by 1977 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The ideal student would be one who was not working for grades but was working because he was interested in the work and not trying to compete with fellow students.”
Carl David Anderson (1905–1991) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Carl Anderson (1979). Oral History Project, California Institute of Technology Archives, Pasadena, California.
“I want to prove that the system is not working. . . . . You can’t simply say that the system is not working. You have to work through it”
Ai Weiwei (born 1957) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Osnos, Evan. “It’s Not Beautiful: An Artist Takes On the System.” New Yorker, May 24, 2010, 54–63.
“The welfare state disempowered working class people people by taking away their ability to self-organise, by taking away their ability to work with each other. It atomised working class communities and also prevented innovation and aspiration for those at the bottom.”
Phillip Blond (born 1966) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What a born melancholiac I am! The only way I keep afloat is by working. Directly I stop working I feel that I am sinking down, down. And as usual, I feel that if I sink further I shall reach the truth. That is the only mitigation; a kind of nobility. Solemnity. Work, reading, writing, are all disguising; and relations with other people. Yes, even having children wold be useless.”
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) first seen 1929 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Sunday 23 June, 1929
“Working Americans would tell you that the dignity of work is being stripped ... they are working harder than their parents and falling further behind ... while their salaries may moderately have gone up, what has gone up more is the cost of prescription drugs ... child care ... college ...”
Cory Booker (born 1969) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Historically, working-class women and women of color have been excluded from intellectual work. This exclusion must be challenged. Working-class women, women of color, and other historically silenced women must be enabled to participate as subjects as well as objects in feminist theorizing.”
Alison Jaggar (born 1942) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Feminist Politics and Human Nature (1983), p. 386
“For me in this (movie industry) job, in this work, it's more about who you are working with. It's nothing about what you're working on. It's the people, and the conversations, and also the chemistry that's more important for me.”
Tang Wei (born 1979) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Tang Wei (2015) cited in "The art of seduction: 'Lust, Caution' star Tang Wei talks about chemistry on set at Busan Film Festival" on South China Morning Post, 3 October 2015.
“We all have our individual challenges in any field, the beauty of working in the field of storytelling is you tell it the way you want to. So write the stories you want to see on screen. Support the stories you want to watch. Focus on the ways it is working and make more work. Find the doors that are open to you, and kick them open wide.”
Adrienne Wilkinson (born 1977) first seen 2021 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: INTERVIEW WITH “DREAMCATCHER” STAR ADRIENNE WILKINSON (March 3, 2021)
“While in high school, I spent a summer working in a university research lab. The graduate student who mentored me shared this insight: physicists are people who get paid for working at their hobby. For me, that has been a joyous truth. Physicists don’t get paid much, but we sure have a lot of fun. And so, my first wish for you is that, whatever you do, you will work at something you love.”
William Daniel Phillips (born 1948) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (Commencement Address, May 9, 1999)
“When I work for my country, I am also working for myself, I am working for those who will come after me.”
Nelly Mukazayire (born 1982) first seen 2026 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Overcoming History and Driving a New Era in National Sports (Taarifa, January 27, 2026).
“There was no regret working as a Paediatric Surgeon because I attached professionalism to my work and the relief given to parents and their sick children had provided me a lot of satisfaction. Additionally, working with my hands to see a little child get better was a wonderful activity which she took delight in.”
Afua Adwo Jectey Hesse (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Throughout the campaign experience, I have remained conscious that the ILC is a subsidiary organ of the UN that is at its most effective working in collaboration with the sixth committee. I look forward to working with the other members of the commission and those on the Sixth Committee as the commission continues its vital work in responding to the defining challenges of our generation.”
Phoebe Okowa (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I am not working (TV acting is just part of my work), I try to spend quality time with my family otherwise I end up with the working-mother's guilt”
Leeanda Reddy first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reddy, steady, shape up fast,17 July 2011,by TENESHIA NAIDOO
“I do tell myself when working technically that I’m working on the edge. For some reason, I like to come up with elaborate schemes to produce images. These seem like great ideas in my head, but often in practice don’t work out.”
Ryan Zoghlin (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Forget about the talent, let's talk about the hard work... If you are working hard... you're already working smart.”
Patrick Chuka (born 2000) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you're putting in the work, working harder, and working towards your goal, you will always succeed.”
Nonkululeko Mlaba (born 2000) first seen 2024 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: SA's Mlaba on World Cup heartbreak and chasing a dream, Dec 2024, BBC Sport by Ffion Wynne & Robin-Duke Madlala
“I refer to the United States, the union of all the states. I ask then, if in union there is strength for our nation, would there not be for labor! What one state could not get alone, what one miner against a powerful corporation could not achieve, can be achieved by the union. What is a good enough principle for an American citizen ought to be good enough for the working man to follow.”
Mother Jones (died 1930) said by 1930 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“While we are mindful of the shocking fact that less than one-half of all non-white workers are covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act, we do not speak for Negro workers only. A living wage should be the right of all working Americans, and this is what we wish to urge upon our Congressmen and Senators as they now prepare to deal with this legislation.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement on minimum wage legislation (18 March 1966)], as quoted in Now Is the Time. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Labor in the South: The Case for a Coalition (January 1986)
“The court finds everyone to be in contempt (including himself :-), and orders everyone sentenced to five years hard labor. (Working on Perl, of course.)”
Larry Wall (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What does anti-Semitism have to do with socialism? I would put the question this way: What does the Jew have to do with socialism? Socialism has to do with labor. When did one ever see him working instead of plundering, stealing and living from the sweat of others? As socialists we are opponents of the Jews because we see in the Hebrews the incarnation of capitalism.”
Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To speak for labor; to plead the cause of the men and women and children who toil; to serve the working class, has always been to me a high privilege; a duty of love.”
Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Even capitalist business itself had to be sheltered from the unrestricted working of the market mechanism. This should dispose of the suspicion which the very term “man” and “nature” sometimes awaken in sophisticated minds, who tend to denounce all talk about protecting labor and land as the product of antiquated ideas if not as a mere camouflaging of vested interests.”
Karl Polanyi (1886–1964) said by 1964 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The question arises, do those governors who wish to be part of a Government subsidized program have a right to expect imported labor when they do not recruit and actually discourage local workers either by extremely low wages and adverse working conditions?”
Dolores Huerta (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Would our govt by any stretch of the imagination furnish imported labor to any other occupation if the working conditions were anywhere near the condition of farm workers?”
Dolores Huerta (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Certainly, some responsibility should be placed back on the growers. It’s not fair that they should declare a labor shortage when they make it impossible for people to continue working for them.”
Dolores Huerta (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Industrial Workers of the World is a new form of labor organization, one that stands for the industrial working class and that class alone.”
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (1890–1964) said by 1964 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Unfortunately, only about one fifth of the nation's working population is organized into unions, but millions of non-union wage-earners have benefited from organized labor's insistence upon decent living standards for all. Those millions remain opposed or indifferent to unions through sheer ignorance of their merits.”
Rose Pesotta (1896–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Rightfully, there have been outspoken demands by labor for a place at the peace table, to insure future amity among the world's nations and security for the working masses.”
Rose Pesotta (1896–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Jane Addams and others spoke and acted on behalf of women labor leaders like Lucy Parsons, assisting them in rallies, providing bail when they were arrested, and using their tremendous power and influence on behalf of working women.”
Martha P. Cotera (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The racism we are fighting today was originally conjured to justify working unfree Black people, often until death, to generate extravagant riches for ... all the ancillary white people ... who earned their living and built their wealth from that free Black labor.”
Nikole Hannah-Jones (born 1976) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am a real representative of the working class because I earn my living by my actual manual labor.”
Frank T. Johns (1889–1928) first seen 1353 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a 1924 interview, as quoted in Comrade Johns: Oregon's Socialist Presidential Candidate, Pedersen, Nate, and Jeffrey Johnson, Oregon Historical Quarterly 116, no. 4 (2015): 476-499. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/ohq.2…
“Who would stand before a blackboard, and pray the principle of mathematics to solve the problem? The rule is already established, and it is our task to work out the solution. Shall we ask the divine Principle of all goodness to do His own work? His work is done, and we have only to avail ourselves of God's rule in order to receive His blessing, which enables us to work out our own salvation.”
Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“These “directors,” and the capitalist class in general, may perform some “work,” they do perform some “work,” but that “work” is not of a sort that directly or indirectly aids production, any more than the intense mental strain and activity of the “work” done by the pickpocket is directly or indirectly productive.”
Daniel De Leon (1852–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It must be said that an authentic work of art needs no philosophical justification. In principle, if Philosophical Treatises could explain a work of art then there would be no justification for the existence of that work art. Put it differently, a work of art precisely enters into the scene when philosophy and other experimental sciences are inept of representing or elucidating an artistic vision.”
Guity Novin (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Rememberest the gods, and that they wish not to be flattered, but wish all reasonable beings to be made like themselves; and... rememberest that what does the work of a fig-tree is a fig-tree, and that what does the work of a dog is a dog, and that what does the work of a bee is a bee, and that what does the work of a man is a man.”
Marcus Aurelius (121–180) said by 180 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Merit is a work for the sake of which Christ gives rewards. But no such work is to be found, for Christ gives by promise. Just as if a prince should say to me, "Come to me in my castle, and I will give you a hundred florins." I do a work, certainly, in going to the castle, but the gift is not given me as the reward of my work in going, but because the prince promised it to me.”
Martin Luther (1483–1546) said by 1546 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every work of art (unless it is a pseudo-intellectualist work, a work already comprised in some ideology that it merely illustrates, as with Brecht) is outside ideology, is not reducible to ideology. Ideology circumscribes without penetrating it. The absence of ideology in a work does not mean an absence of ideas; on the contrary it fertilizes them.”
Eugène Ionesco (1909–1994) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Reply to Kenneth Tynan: The Playwright's Role" in The Observer (29 June 1958)