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Work

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“Idle industries have cast workers into unemployment, human misery, and personal indignity. Those who do work are denied a fair return for their labor by a tax system which penalizes successful achievement and keeps us from maintaining full productivity.”
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nothing tends to materialize man and to deprive his work of the faintest trace of mind more than the extreme division of labor.”
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The assets of the Jewish National Home must be created exclusively through our own work, for only the product of the Hebrew labor can serve as the national estate.”
David Ben-Gurion (1886–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs : From Peace to War (1985) by Shabtai Teveth, p. 66
“The Commune is the form "at the discovered" by the proletarian revolution, under which to work out the economic emancipation of labor.”
Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Morality does not come from the clouds; it is born of human want and human experience. We need no inspiration, no inspired work. The industrious man knows that the idle has no right to rob him of the product of his labor, and the idle man knows that he has no right to do it. It is not wrong because we find it in the Bible, but I presume it was put in the Bible because it is wrong.”
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) said by 1899 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you do anything useful it will haunt you forever after, and if you have a major success you get decades of hard manual labor — meaning you have to work on the manual.”
Bjarne Stroustrup (born 1950) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: C++ Q&A Community Event with Bjarne Stroustrup" (27 August 2014) · 3m 20s
“Because of their historical theory of the “alienation of labor” (that the worker must become less and less in control of the work of his hands) the Marxist parties never fought for the man-worthy job itself.”
Paul Goodman (1911–1972) said by 1972 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Work is not mankind’s curse, but his blessing. A man becomes a man through labor. It elevates him, makes him great and aware, raises him above all other creatures.”
Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And the eternal paradox of it is that if a man is to know the triumphant labor of creation, he must for long periods resign himself to loneliness, and suffer loneliness to rob him of the health, the confidence, the belief and joy which are essential to creative work.”
Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“After Labor Day, I'll go back to the Senate, and I'll try to be as persistent as Ted was, and as passionate for the work. I know I'm privileged serve there. But I think most of my colleagues would agree, the place won't be the same without him.”
John McCain (1936–2018) said by 2018 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are in France some fifty thousand young men of good birth and fairly well off who are encouraged to live a life of complete idleness. They must either cease to exist or must come to see that there can be no happiness, no health even, without regular daily labor of some sort … The need of work is in me.”
Guy de Maupassant (1850–1893) said by 1893 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Contemporary Portraits (1920) by Frank Harris, p. 263
“In the Far East, compulsory labor can work wonders, just like here... If only Belgium wanted to see that. This could create "inexhaustible resources and exploiting the soil and peoples of the Far East can only be brought to civilization and well-being in this way.”
Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909) first seen 1863 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Leopold II, Het hele Verhaal, Johan Op De Beeck Horizon, 2020 Prince Leopold II in a 1863 travel note in admiration for Ferdinand de Lesseps when visiting Egypt and the digging sites of the Suez Canal by tens of thousan…
“The effectiveness of the Westernist economy is conditioned by three laws: the rational organization of business; brutal work discipline; maximum use of the means of production and labor force.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A Critical Estimate of Luther's Version. Luther's version of the Bible is a wonderful monument of genius, learning, and piety, and may be regarded in a secondary sense as inspired. It was, from beginning to end, a labor of love and enthusiasm. While publishers and printers made fortunes, Luther never received or asked a copper for this greatest work of his life.”
Philip Schaff (1819–1893) said by 1893 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Production functions involving only land, labor and capital... never work and never explain economic development.”
Kenneth Boulding (1910–1993) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Kenneth Boulding (1990). "Taxonomy as a Source of Error." in Methodus Vol 2. p. 17-21, as cited in: (2013) "What Boulding Said Went Wrong with Economics, A Quarter Century On
“We must delight in each other, make other's conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, our community as members of the same body.”
John Winthrop (1588–1649) first seen 1630 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Model of Christian Charity, a sermon delivered onboard the Arbella (1630)
“I commend to all the virtues of industry and thrift, which I believe go hand in hand. The labor and thrift of the people make a nation, a community, or a family strong. Work and thrift make the family independent.”
Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But also within manufacturing there are some sectors where the method of production will have to be changed... Labor intensive industries... In the US and Germany meat processing factories have been sources... such that people work in close proximity... and these become the hotbed of the spread of infection, so... they'll... need to restructure their production.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The bourgeoisie first betrayed society through capitalism and finance, and now labor betrays it by embracing a scheme of things which sees profit only, not duty and honor, in work. This view will seem hopelessly unrealistic to those who do not admit that sentiment toward the whole is the only ultimate means of measuring value.”
Richard Weaver (1910–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In any art there are a lot of technical things that you can get to like. Building is just skilled labor, I suppose. It's a lot of work. I don't mind other people building them, but the way things go together and are made is interesting to me; I like that a lot. I pay a lot of attention to how things are done and the whole activity of building something is interesting.”
Donald Judd (1928–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Only empirical work - analysis based on observation and experience as opposed to theory - can answer the question of how labor force behavior is affected by changes in the tax system. Even intense armchair speculation on this matter must be regarded with considerable skepticism.”
Harvey S. Rosen (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wealth in the hands of the holders of wealth is not capital until it controls the means of production, buys labor power, and puts it to work, continuously expanding surpluses by intensifying productivity through an ever-rising curve of technological inputs.”
Eric Wolf (1923–1999) said by 1999 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hard manual labor revealed many things to Tolstoy. As soon as he began to do regular physical work the greater part of his luxurious habits and wants, which were so numerous when he had been physically idle, disappeared.”
Robert Hunter (author) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“St. Paul earned his living most of the time by hard labor and constantly reminded his converts that they must not defraud each other, but love one another and work with their own hands. The same rule of life is applied by the laws governing the early monastic orders.”
Robert Hunter (author) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Those seeking to work out the relationship between Marxism and psychoanalysis have not been immune to the intellectual division of labor that severs the life nerve of dialectical thought.”
Russell Jacoby (born 1945) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was inconceivable to me that the kind of anti-Labor work that Kevin had been involved in – the destabilisation, the leaking – would be rewarded by the leadership.”
Julia Gillard (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Kailash Satyarthi has dedicated his life to helping the millions of children in India who are forced into slavery and work in torrid conditions. His award is an acknowledgement of the tireless, decades-long campaigning by civil society activists on child trafficking and child labor in India.”
Salil Shetty (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Organization design is conceived to be a decision process to bring about a coherence between the goals or purposes for which the organization exists, the patterns of division of labor and interunit coordination and the people who will do the work.”
Jay R. Galbraith (1939–2014) first seen 1977 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Jay R. Galbraith (1977). Organization design. p. 5
“Oh, If I had been able to realize you with my hand. If the painted canvas was able to give me your dear image. The labor was you ['The Unknown'] the work of art was me – I have kissed your head, I have looked elsewhere.. .You are neither good, nor charitable. You do not know how to love. – You are only great and beautiful. I sacrificed to tenderness and still, my self, you do not know how to love.”
Marianne von Werefkin (1860–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Reengineering posits a radical new principle: that the design of work must be based not on hierarchical management and the specialization of labor but on end-to-end processes and the creation of value for the customer.”
Michael Hammer (1948–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The negro slaves of the South are the happiest, and, in some sense, the freest people in the world. The children and the aged and infirm, work not at all, and yet have all the comforts and necessaries of life provided for them. They enjoy liberty, because they are opposed neither by care nor labor.”
George Fitzhugh (1806–1881) said by 1881 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In order to labor, there are required not only ability and will, but also room to work, tools, raw materials and means of sustenance. The poor man must, therefore, by force of necessity, apply to those who possess these things in plenty.”
Johann Most (1846–1906) said by 1906 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I’m like everybody else. This kind of living ain’t much better than being dead.” He laughed again, shaking his head from side to side. “And it ain’t much better on the outside, to tell the truth. No real work to do, except the same kind of crap you do in here. At the Worker Dormitories they told us, ‘Labor fulfills.’ Horseshit.”
Walter Tevis (1928–1984) said by 1984 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The idle lives of a minority ruling class can only be maintained by products, needless to say. So the only method to bring about this state of affairs is to appropriate, gratis, the fruits of labor of those who work by the sweat of their brow.”
Itsurō Sakisaka (1897–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A good rule of thumb is that if a society requires a vast secret police network, multi-million death tolls, and expendable prison labor to operate, it definitely doesn't work.”
Ignatiy Vishnevetsky (born 1986) first seen 2020 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Tweet thread (August 9, 2020)
“I do use the phrase “to take a picture,” but I think my work involves labor. It is a certain reworking of what you see and of the facts, in order to create this new fiction. It is certainly a making, a transformation.”
An-My Lê (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It’s necessary to create conditions-economic and organizational-that will stimulate good-quality, productive labor, initiative and enterprise. Conversely, poor work, sluggishness and irresponsibility should have an immediate and inescapable effect on the remuneration, job status and moral prestige of personnel.”
Yuri Andropov (1914–1984) first seen 1982 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Soviet Union" (22 November 1982)
“No amount of money will ever make up for the horrors but it will make the point that evil was perpetuated – that millions of productive Africans were snatched from our continent and put to work in the Americans and Caribbean’s without compensations from their labor”
Nana Akufo-Addo (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If u want ppl 2 deliver u groceries & goods but don't want to hold the corporations they work for accountable for PPE, thriving wages, hazard pay, & taxes, you're exploiting cheap labor for your own safety. We won't survive on exploitation. We only survive through solidarity.”
Nikkita Oliver (born 1986) first seen 2020 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 4/1/2020 on Twitter
“I believe that enforcement of the ETS may lead many Alabamians to quit their jobs and leave the workforce – in the middle of a substantial labor shortage, no less – or to seek work at businesses not covered by the mandate”
Kay Ivey (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am inclined to think that all fact finders should be recruited from the ranks of experienced journalists with noses for the relevant and a knowledge of how to state it, or from the ranks of such poets as Miss Clinch Calkins, whose Some Folks Won't Work told more truths about unemployment than all the Department of Labor reports rolled into one.”
Mary Ritter Beard (1876–1958) said by 1958 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“the history of labor struggles in health care, education, media, sports, and nonprofit work have shaped our world in incalculably important ways, and have been brilliantly covered by authors like Sarah Jaffe, Maximillian Alvarez, Gabriel Winant, Micah Uetricht, Britni de la Cretaz, Elizabeth Catte, Steven Greenhouse, and many others.”
Kim Kelly (journalist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Grandpapa and even Artis’s friends believed that New Dawn was the most dangerous thing in their world. But Artis knew that wasn’t true. Hope was. Having too much, having too little. Trying to work out that invisible balance so you don’t get crushed but also don’t float away was labor Artis didn’t always feel strong enough to do.”
Janelle Monae (born 1985) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...writing, like any creative ability, can be a gift. But it can also be cultivated. It might require more work, more backbreaking labor, but it certainly can be learned.”
Ainehi Edoro wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Work! Thank God for the swing of it, For the clamoring, hammering ring of it, Passion of labor daily hurled On the mighty anvils of the world.”
Angela Morgan (1875–1957) first seen 1915 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Work: A Song of Triumph", st. 4. The Hour Has Struck, &c. (1915) p. 46
“It’s almost like each individual fish acts like a distributed sensor. Instead of me doing all the work, somebody on the left can say, ‘Hey, I saw something.’ When the group divides the labor so that some of us look out for predators while the rest of us eat, it costs less in terms of energy and resources”
Radhika Nagpal wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It’s almost like each individual fish acts like a distributed sensor, Instead of me doing all the work, somebody on the left can say, ‘Hey, I saw something.’ When the group divides the labor so that some of us look out for predators while the rest of us eat, it costs less in terms of energy and resources than trying to eat and look out for predators all by yourself.”
Radhika Nagpal wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the old law-courts, the class minority of exploiters passed judgement upon the working majority. The law-courts of the proletarian dictatorship are places where the working majority passes judgement upon the exploiting minority.”
Nikolai Bukharin (1888–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I would have liked to have had kids, and had a family, but I think in my profession it's quite difficult to achieve because you're always working. I think I'm the kind of person as well, had I had kids, I wouldn't have gone on working. I would have jacked it all in. But it's a wonderful life I have, so I'm very fulfilled in other ways. Am I ever bothered by it? Well it's too late now, (laughs).”
Elaine Paige (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think it’s the shock of every writer’s life when their first book is published. The shock of their lives. One has somehow to adjust from being anonymous, a figure in ambush, working from concealment, to being and working in full public view. It had an enormous effect on me. My impression was that I had suddenly walked into a wall of heavy hostile fire.”
Ted Hughes (1930–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source