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Joy to the Toiler!--him that tills
The fields with Plenty crowned;
Him with the woodman's axe that thrills
The wilderness profound.
Author: Benjamin Hathaway
Source: Songs of the Toiler
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Light burthens, long borne, growe heavie.
[Light burdens, long borne, grow heavy.]
Author: George Herbert
Source: Jacula Prudentum
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Haste makes waste.
Author: John Heywood
Source: Proverbs (pt. I, ch. II)
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The "value" or "worth" of a man is, as of all other things, his
price; that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of
his power.
Author: Thomas Hobbes
Source: Leviathan (ch. X)
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Light is the task when many share the toil.
Author: Homer ("Smyrns of Chios")
Source: The Iliad (bk. XII, l. 493), (Bryant's translation)
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The fiction pleased; our generous train complies,
Nor fraud mistrusts in virtue's fair disguise.
The work she plyed, but, studious of delay,
Each following night reversed the toils of day.
Author: Homer ("Smyrns of Chios")
Source: The Odyssey (bk. XXIV, l. 164), (Pope's translation)
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When Darby saw the setting sun
He swung his scythe, and home he run,
Sat down, drank off his quart and said,
"My work is done, I'll go to bed."
"My work is done!" retorted Joan,
"My work is done! Your constant tone,
But hapless woman ne'er can say
'My work is done' till judgment day."
Author: St. John Honeywood
Source: Darby and Joan
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I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.
Author: St. John Honeywood
Source: Darby and Joan
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Keep doing some kind of work, that the devil may always find you
employed.
[Lat., Facito aliquid operis, ut semper te diabolus inveniat
occupatum.]
Author: St. John Honeywood
Source: Darby and Joan
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I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for
hours. I love to keep it by me: the idea of getting rid of it
nearly breaks my heart.
Author: Jerome K. Jerome
Source: Three Men in a Boat (ch. XV)
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Tho' we earn our bread, Tom,
By the dirty pen,
What we can we will be,
Honest Englishmen.
Do the work that's nearest
Though it's dull at whiles,
Helping, when we meet them,
Lame dogs over stiles.
Author: Charles Kingsley
Source: Letter, to Thomas Hughes inviting him and Tom Taylor to go fishing, see "Memoirs of Kingsley" by his
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For men must work and women must weep,
And the sooner it's over the sooner to sleep,
And good-bye to the bar and its moaning.
Author: Charles Kingsley
Source: Three Fishers
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The gull shall whistle in his wake, the blind wave break in fire.
He shall fulfill God's utmost will, unknowing His desire,
And he shall see old planets pass and alien stars arise,
And give the gale his reckless sail in shadow of new skies.
Strong lust of gear shall drive him out and hunger arm his hand,
To wring his food from a desert nude, his foothold from the sand.
Author: Rudyard Kipling
Source: The Foreloper (Interloper), published in "Century Magazine", Apr., 1909, but first published in Lond
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But till we are built like angels, with hammer and chisel and
pen,
We will work for ourself and a woman, for ever and ever, Amen.
Author: Rudyard Kipling
Source: Imperial Rescript
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And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall
blame;
And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame;
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate
star,
Shall draw the Thing as he sees It, for the God of Things as They
Are!
Author: Rudyard Kipling
Source: L'Envoi, in "Seven Seas"
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And the Sons of Mary smile and are blessed--they know the angels
are on their side:
They know in them is the Grace confessed, and for them are the
Mercies multiplied;
They sit at the Feet, they hear the Word, they see how truly the
Promise runs;
They have cast their burden upon the Lord, and--the Lord He lays
it on Martha's sons!
Author: Rudyard Kipling
Source: The Sons of Mary
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I am gradually approaching the period in my life when work comes
first. . . . No longer diverted by other emotions, I work the way
a cow grazes.
Author: Kathe Schmidt Kollwitz
Source: diary entry, April 1910
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Who first invented work, and bound the free
And holyday-rejoicing spirit down . . .
To that dry drudgery at the desk's dead wood? . . .
Sabbathless Satan!
Author: Charles Lamb (used pseudonym Elia)
Source: Work
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The finest eloquence is that which gets things done: the worst is
that which delays them.
Author: David Lloyd George
Source: at the Conference of Paris
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Unemployment, with its injustice for the man who seeks and
thirsts for employment, who begs for labour and cannot get it,
and who is punished for failure he is not responsible for by the
starvation of his children--that torture is something that
private enterprise ought to remedy for its own sake.
Author: David Lloyd George
Source: in a speech
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Never idle a moment, but thrifty and thoughtful of others.
Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Source: Courtship of Miles Standish (pt. VIII, l. 46)
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No man is born into the world whose work
Is not born with him: there is always work,
And tools to work withal, for those who will;
And blessed are the horny hand of toil!
Author: James Russell Lowell
Source: A Glance Behind the Curtain (l. 202)
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God be thank'd that the dead have left still
Good undone for the living to do--
Still some aim for the heart and the will
And the soul of a man to pursue.
Author: Lord Lytton (Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton) ("Owen Meredith")
Source: Epilogue
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Work divided is in that manner shortened.
[Lat., Divisum sic breve fiet opus.]
Author: Marcus Valerius Martial
Source: Epigrams (bk. IV, 83, 8)
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Why do strong arms fatigue themselves with frivolous dumb-bells?
To dig a vineyard is a worthier exercise for men.
Author: Marcus Valerius Martial
Source: Epigrams (bk. XIV, ep. 49)
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Man hath his daily work of body or mind
Appointed.
Author: John Milton
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. IV, l. 618)
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The work under our labour grows
Luxurious by restraint.
Author: John Milton
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. IX, l. 208)
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I am nothing and to nothing tend,
On earth I nothing have and nothing claim,
Man's noblest works must have one common end,
And nothing crown the tablet of his name.
Author: Thomas Moore
Source: Ode upon Nothing, appeared in "Saturday Magazine" about 1836, but not in collected works
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Study until twenty-five, investigation until forty, profession
until sixty, at which age I would have him retired on a double
allowance.
Author: Thomas Moore
Source: Ode upon Nothing, appeared in "Saturday Magazine" about 1836, but not in collected works
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The uselessness of men above sixty years of age and the
incalculable benefit it would be in commercial, in political, and
in professional life, if as a matter of course, men stopped work
at this age.
Author: William Osler
Source: in an address at John Hopkins University
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Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.
Author: C. Northcote Parkinson
Source: Parkinson's Law (ch. 1)
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Nothing is impossible to industry.
Author: Periander of Corinth
Source: his motto, inscribed on Temple of Apollo at Delphi,
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Ease and speed in doing a thing do not give the work lasting
solidity or exactness of beauty.
Author: Plutarch
Source: Life of Pericles
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A ploughman on his legs is higher than a gentleman on his knees.
Author: Proverb
Source: (Latin), also found in the Preface of Franklin's "Poor Richard" (1758)
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Many hands make light work.
Author: Proverb
Source: (Latin, Dutch), also see William Patten Expedition into Scotland (1547)
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The Moor has done his work, the Moor may go.
[Ger., Der Mohr hat seine Arbeit gethan, der Mohr kann gehen.]
Author: Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
Source: Fiesco (III, 4)
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Hard toil can roughen form and face,
And want call quench the eye's bright grace.
Author: Sir Walter Scott
Source: Marmion (canto I, st. 28)
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O, how full of briers is this working-day world!
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: As You Like It (Rosalind at I, iii)
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What work's, my countrymen, in hand? Where go you
With bats and clubs? The matter? Speak, I pray you.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: Coriolanus (Menenius at I, i)
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I have had my labor for my travail; ill-thought-on of her, and
ill-thought-on of you; gone between and between, but small thanks
for my labor.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: The History of Troilus and Cressida (Pandarus at I, i)
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Another lean unwashed artificer
Cuts off his tale and talks of Arthur's death.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: The Life and Death of King John (Hubert at IV, ii)
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Why, universal plodding poisons up
The nimble spirits in the arteries,
As motion and long-during action tires
The sinewy vigor of the traveller.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: Love's Labor's Lost (Berowne at IV, iii)
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A man who has no office to go to--I don't care who he is--is a
trial of which you can have no conception.
Author: George Bernard Shaw
Source: The Irrational Knot (ch. XVIII)
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I am giving you examples of the fact that this creature man, who
in his own selfish affairs is a coward to the backbone, will
fight for an idea like a hero. . . . I tell you, gentlemen, if
you can shew a man a piece of what he now calls God's work to do,
and what he will later call by many new names, you can make him
entirely reckless of the consequences to himself personally.
Author: George Bernard Shaw
Source: Man and Superman (act III)
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A day's work is a day's work, neither more nor less, and the man
who does it needs a day's sustenance, a night's repose, and due
leisure, whether he be a painter or ploughman.
Author: George Bernard Shaw
Source: Unsocial Socialist (ch. V)
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How many a rustic Milton has passed by,
Stifling the speechless longings of his heart,
In unremitting drudgery and care!
How many a vulgar Cato has compelled
His energies, no longer tameless then,
To mould a pin, or fabricate a nail!
Author: Percy Bysshe Shelley
Source: Queen Mad (pt. V, st. 9)
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Nothing can be done at once hastily and prudently.
Author: Syrus (Publilius Syrus)
Source: Maxims (357)
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Do not waste bricks. (Waste your labor.)
[Lat., Ne laterum laves.]
Author: Terence (Publius Terentius Afer)
Source: Phormio (I, IV, 9), a Greek proverb
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Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.
Author: Terence (Publius Terentius Afer)
Source: Phormio (I, IV, 9), a Greek proverb
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Heaven is blessed with perfect rest but the blessing of earth is
toil.
Author: Henry Jackson van Dyke
Source: Toiling of Felix (last line)
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