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How bething the, gentliman,
How Adam dalf, and Eve span.
Author: Unattributed Author
Source: from a manuscript of the fifteenth century in the British Museum
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When Adam dolve, and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?
Author: John Ball
Source: Wat Tyler's Rebellion
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All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is
not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled hearing.
Author: Bible
Source: Ecclesiastes (ch. I, v. 8)
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Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil
days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I
have no pleasure in them;
While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not
darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain:
In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the
strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because
they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened.
Author: Bible
Source: Ecclesiastes (ch. XII, v. 1-3)
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In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return
unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou
art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Author: Bible
Source: Genesis (ch. III, v. 19)
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Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious
stones, wood, hay, stubble;
Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall
declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire
shall try every man's work of what sort it is.
Author: Bible
Source: I Corinthians (ch. III, v. 12-13)
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Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth
not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
Author: Bible
Source: II Timothy (ch. II, v. 15)
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Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the
evening.
Author: Bible
Source: Psalms (ch. CIV, v. 23)
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Tools were made and born with hands,
Every farmer understands.
Author: William Blake
Source: Proverbs
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Hasten slowly, and without losing heart, put your work twenty
times upon the anvil.
[Fr., Hatez-vous lentement; et, sans perdre courage,
Vingt fois sur le metier remettez votre ouvrage.]
Author: Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Source: L'art Poetique (l. 171)
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The dog that trots about finds a bone.
Author: George Henry Borrow
Source: Bible in Spain (ch. XLVII), (cited as a gypsy saying)
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The best verse hasn't been rhymed yet,
The best house hasn't been planned,
The highest peak hasn't been climbed yet,
The mightiest rivers aren't spanned;
Don't worry and fret, faint-hearted,
The chances have just begun
For the best jobs haven't been started,
The best work hasn't been done.
Author: Berton Braley
Source: No Chance
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By the way,
The works of women are symbolical.
We sew, sew, prick our fingers, dull out sight,
Producing what? A pair of slippers, sir,
To put on when you're weary--or a stool
To tumble over and vex you . . . curse that stool!
Or else at best, a cushion where you lean
And sleep, and dream of something we are not,
But would be for your sake. Alas, alas!
This hurts most, this . . . that, after all, we are paid
The worth of our work, perhaps.
Author: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Source: Aurora Leigh (bk. I, l. 465)
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Get leave to work
In this world,--'tis the best you get at all.
Author: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Source: Aurora Leigh (bk. III, l. 164)
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Let no one till his death
Be called unhappy. Measure not the work
Until the day's out and the labour done.
Author: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Source: Aurora Leigh (bk. V, l. 78)
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Free men freely work:
Whoever fears God, fears to sit at ease.
Author: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Source: Aurora Leigh (bk. VIII, l. 784)
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And still be doing, never done.
Author: Samuel Butler (1)
Source: Hudibras (pt. I, canto I, l. 204)
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It is the first of all problems for a man to find out what kind
of work he is to do in this universe.
Author: Thomas Carlyle
Source: Address at Edinburgh
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Genuine Work alone, what thou workest faithfully, that is
eternal, as the Almighty Founder and World-Builder himself.
Author: Thomas Carlyle
Source: Past and Present (bk. II, ch. XVII)
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All work, even cotton-spinning, is noble; work is alone noble.
Author: Thomas Carlyle
Source: Past and Present (bk. III, ch. IV)
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With hand on the spade and heart in the sky
Dress the ground and till it;
Turn in the little seed, brown and dry,
Turn out the golden millet.
Work, and your house shall be duly fed:
Work, and rest shall be won;
I hold that a man had better be dead
Than alive when his work is done.
Author: Alice Cary
Source: Work
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The rather since every man is the son of his own works.
[Sp., Quanto mas que cada uno es hijo de sus obras.]
Author: Cervantes (Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra)
Source: Don Quixote (bk. I, ch. 4)
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Earned with the sweat of my brows.
Author: Cervantes (Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra)
Source: Don Quixote (pt. I, bk. I, ch. 4)
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Each natural agent works but to this end,--
To render that it works on like itself.
Author: George Chapman
Source: Bussy d'Ambois (act III, sc. 1)
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Ther n' is no werkman whatever he be,
That may both werken wel and hastily.
This wol be done at leisure parfitly.
Author: Geoffrey Chaucer
Source: The Canterbury Tales (l. 585), The Merchant's Tale
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Nowher so besy a man as he ther was,
And yet he semed bisier than he was.
Author: Geoffrey Chaucer
Source: The Canterbury Tales (prologue, l. 321)
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Let us take to our hearts a lesson--
No lesson could braver be--
From the ways of the tapestry weavers
On the other side of the sea.
Author: Anson G. Chester
Source: Tapestry Weavers
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To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To
destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.
Author: Anson G. Chester
Source: Tapestry Weavers
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Unraveling the web of Penelope.
[Lat., Penelopae telam retexens.]
Author: Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero)
Source: Acad. Quoest. (bk. IV, 29, 95)
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All Nature seems at work, slugs leave their lair--
The bees are stirring--birds are on the wing--
And Winter, slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
And I the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.
Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Source: Work Without Hope (st. 1)
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Work thou for pleasure--paint or sing or carve
The thing thou lovest, though the body starve--
Who works for glory misses oft the goal;
Who works for money coins his very soul.
Work for the work's sake, then, and it may be
That these things shall be added unto thee.
Author: Kenyon Cox
Source: Our Motto
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Better to wear out than to rust out.
Author: Bishop Richard Cumberland (1)
Source: to one who urged him not to wear himself with work
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To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an
opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness.
Author: Bishop Richard Cumberland (1)
Source: to one who urged him not to wear himself with work
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The Lord had a job for me, but I had so much to do,
I said, "You get somebody else--or wait till I get through."
I don't know how the Lord came out, but He seemed to get along:
But I felt kinda sneakin' like, 'cause I know'd I done Him wrong.
One day I needed the Lord--Needed Him myself--needed Him right
away,
And He never answered me at all, but I could hear Him say
Down in my accusin' heart, "Nigger, I'se got too much to do,
You get somebody else or wait till I get through."
Author: Paul Laurence Dunbar
Source: The Lord had a Job
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All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy.
Author: Paul Laurence Dunbar
Source: The Lord had a Job
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'Tis toil's reward, that sweetens industry,
As love inspires with strength the enraptur'd thrush.
Author: Ebenezer Elliott ("The Corn Law Rhymer")
Source: Corn Law Rhymes (no. 7)
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Too busy with the crowded hour to fear to live or die.
Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Source: Quatrains--Nature
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My work is a game, a very serious game.
Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Source: Quatrains--Nature
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A woman's work, grave sirs, is never done.
Author: Mrs. Eusden
Source: Poem
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Each one to his own trade; then would the cows be well cared for.
Author: J.P. Claris de Florian
Source: Le Vacher et le Garde-chasse
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Plough deep while sluggards sleep.
Author: Benjamin Franklin
Source: Poor Richard
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Handle your tools without mittens.
Author: Benjamin Franklin
Source: Poor Richard (preface)
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By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may get to be a boss
and work twelve hours a day.
Author: Benjamin Franklin
Source: Poor Richard (preface)
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"Men work together," I told him from the heart,
"Whether they work together or apart."
Author: Robert Lee Frost
Source: Tuft of Flowers
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In every rank, or great or small,
'Tis industry supports us all.
Author: John Gay
Source: Man, Cat, Dog, and Fly (l. 63)
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Basically, I no longer work for anything but the sensation I have
while working.
Author: John Gay
Source: Man, Cat, Dog, and Fly (l. 63)
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Properly speaking, such work is never finished; one must declare
it so when, according to time and circumstances, one has done
one's best.
[Ger., So eine Arbeit wird eigentlich nie fertig; man muss sie
fur fertig erklaren, wenn man nach Zeit und Umstand das
Moglichste getan hat.]
Author: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Source: Italienische Reise
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He that well his warke beginneth
The rather a good ende he winneth.
Author: John Gower ("The Moral Gower")
Source: Confessio Amantis
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A warke it ys as easie to be done
As tys to saye Jacke! robys on.
Author: James O. Halliwell
Source: Archoeological Dictionary, quotation from an old play
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When Adam dalfe and Eve spane
So spire if thou may spede,
Where was then the pride of man,
That nowe merres his mede?
Author: Richard Rolle de Hampole
Source: Early English Text Society Reprints (no. 26, p. 79)
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