quotations about labor
It is only by labor that thought can be made healthy, and only by thought that labor can be happy; and the two cannot be separated with impunity.
JOHN RUSKIN
On the Nature of Gothic Architecture
The sweet flesh of labor, blood, tears and sweat consumed across the distance of deserts and seas...
A. E. WILCOX
Ruth of Many Names & Other Loose-leaf Poems
Sulky labor and the labor of sorrow are little worth. Whatever a man does with a guilty feeling he is apt to do wrong ; and whatever he does with a melancholy feeling he is likely to do by halves.
JAMES HAMILTON
Life in Earnest
All labor is coerced labor and hence a form of servitude.
STEVEN B. SMITH
"Lincoln's Enlightenment", Principle and Prudence in Western Political Thought
Providence has decreed that those common acquisitions, money, gems, plate, noble mansions, and dominion, should be sometimes bestowed on the indolent and unworthy; but those things which constitute our true riches, and which are properly our own, must be procured by our own labor.
ERASMUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
You desire to be learned, wealthy, and great, without labor; it is one of the follies still extant in the world.
G. P. MORRIS
attributed, Day's Collacon
There is a beautiful reciprocity between labor and wealth; if the latter is produced by the former, the former is invigorated and sustained by the latter.
TRISTAM BURGESS
attributed, The Modern Farmer: Or, Home in the Country
The Lord had given them the day and the Lord had given them the strength. And the day and the strength had been dedicated to labor, and the labor was its reward. Who was the labor for? What would be its fruits? These were irrelevant and idle questions.
LEO TOLSTOY
Anna Karenina
Labor is King; though the gold wears the crown,
Labor dethrones gold at will;
Labor, when willing, makes money go down,
Labor, though modest, rules still.
HENRY LARGE
"Labor is King", The Poetical Works of Henry Large
Labor is a category unique to capitalism. In capitalism, labor is the touchstone of social life: it is a material property of human actors, bearing physical, nearly tangible qualities. It is also the touchstone, the foundation, of subjectivity and morality. Labor does not occupy such a position outside capitalism.
MARTHA LAMPLAND
The Object of Labor: Commodification in Socialist Hungary
Labor rids us of three great evils--poverty, vice, and boredom.
VOLTAIRE
attributed, Day's Collacon
His labor is a chant,
His idleness a tune;
Oh, for a bee's experience
Of clovers and of noon!
EMILY DICKINSON
"The Bee"
Labor is what humans do, across time and across space. Labor is fundamental, crucial for satisfying our most basic needs. Labor thus provides a window for understanding all of human behavior, thought, and organization from the most macro-level of a global political economy to the most micro-level of the individual worker in a household. It is what we do and who we are.
E. PAUL DURRENBERGER & JUDITH MARTI
introduction, Labor in Cross-cultural Perspective
Labor is the only wealth of the poor, and the largest hands, those of the poor, hold the least, and have the least to hold; the poor are valuable for their thews and sinews; they have limbs to toil and shoulders to bear burdens, but the oppressor remembers not that they have hearts to feel, or mouths to be fed, or that there is a blood stronger than steam. The black iron is meted out to them, whilst the yellow gold gladdens the better sort.
ACTON
Acton; or, The Circle of Life: A Collection of Thoughts and Observations Designed to Delineate Life, Man, and the World
God has laid upon us many severe trials in this world, but He has created labour for us, and all is compensated. Thanks to labour, the bitterest tears are dried; a serious consoler, it always promises less than it bestows; a pleasure unparalleled, it is still the salt of other pleasures. Everything abandons you -- gaiety, wit, love -- labour alone is always present.
E. LEGOUVE
The Guernsey Magazine, Aug. 1877
The gods give nothing really good and beautiful without labor.
XENOPHON
attributed, Day's Collacon
Before the reward there must be labor. You plant before you harvest. You sow in tears before you reap in joy.
RALPH RANSOM
"Steps on the Stairway"
Whatever your work might be, bring all of yourself to it. When you are fully present, you may find that your labor is no longer a burden. Wood is chopped. Water is carried. Life happens.
TOM BARRETT
"Chop Wood, Carry Water", Interlude Retreat
The labor unions are group efforts in the direction of democracy. Like the political efforts in the same direction, they become many times stultified and lead up blind alleys. But the effort creates power. While the economic gains are themselves important and are measures of strength, the significance of the labor union is its assertion of the manhood of labor.
HELEN MAROT
American Labor Unions
[Labor is] the primal curse,
But softened into mercy, made the pledge
Of cheerful days and nights without a groan.
WILLIAM COWPER
The Task