quotations about labor
Labor, laughing at difficulties, spans majestic rivers, carries viaducts over marshy swamps, suspends bridges over deep ravines, pierces the solid mountains with the dark tunnel, blasting rocks and filling hollows, and, while linking together all nations of the earth pities the proud fool and laughs him to scorn. He shall pass to dust, forgotten; but Labor will live forever, glorious in its conquests and monuments, and will keep organized no matter how many temporary defeats it endures.
NEWMAN HALL
"The Dignity of Labor", The Golden Treasury of Poetry and Prose
Labor in all its variety, corporeal and mental, is the instituted means for the methodical development of all our powers, under the direction and control of will.
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND
Gold-Foil
It is good to labor; it is also good to rest from labor.
HORACE
attributed, Day's Collacon
In proportion as labor is divided, arts are perfected.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
How happy he who crowns in shades like these, A youth of labour with an age of ease.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
The Deserted Village
There is no right more universal and more sacred, because lying so near the root of existence, than the right of men to their own labor.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Pleasure is labour too, and tires as much.
WILLIAM COWPER
Hope
Labour is the root of riches.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Labour is good for a man, bracing up his energies to conquest,
And without it life is dull, the man perceiving himself useless.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
Proverbial Philosophy
He that labors is tempted by one devil; he that is idle, by a thousand.
ITALIAN PROVERB
One of the huge disadvantages of being an American is that most of the hard labor is done for us.
JOSH DAFFERN
"10 Things That Will Ruin Your 2016 If You're Not Careful", Patheos, February 17, 2016
I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living.
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
remarks at the 75th Anniversary Celebration of Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn., "To Men of Vision and High Purpose", May 3, 1941
But every acquisition that is disproportionate to the labor spent on it is dishonest.
LEO TOLSTOY
Anna Karenina
Without work men are utterly undone.
NEVIL SHUTE
Ruined City
The qualities of labor, like tools,
Grow brighter when used.
SUSAN H. BOGGS
"Labor", Poems
Our experience tells us what is labour and recreation.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Labour, though it was at first inflicted as a curse, seems to be the gentlest of all punishments, and is fruitful of a thousand blessings.
JOHN ROGERS PITMAN
"Goodness of God", A Second Course of Sermons for the Year
All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence. If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
attributed, A Martin Luther King Treasury
Under the regime of property, labor is not a condition, but a privilege.
PIERRE-JOSEPH PROUDHON
What is Property?
The general tendency towards an eight-hour working day has undoubtedly been healthful, and it is wise for the State to set a good example as an employer of labor, both as to the number of hours of labor exacted and as to paying a just and reasonable wage.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
memorandum filed with Assembly Bill number 2222 entitled "An Act to amend chapter four hundred and fifteen of the laws of eighteen hundred and ninety-seven, entitled 'An Act in relation to labor'"