WORK
We the unwilling
led by the unknowing
are doing the impossible
for the ungrateful.
We have done so much
for so long with so little,
we are now qualified
to do anything
with nothing!
God put me on earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind I will never die.
Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do that day which must be done whether you like it or not. Being required to work, and doing so to the best of your ability, will breed in you self-control, diligence, contentment, and a hundred other virtues which the idle never know.
—Charles Kingsley
Luck may sometimes help; work always helps.
—Teen Esteem
Do more than belong, participate.
Do more than care, help.
Do more than believe, practice.
Do more than be fair, be kind.
Do more than forgive, forget.
Do more than dream, work.
—William Arthur Ward
The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes to do, but in liking what one has to do.
Work done grudgingly is servitude.
Work done willingly is service.
Work done lovingly is a sacrament.
Nothing is work unless you would rather be doing something else.
—William James
When you work, work hard. When you play, play hard.
—Theodore Roosevelt
I had to learn the difference between planning to do God’s work and being willing to work at God’s plan.
—William P. Andrews
A hard-working Irishman, asking for a well-deserved raise, was put off by his boss who was known to be the town skinflint. “Pat,” he said, “you really don’t work as hard as you say. And I can prove it to you. There are 365 days in a year. You sleep eight hours every day, totaling 122 days. Subtracted from 365, that leaves 243. You also have eight hours every day for recreation and taking care of your family, which makes another 122 days. That leaves a balance of 121 days. Then, too, there are 52 Sundays; deducting these leaves 69 days. As you know, our office is closed every Saturday afternoon, giving 52 half-holidays or 26 more days that you do not work. This leaves a balance of only 43 days. However, we allow you one hour for lunch, which over the year makes 16 days, leaving 27 days. We give you two weeks vacation; that leaves only 13 days. Also, there are 12 legal holidays, leaving only one day; and if you add up all your coffee breaks, you will see that you probably owe me money!” Poor Pat, not having heard the old adage, “Figures don’t lie, but liars can figure,” hastily retreated to his workbench, fearing he might not even get his regular paycheck.
God never goes to the lazy or the idle when He needs someone for His service. When God wants a worker, He calls a worker. When He has work to be done, He goes to those who are already at work. When God wants a great servant, He calls a busy person. Scripture and history attest this truth.
Moses was busy with his flock at Horeb.
Gideon was busy threshing wheat by the winepress.
Saul was busy searching for his father’s lost beasts.
David was busy caring for his father’s sheep.
Elisha was busy plowing with twelve yoke of oxen.
Nehemiah was busy bearing the king’s wine cup.
Amos was busy following the flock.
Peter and Andrew were busy casting a net into the sea.
James and John were busy mending their nets.
Matthew was busy collecting customs.
Saul was busy persecuting the friends of Jesus.
William Carey was busy mending and making shoes.
We do not attach ourselves lastingly to anything that does not cost us care, labor, or longing.
—Honoré de Balzac
A fellow applied for a job at a grocery store. “I’m interested in filling the vacancy left by the one who left.”
“I’m sorry, but when he left, he didn’t leave a vacancy.”
Work is the only pleasure. It is only work that keeps me alive and makes life worth living. I was happier when doing a mechanic’s job.
—Henry Ford
Mankind will be in a sorry way when men look for satisfaction outside their work instead of in their daily tasks—in a job well done. It’s a low form of happiness that is pursued only after working hours. Without work, life is drudgery, dull.
—William Feather
I’ve been a dead weight many years
Around the church’s neck;
I’ve let the others carry me
And always pay the check.
I’ve had my name upon the rolls
For years and years gone by;
I’ve criticized and grumbled too,
Nothing could satisfy.
I’ve been a dead weight long enough
Upon the church’s back;
Beginning now, I’m going to take
A wholly different track.
I’m going to pray and pay and work
And carry loads instead;
And not have others carry me
Like people do the dead.
I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.
—Stephen Leacock
To be active in God’s work is one thing; to be effective in God’s work is another.
It is a mark of intelligence, no matter what you are doing, to have a good time doing it.
People develop character by earning things, not by getting them for nothing.
—John Luther
A sitting crow starves.
—Icelandic proverb
God gives every bird its food but does not drop it into the nest.
—Danish proverb
People who believe that the dead never come back to life should be here at quitting time.
The most miserable man in the world is the one who has no work to dedicate himself to.
—Nelson Boswell
Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness. He has a work, a life-purpose; he has found it and will follow it. Labor is life; from the inmost heart of the worker rises his God-given force, the sacred, celestial life-essence breathed into him by Almighty God.
—Thomas Carlyle
If you observe a really happy man, you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing double dahlias in his garden, or looking for dinosaur eggs in the Gobi desert. He will not be searching for happiness as if it were a collar button that has rolled under the radiator. He will have become aware that he is happy in the course of living twenty-four crowded hours of the day.
—W. Beran Wolfe
If you would succeed, love your work.
A veterinarian in Oklahoma lived in a little town called Sasakwa. Everybody liked him. He was a grand vet. Since they didn’t have enough people to hold all of the offices in the town, they decided they’d run him for sheriff and he was elected. He was a very good sheriff, as he was a very good veterinarian. One night quite late a telephone caller said to his wife, “Could we speak to your husband?” And she said, trying to be quite proper, “In what capacity do you need my husband? Do you need him as a veterinarian or as a sheriff?” There was a long pause. The response was, “Both. We can’t get our dog’s mouth open and there’s a burglar’s leg in it.”
R. G. LeTourneau was once asked, “When should a child start work?” He gave the startling reply, “I would say about the age of three. Now don’t misunderstand, I am not in favor of the sweatshop or child labor that deprives a youngster of his education or the pleasure of carefree hours, nor do I approve of anything that breaks down his health or stunts his development. But there’s one thing sure: if one does not learn to work as a child, he will never do much when he grows up. I probably sawed as much wood as a boy and shoveled as much sand at the foundry in my early teens as the next fellow, and it never hurt me. In fact, I don’t know what it means to lose a day through sickness. I think that almost without exception the ones who get things done are those who learned to work as children. We need to teach our youngsters the dignity of labor and the pleasure of accomplishment. They must be made to understand that only by determined effort do we create things worthwhile. Not only does work keep us from mischief, but the more we sweat and toil, the bigger kick we get out of our labors.”
For any sorrow there is only one medicine, better and more reliable than all the drugs in the world: work.
—Ferenc Molnár
Adam Clark is reported to have spent forty years writing his commentary on the Scriptures. Noah Webster labored thirty-six years forming his dictionary; in fact, he crossed the ocean twice to gather material needed to make the book absolutely accurate. John Milton rose at four o’clock every morning in order to have sufficient hours to compose and rewrite his poetry, which stands among the best of the world’s literature. Edward Gibbon spent twenty-six years on his book The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, but it towers as a monument to careful research and untiring dedication to his task. Bryant rewrote one of his poetic masterpieces a hundred times before it was published, just to attain complete beauty and perfection of expression. These men enjoyed what they were doing, and each one threw all his energy into his effort no matter how difficult the job.
Folks who never do any more than they are paid for, never get paid for any more than they do.
—Elbert Hubbard
Work is the true elixir of life. The busiest man is the happiest man. Excellence in any art of profession is attained only by hard and persistent work.
—Sir Theodore Martin
It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.
—Henry Ford
Some people dream of worthy accomplishments while others stay awake and do them.
God gives us the nuts, but he does not crack them.
—German proverb
The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; three, common sense.
—Thomas Edison
The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.
—John Ruskin
Do a little more each day than you think you possibly can.
—Lowell Thomas
I never did a day’s work in my life. It was all fun.
—Thomas Edison
Achievement seldom exceeds effort.
—Mortimer Adler
Let me … remind you that it is only by working with an energy which is almost superhuman and which looks to uninterested spectators like insanity that we can accomplish anything worth the achievement. Work is the keystone of a perfect life. Work and trust in God.
—Woodrow Wilson
The real essence of work is concentration.
Sign in the counseling office at a San Diego High School: If you think school is boring, wait until you sit around an unemployment office.
The most creative people I know, and some of the happiest, are those who constantly mix business and pleasure.
—Hugh Downs
There are four main bones in every organization:
The wishbones: Wishing somebody would do something about the problem.
The jawbones: Doing all the talking but very little else.
The knucklebones: Those who knock everything.
The backbones: Those who carry the brunt of the load and do most of the work.
A painter went to paint and the only place to park his car was at a “No Parking” sign. He put a sign on his car that read, “Painter working inside.” When he came out, another sign was on the car. It said, “Sorry, policeman working outside.”
Thomas Edison sent the following recommendations to a youth assembly that requested a message from him:
1. Always be interested in whatever you undertake.
2. Don’t mind the clock, but keep at it, and let nature indicate the necessity of rest.
3. Failures, so called, are the fingerposts pointing out the right direction to those who are willing to learn.
4. Hard work and a genuine interest in everything that makes for human progress will make men and women more valuable and acceptable to themselves and to the world.
—Bits & Pieces
“What do you work at?” “At intervals.”
Of all the unhappy people in the world, the unhappiest are those who have not found something that they want to do.
The highest reward for man’s toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it.
—John Ruskin
Sign on a church outdoor bulletin board in a small Pennsylvania town: Pray for a good harvest, but keep on hoeing.
One of the greatest pleasures in life consists of being paid handsomely for doing what you would be doing anyway, without pay.
Whether our work be pleasant or unpleasant depends less upon the work itself—provided it be honest—than upon our attitude toward it. Let us strive to regard our work as our best friend in the world, and the chances are that our work will become friendly to us. It isn’t our position, but our disposition toward our position that counts.
—B. C. Forbes
My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was less competition there.
—Indira Gandhi
You can tell when you’re on the right track—it’s usually uphill.
Work harder. Millions on welfare depend on you.
If I were to suggest a general rule for happiness, I would say, “Work a little harder; work a little longer; work!”
—Frederick H. Ecker
If you work at this office long enough, you either become an institution or get committed to one.
One hitchhiker complained to the other: “That’s right, just sit there and let me work my finger to the bone.”
There are few, if any, jobs in which ability alone is sufficient. Needed also are loyalty, sincerity, enthusiasm, and cooperation.
The main satisfactions of life come through hard work which one enjoys.
—George W. Eliot
It is not enough just to put your shoulder to the wheel; you must remember to push.
Don’t learn the tricks of the trade—learn the trade.
God gives us the ingredients for our daily bread, but he expects us to do the baking.
—William Arthur Ward
A worker who does only what he has to is a slave. One who willingly does more than is required of him is truly a free man.
Eventually everything degenerates to work.
—Peter Drucker
There’s no labor a man can do that’s undignified—if he does it right.
—Bill Cosby
Trust in God, but keep rowing to the shore.
—Russian proverb
God gives no linen, but only flax to spin.
—German proverb
A man who works with his hands is a laborer. A man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman. A man who works with his hands and his brains and his heart is an artist.
—Louis Nizer
Work keeps us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need.
—Voltaire
Most of the world’s useful work is done by people who are pressed for time, or are tired, or don’t feel well.
—Douglas Smithall Freeman
Nobody ever lost his shirt with his sleeves rolled up.
There’s no such thing as a perfect job. In any position you’ll find some duties which, if they aren’t onerous immediately, eventually will be. Success depends not merely on how well you do the things you enjoy, but how conscientiously you perform those duties you don’t.
—John Luther
The British poet John Masefield inspired his countrymen on many occasions. When he was asked what it was that inspired him to do his work, he replied with this little four-line verse by an unknown author:
Sitting still and wishing
Makes no person great.
The good Lord sends the fishing
But you must dig the bait.
—Nelson Boswell
If you are rich, work.
If you are burdened with seemingly unfair responsibilities, work.
If you are happy, continue to work.
Idleness gives room for doubts and fears.
If sorrow overwhelms you and loved ones seem not true, work.
If disappointments come, work.
If faith falters and reason fails, just work.
When dreams are shattered and hopes seem dead,
Work, work as if your life were in peril;
It really is.
No matter what ails you, work.
Work faithfully and work with faith.
Work is the greatest material remedy available.
Work will cure both mental and physical afflictions.
—Nelson Boswell
John Wesley traveled 250,000 miles on horseback, averaging twenty miles a day for forty years; preached four thousand sermons, produced four hundred books, knew ten languages. At eighty-three he was annoyed that he could not write more than fifteen hours a day without hurting his eyes, and at eighty-six he was ashamed he could not preach more than twice a day. He complained in his diary that there was an increasing tendency to lie in bed until 5:30 in the morning.
—Arkansas Baptist
A high-powered businessman from Milan, Italy, arrived at a government agency in Rome after lunch to transact an urgent matter before taking a late afternoon flight back to Milan. On arriving at the agency, he found the office deserted except for a janitor.
“What’s going on here?” asked the businessman. “Don’t they work in the afternoon?”
“No, signor, you have got it wrong,” replied the janitor. “It is in the morning they don’t work. In the afternoon, they don’t come.”
—Bits & Pieces
A little girl was told by her mother that she was in the world to do good for others. The little girl replied, “And what are the others in the world for?’