Any writing exposes writers to judgment about the quality of their work and their thought. The closer they get to painful personal truths, the more fear mounts—not just about what they might reveal but about what they might discover should they venture too deeply inside. To write well, however, that’s exactly where we must venture.
Parkinson's Law: ;Work expands to fill the time alloted it.
_Sound opinions of the people._--To be well dressed is not altogether foolish, for it proves that a great number of people work for us. It shows by our hair, that we have a valet, a perfumer, etc.; by our band, our thread, our trimming, etc. Now it is not merely superficial nor simply outward show to have many arms at our disposal.
In the light of today’s “new things,” we have reread the relationship between individual or private property and the universal destination of material wealth . Man fulfills himself by using his intelligence and freedom. In so doing a person utilizes the things of this world as objects and instruments and makes them his own. The foundation of the right to private initiative and ownership is to be found in this activity. By means of his work a person commits himself, not only for his own sake but also for others and with others . Man works in order to provide for the needs of his family, his community, his nation, and ultimately all humanity. Moreover, a person collaborates in the work of his fellow employees, as well as in the work of suppliers and in the customers’ use of goods, in a progressively expanding chain of solidarity. Ownership of the means of production, whether in industry or agriculture, is just and legitimate if it serves useful work. It becomes illegitimate, however, when it is not utilized or when it serves to impede the work of others, in an effort to gain a profit which is not the result of the overall expansion of work and the wealth of society, but rather is the result of curbing them or of illicit exploitation, speculation or the breaking of solidarity among working people. Ownership of this kind has no justification, and represents an abuse in the sight of God and man. [ Centesimus Annus, §43. 1991.]
To work without money, and be poor; to work without pleasure, and be chaste; to work according to orders, and be obedient.
If you can't get your work done in the first 24 hours, work nights.
The freer the mind is, the more powerful and worthy, the more useful, praiseworthy and perfect the prayer and the work become. A free mind can achieve all things. But what is a free mind? A free mind is one which is untroubled and unfettered by anything, which has not bound its best part to any particular manner of being or devotion and which does not seek its own interest in anything but is always immersed in God’s most precious will, having gone out of what is its own. There is no work which men and women can perform, however small, which does not draw from this its power and its strength.
The world is full of willing people, some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.
We are not sent into this world to do anything into which we cannot put our hearts. We have certain work to do for our bread, and that is to be done strenuously; other work to do for our delight, and that is to be done heartily; neither is to be done by halves or shifts, but with a will; and what is not worth this effort is not to be done at all.
As a leadership coach, one of the questions I always ask myself is, “Does this leader lead in a way that is compatible with humans?” or some version of that. People are designed to function with energy and use their gifts and talents to work toward fruitful outcomes. They do that from the moment they wake up in the morning until they lie down at night. From making the coffee to making computers, people have what it takes to get it done, if the right ingredients are present and the wrong ones are not. The leader’s job is to lead in ways such that people can do what they are best at doing: using their gifts and their brains to get great results.
We are not in these days obliged so to discriminate. Yet it is very easy to do so; those who deny neither God nor Jesus Christ work no miracles which are not quite certain.
Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work. [ Autobiography .]
Impossible is the precept "Know thyself," till it be translated into this partially possible one, "Know what thou canst work at."
Earth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat, / Sighing through all her work, gave sign of woe / That all was lost.
A mob is a body voluntarily bereaving itself of reason and traversing its work.
Why are not more gems from our great authors scattered over the country? Great books are not in everybody's reach; and though it is better to know them thoroughly than to know them only here and there, yet it is a good work to give a little to those who have neither time nor means to get more. Let every bookworm, when in any fragrant, scarce old tome he discovers a sentence, a story, an illustration, that does his heart good, hasten to give it.--_Coleridge._
When a work has a unity, it is as much so in a part as in the whole.
Consisting mostly of recirculating scrapped metals, 80% of all the metals that have ever been mined are still at work. [ Utopia or Oblivion. ]
We work in the dark — we do what we can — we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.
Just because he's dead is no reason to lay off work.
It is possible to imagine a voluntary economy, an economy that would let people choose their level of work and spending without exploitation or domination…. I would be content with the Kelso-Adler proposal as a way to make the economy voluntary. [“Is There Life After Birth,” The Center Magazine , Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, July 1968.]
Hoc virtutis opus=--This is virtue's work.
Reading what they never wrote, Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work, And with a well-bred whisper close the scene.
I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.
The most part of all the misery and mischief, of all that is denominated evil, in the world, arises from the face that men are too remiss to get a proper knowledge of their aims, and when they do know them, to work intensely in attaining them.
Unwise work, if it but persist, is everywhere struggling towards correction and restoration to health; for it is still in contact with Nature, and all Nature incessantly contradicts it, and will heal it or annihilate it; not so with unwise talk, which addresses itself, regardless of veridical Nature, to the universal suffrages; and can, if it be dexterous, find harbour there, till all the suffrages are bankrupt and gone to Houndsditch.
With any problem, it’s important to figure out which incentives will actually work, not just what your moral compass tells you should work.
No one can live your life for you. No one but yourself can answer your questions, meet your responsibilities, make your decisions and choices. Your relations with God no one but yourself can fulfil. No one can believe for you. A thousand friends may encircle you and pray for your soul, but until you lift up your own heart in prayer no communication is established between you and God. No one can get your sins forgiven but yourself. No one can obey God for you. No other one can do your work for Christ, or render your account at the judgment-seat.
We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; all committed, for our safety, to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work and the love we give our fragile craft.
The advice given by a great moralist to his friend was, that he should compose his passions; and let that be the work of reason which would certainly be the work of time.--_Addison._
Wherever work is done, victory is obtained.
Disneyland is a work of love. We didn't go into Disneyland just with the idea of making money.
Little wit in the head makes much work for the feet.
Neither the naked hand, nor the understanding, left to itself, can do much; the work is accomplished by instruments and helps of which the need is not less for the understanding than the hand.--_Bacon._
Many hands make light work.
The ugliest of trades have their moments of pleasure. Now, if I were a grave-digger, or even a hangman, there are some people I could work for with a great deal of enjoyment.
Whatever bit of a wise man's work is honestly and benevolently done, that bit is his book or his piece of art.
Anywhere and everywhere we may dwell "with the King for His work." We may be in a very unlikely or unfavorable place for this; it may be in a little country life, with little enough to be seen of the "goings" of the King around us; it may be among hedges of all sorts, hindrances in all directions; it may be, furthermore, with our hands full of all manner of pottery for our daily task. No matter! The King who placed us "there" will come and dwell there with us; the hedges are all right, or He would soon do away with them; and it does not follow that what seems to hinder our way may not be for its very protection; and as for the pottery, why, this is just exactly what He has seen fit to put into our hands, and therefore it is, for the present, "His work."--_Frances Ridley Havergal._
People ask me... "What do you still bring from Hawaii? How does it affect your character, how does it affect your politics?" I try to explain to them something about the Aloha Spirit. I try to explain to them this basic idea that we all have obligations to each other, that we're not alone, that if we see somebody who's in need we should help... that we look out for one another, that we deal with each other with courtesy and respect, and most importantly, that when you come from Hawaii, you start understanding that what's on the surface, what people look like — that doesn't determine who they are. And that the power and strength of diversity, the ability of people from everywhere … whether they're black or white, whether they're Japanese-Americans or Korean-Americans or Filipino-Americans or whatever they are, they are just Americans, that all of us can work together and all of us can join together to create a better country. And it's that spirit, that I'm absolutely convinced, is what America is looking for right now.
I steal from every single movie ever made. I love it – if my work has anything it’s that I’m taking this from this and that from that and mixing them together. If people don’t like that, then tough titty, don’t go and see it, alright? I steal from everything. Great artists steal; they don’t do homages. Quentin Tarantino
Much of the excitement we get out of our work is that we don't really
Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.
When the artist forgets himself in admiration of his work, there is a fatal inversion and subversion of all art whatsoever; and for Love to worship Venus, his own creation, except as an index and light to himself, is in reality Love's apostasy, not his apotheosis.
Rejoice not that you work miracles, said Jesus Christ, but rather that your names are written in heaven.
The eye of the master will do more work than both his hands.
Oh, do not pray for easy lives! Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks! Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come in you by the grace of God.--_Phillips Brooks._
Great happiness makes one feel so often that it cannot last, and that we will have some day to give up all to which one's heart clings so. A few years sooner or later, but the time will come, and come quicker than one expects. Therefore I believe it is right to accustom oneself to the thought that we can none of us escape death, and that all our happiness here is only lent us. But at the same time we can thankfully enjoy all that God gives us, ... and there is still so much left us, so much to be happy and thankful for, and yet here too the thought always rushes across one's brightest hours: it cannot last, it is only for a few years and then it must be given up. Let us work as long as it is day, let us try to do our duty, and be very thankful for God's blessings which have been showered upon us so richly--but let us learn also always to look beyond, and learn to be ready to give up everything,--and yet say, Thy Will be done.
Detraction's a bold monster, and fears not / To wound the fame of princes, if it find / But any blemish in their lives to work on.
To be wroth with one we love, / Doth work like madness in the brain.
The strongest bond of human sympathy, outside of the family relation, should be one uniting all working people, of all nations, and tongues, and kindreds. Nor should this lead to war upon property, or the owners of property. Property is the fruit of labor; property is desirable; is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built. [Reply to a Committee from the Workingman’s Association of New York, March 21, 1864. From The Lincoln Treasury , compiled by C. T. Harnesberger (Chicago: Wilcox & Follett Company, 1950.]
Fear and love rise up in antagonism to each other as motives in life, like those two mountains from which respectively the blessings and curses of the old law were pronounced--the Mount of Cursing all barren, stony, without verdure and without water; the Mount of Blessing green and bright with many a flower, and blessed with many a trickling rill. Fear is barren. Love is fruitful. The one is a slave, and its work is little worth. The other is free, and its deeds are great and precious. From the blasted summit of the mountain which gendereth to bondage may be heard the words of the law; but the power to keep all these laws must be sought on the sunny hill where liberty dwells in love and gives energy to obedience. Therefore, if you would use in your own life the highest power that God has given us for our growth in grace, draw your arguments, not from fear, but from love.--_Alex. McLaren._
There is to me a beauty and mystery and sanctity about flowers, and when I see them come and go, no one knows whence and whither, I ask what more miracles do we want,--what better, more beautiful, more orderly world could we wish to belong to than that by which we are surrounded and supported on all sides? Where is there a flaw or a fault? Then why should we fear unless the flaws are within us, and we will not see the blessing and the rest which we might enjoy if we only trusted to the Author of all that beauty, order, and wisdom about us. It is a perfect sin not to be happy in this world, and how much of the misery which there is, is the work of men, or could be removed by men, if they would but work together for each others' good.
Men work themselves into atheistical judgments by atheistical practice.
We are well aware that faults are more easily recognized in the works of others than in our own, and often in blaming the small faults of others thou wilt ignore great ones in thyself. And to avoid such ignorance see that in the first place thy perspective be sound, then acquire a complete knowledge of the measurements of man and other animals, and of good architecture; that is to say, as far as the forms of buildings and other objects which are on the earth are concerned, and these are infinite in number. The more of them that thou knowest, the more praiseworthy will be thy work; and in cases where thou hast no experience do not refuse to draw them from nature.
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
People are more difficult to work with than machines. And when you break a person, he can't be fixed.
Unter mancherlei wunderlichen Albernheiten der Schulen kommt mir keine so vollkommen lacherlich vor, als der Streit uber die Aechtheit alter Schriften, alter Werke. Ist es denn der Autor oder die Schrift die wir bewundern oder tadeln? es ist immer nur der Autor, den wir vor uns haben; was kummern uns die Namen, wenn wir ein Geisteswerk auslegen?=--Among the manifold strange follies of the schools, I know no one so utterly ridiculous and absurd as the controversy about the authenticity of old writings, old works. Is it the author or the writing we admire or censure? It is always the author we have before us. What have we to do with names, when it is a work of the spirit we are interpreting?
How can you work when the system's so crowded?
It was a custom with Apelles, to which he most tenaciously adhered, never to let any day pass, however busy he might be, without exercising himself by tracing some outline or other,--a practice which has now passed into a proverb. It was also a practice with him, when he had completed a work, to exhibit it to the view of the passers-by in his studio, while he himself, concealed behind the picture, would listen to the criticisms. . . . Under these circumstances, they say that he was censured by a shoemaker for having represented the shoes with one latchet too few. The next day, the shoemaker, quite proud at seeing the former error corrected, thanks to his advice, began to criticise the leg; upon which Apelles, full of indignation, popped his head out and reminded him that a shoemaker should give no opinion beyond the shoes,[721-1]--a piece of advice which has equally passed into a proverbial saying.
Who ordered toil as the condition of life, ordered weariness, ordered sickness, ordered poverty, failure, success,--to this man a foremost place, to the other a nameless struggle with the crowd; to that a shameful fall, or paralyzed limb, or sudden accident; to each some work upon the ground he stands on, until he is laid beneath it.--_Thackeray._
Assembly language experience is [important] for the maturity
The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.
For we should work for the uncertain by the doctrine of chances already laid down.
Weighty work must be done with few words.
Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.
"Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do among this people a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding...."
How careful should we be to make Him welcome, and to throw no hindrance in His way! How eager to garner up all the least movements of His gracious operation, as the machinist conserves the force of his engine; and as the goldsmith, with miserly care, collects every flake of gold leaf! Surely we shall be sensible of the _fear_ of holy reverence and the _trembling_ of eager anxiety; as we "work out," into daily act and life, all that God our Father is "working in."--_F. B. Meyer._
The Church’s teaching on ownership diverges radically from collectivism as proclaimed by Marxism and “rigid” capitalism. The primacy of the person over things [can be restored through] joint ownership of the means of work. [ Laborem Exercens . 1981.]
To make some nook of God's creation a little fruitfuller, better, more worthy of God; to make some human hearts a little wiser, manfuller, happier, more blessed, less accursed! It is work for a God.
Anyone who is practically acquainted with scientific work is aware that those who refuse to go beyond fact, rarely get as far as fact; and anyone who has studied the history of science knows that almost every great step therein has been made by the "anticipation of Nature."
In every great epoch there is some one idea at work which is more powerful than any other, and which shapes the events of the time and determines their ultimate issues.
There are moments when our passions speak and decide for us, and we seem to stand by and wonder. They carry in them an inspiration of crime, that in one instant does the work of long premeditation.--_George Eliot._
No work stains a man who is pure, who is in harmony, who is master of his life, whose soul is one with the soul of all.
As peace in States has for its sole object the safe preservation of the property of the people, so the peace of the Church has for its sole object the safe preservation of truth, her property and the treasure where her heart is. And as to allow the enemy to enter into a State, and pillage without opposition, for fear of troubling repose, would be to work against the good of peace, because peace, being only just and useful for the security of property, it becomes unjust and harmful when it suffers property to be destroyed, while war in the defence of property becomes just and necessary. So in the Church, when truth is assailed by the enemies of faith, when men would tear it from the heart of the faithful, and cause error to reign there, to remain in peace is rather to betray than to serve the Church, to ruin rather than defend. And as it is plainly a crime to trouble peace where truth reigns, so is it also a crime to rest in peace when truth is destroyed. There is then a time when peace is just, and another when it is unjust. And it is written that there is a time for peace and a time for war, and it is the interest of truth to discern them. But there is not a time for truth and a time for error, and it is written, on the contrary, that the truth of God abideth for ever; and this is why Jesus Christ, who said that he came to bring peace, said also that he came to bring war. But he did not say that he came to bring both truth and falsehood. Truth is then the first rule and the ultimate end of things.
The segregation of the spiritual life from the practical life is a curse that falls impartially upon both sides of our existence. A society that gives to one class all the opportunities for leisure, and to another all the burdens of work, dooms both classes to spiritual sterility. [ Faith for Living , 1940.]
Peace is never long preserved by weight of metal or by an armament race. Peace can be made tranquil and secure only by understanding and agreement fortified by sanctions. We must embrace international cooperation or international disintegration. Science has taught us how to put the atom to work. But to make it work for good instead of for evil lies in the domain dealing with the principles of human dignity. We are now facing a problem more of ethics than of physics.
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
Always leave room to add an explanation if it doesn't work out.
Freud's prescription for personal happiness as consisting of work and love must be taken with the proviso that the work has to be loved, and the love has to be worked at.
All public disorder proceeds from want of work.
Karl's version of Parkinson's Law: ;Work expands to exceed the time alloted it.
Don't wish for it...Work for it! ― Anon.
A century after Colonel Drake’s invention of the first successful oil well, only one percent of America’s physical work is done by man himself.
What is done is done; has already blended itself with the boundless, ever-living, ever-working universe, and will also work there, for good or evil, openly or secretly, through all time.
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.--_J. B. Lowell._
I think the key indicator for wealth is not good grades, work ethic, or IQ. I believe it's relationships. Ask yourself two questions: How many people do I know, and how much ransom money could I get for each one?
The sooner the world solves its economic problems, the sooner its inhabitants can afford leisure and peace and get on with the non-material things that are inherently important: the work of mind and spirit that is gloriously and uniquely human, the work that no machine can ever do.