Labor Quotes - Page 18

• Chess may be the deepest, least exhaustible of pastimes, but it is nothing more. As for a chess genius, he is a human being who focuses vast, little-understood mental gifts and labors on an ultimately trivial human enterprise.

  George Steiner

  Genius, May, Littles

  "The Sporting Scene: White Knights of Rekjavik". Book by George Steiner, 1972.

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• From zoning to labor to food safety to insurance, local food systems daily face a phalanx of regulatory hurdles designed and implemented to police industrial food models but which prejudicially wipe out the antidote: appropriate scaled local food systems.

  Joel Salatin

  Safety, Police, Wipe

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• The most important thing in industry is the person who does the industry, which is the worker... Labor is the only source of wealth.

  Eli Siegel

  Important, Doe, Wealth

  Eli Siegel (1970). “Goodbye Profit System: 8 Aesthetic Realism Lectures May 22 to July 10, 1970, Reported by Students of Aesthetic Realism”

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• The presence of a body of well-instructed men, who have not to labor for their daily bread, is important to a degree which cannot be overestimated; as all high intellectual work is carried on by them, and on such work material progress of all kinds mainly depends, not to mention other and higher advantages.

  Charles Darwin

  Men, Intellectual, Society

  Charles Darwin (1871). “The Descent of man”, p.163

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• Surely in much talk there cannot choose but be much vanity. Loquacity is the fistula of the mind,--ever-running and almost incurable, let every man, therefore, be a Phocion or Pythagorean, to speak briefly to the point or not at all; let him labor like them of Crete, to show more wit in his discourse than words, and not to pour out of his mouth a flood of the one, when he can hardly wring out of his brains a drop of the other.

  Herbert Spencer

  Running, Men, Vanity

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• In the ten years I was president of the Teamsters, I had raised the membership from eight hundred thousand to more than 2 million and made it the largest single labor union the world.

  Jimmy Hoffa

  Years, Eight, President

  "Hoffa The Real Story" by Jimmy Hoffa, (p. 13), 1975.

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• You almost had to live through it to really know the gut ripping misery of the depression during the early thirties which led to labor's bloodiest and most violent days.

  Jimmy Hoffa

  Misery, Violent, Guts

  "Hoffa The Real Story" by Jimmy Hoffa, (p. 27), 1975.

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• He's not just the most powerful man in labor," Robert Kennedy had said in the wake of Hoffa's announcement; "he's the most powerful man in the country, next to the President.

  Jimmy Hoffa

  Country, Powerful, Men

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• Services like Google and Facebook only exist because of the social acceptance of a mass amount of distributed volunteer labor from tons and tons of people.

  Jaron Lanier

  Acceptance, People, Volunteer

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• Most souls labor under a self imposed curse of desiring but never truly giving themselves over to love.

  Michael Xavier

  Self, Giving, Soul

  FaceBook post by Michael Xavier from Dec 28, 2011

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• Every one who has a heart and eyes sees that you, working men, are obliged to pass your lives in want and in hard labor, which is useless to you, while other men, who do not work, enjoy the fruits of your labor that you are the slaves of these men, and that this ought not to exist.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Heart, Eye, Men

  "To the Working People". Complete Works, translated by Leo Wiener, Volume 24, p. 129, 1905.

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• Division of labor is a justification for sloth.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Division Of Labor, Sloth, Justification

  "Path of Life". Book by Leo Tolstoy, Translated by M. Cote (2002), p.79, 1909.

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• 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

  Lying, Men, Roots

  Henry Ward Beecher (1863). “Freedom and War: Discourses on Topics Suggested by the Times”, p.320, Gale Cengage Learning

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• A library is but the soul's burial ground; it is the land of shadows. Yet one is impressed with the thought, the labor, and the struggle, represented in this vast catacomb of books. Who could dream, by the placid waters that issue from the level mouths of brooks into the lake, all the plunges, the whirls, the divisions, and foaming rushes that had brought them down to the tranquil exit? And who can guess through what channels of disturbance, and experiences of sorrow, the heart passed that has emptied into this Dead Sea of books?

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Dream, Struggle, Book

  Henry Ward Beecher (1855). “Star Papers: Or, Experiences of Art and Nature”, p.54, New York : Boston : J.C. Derby ; Phillips, Sampson & Company

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• The proprietor, producing neither by his own labor nor by his implement, and receiving products in exchange for nothing, is either a parasite or a thief.

  Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

  Receiving, Thieves, Parasites

  Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (2016). “What is Property?”, p.98, Cosimo Classics

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• The life of God - the life which the mind apprehends and enjoys as it rises to the absolute unity of all things - may be described as a play of love with itself; but this idea sinks to an edifying truism, or even to a platitude, when it does not embrace in it the earnestness, the pain, the patience, and labor, involved in the negative aspect of things.

  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

  God, Pain, Play

  "The Phenomenology of Spirit". Book by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1807.

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• Labor with what zeal we will, Something still remains undone, Something uncompleted still Waits the rising of the sun.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Forgiveness, Waiting, Rising

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, J. D. McClatchy (2000). “Poems and Other Writings”, p.352, Library of America

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• I cannot believe any man can be perfectly well in body, who has much labor of the mind to perform.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Believe, Men, Mind

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• My designs and labors and aspirations are my only friends.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Friendship, Design, Aspiration

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (2012). “My Complete Poetical Works (Annotated Edition)”, p.800, Jazzybee Verlag

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• To me, it appears no unjust simile to compare the affairs of this great Continent to the mechanism of a clock, each state representing some one or other of the smaller parts of it which they are endeavoring to put in fine order without considering how useless & unavailing their labor is unless the great Wheel or Spring which is to set the whole in motion is also well attended to & kept in good order.

  George Washington

  Spring, Order, Useless

  George Washington, John Clement Fitzpatrick, David Maydole Matteson, United States George Washington Bicentennial Commission (1779). “The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799”, p.301

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• Pleasure is labour too, and tires as much.

  William Cowper

  Tire, Pleasure, Labour

  William Cowper (1824). “Poems of William Cowper, Esq”, p.75

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• The lover of education labors first of all to educate himself.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Firsts, Lovers, Educate

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• Ah, many a one has started forth with hope and purpose high; Has fought throughout a weary life, and passed all pleasure by; Has burst all flowery chains by which men aye have been enthralled; Has been stone-deaf to voices sweet, that softly, sadly called; Has scorned the flashing goblet with the bubbles on its brim; Has turned his back on jewelled hands that madly beckoned him; Has, in a word, condemned himself to follow out his plan By stern and lonely labor--and has died, a conquered man!

  George Arnold

  Lonely, Sweet, Men

  George Arnold (1866). “Drift: A Sea-shore Idyl : and Other Poems”, p.60

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• The fundamental fact in the lives of the poor in most parts of America is that the wages of common labor are far below the benefits of AFDC, Medicaid, food stamps, public housing, public defenders, leisure time and all the other goods and services of the welfare state.

  George Gilder

  America, Benefits, Leisure

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• The error in positivism is that it takes as its standard of truth the contingently given division of labor, that between the science and social praxis as well as that within science itself, and allows no theory that could reveal the division of labor to be itself derivative and mediated and thus strip it of its false authority.

  Theodor Adorno

  Division Of Labor, Errors, Derivatives

  Theodor W. Adorno (2012). “Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords”, p.10, Columbia University Press

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