Labor Quotes - Page 31

• Such is always the pursuit of knowledge. The celestial fruits, the golden apples of the Hesperides, are ever guarded by a hundred-headed dragon which never sleeps, so that it is an Herculean labor to pluck them.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Knowledge, Sleep, Dragons

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Selected Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.216, Simon and Schuster

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• Surely the writer is to address a world of laborers, and such therefore must be his own discipline.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Discipline, World, Addresses

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.517, Simon and Schuster

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• The scholar may be sure that he writes the tougher truth for the calluses on his palms. They give firmness to the sentence. Indeed, the mind never makes a great and successful effort, without a corresponding energy of the body.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Writing, Successful, Giving

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.517, Simon and Schuster

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• How we shall earn our bread is a grave question; yet it is a sweet and inviting question. Let us not shirk it, as is usually done.It is the most important and practical question which is put to man. Let us not answer it hastily. Let us not be content to get our bread in some gross, careless, and hasty manner. Some men go a-hunting, some a-fishing, some a-gaming, some to war; but none have so pleasant a time as they who in earnest seek to earn their bread.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Sweet, War, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Familiar Letters - The Writings of Henry David Thoreau”, p.101, Read Books Ltd

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• Whose are the truly labored sentences? From the weak and flimsy periods of the politician and literary man, we are glad to turn even to the description of work, the simple record of the month's labor in the farmer's almanac, to restore our tone and spirits.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Simple, Men, Style

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.517, Simon and Schuster

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• Like speaks to like only; labor to labor, philosophy to philosophy, criticism to criticism, poetry to poetry. Literature speaks how much still to the past, how little to the future, how much to the East, how little to the West.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Philosophy, Past, Criticism

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.280, Simon and Schuster

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• It is a sign of our times, conspicuous to the coarsest observer, that many intelligent and religious persons withdraw themselves from the common labors and competitions of the market and the caucus, and betake themselves to a certain solitary and critical way of living, from which no solid fruit has yet appeared to justify their separation.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Religious, Intelligent, Competition

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1209, Delphi Classics

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• Major League Baseball's labor negotiations involve two paradoxes. The players' union's primary objective is to protect the revenues of a very few very rich owners - principally, the Yankees'. The owners' primary objective is a more egalitarian distribution of wealth. The union believes that unconstrained spending by the richest three teams pulls up all payrolls. Most owners believe that baseball's problems--competitive imbalance, the parlous financial conditions of many clubs--result from large and growing disparities of what are mistakenly treated as 'local' revenues.

  George Will

  Baseball, Team, Believe

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• The highest pleasure to be got out of freedom, and having nothing to do, is labor.

  Mark Twain

  Freedom, Labor Day, Pleasure

  Mark Twain (2014). “Mark Twain’s Letters & Speeches (Annotated Edition)”, p.479, Jazzybee Verlag

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• How soon the labor of men would make a paradise of the earth were it not for misgovernment and a diversion of his energies to selfish interests.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Selfish, Men, Energy

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• Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations tomen; his labor would be depreciated in the market.
  He has no time to be anything but a machine.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Integrity, Men, Would Be

  Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.12

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• Every nail driven should be as another rivet in the machine of the universe, you carrying on the work.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Integrity, Nails, Machines

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.193, Graphic Arts Books

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• I think of no news to tell you. It is a serene summer day here, all above the snow. The hens steal their nests, and I steal theireggs still, as formerly. This is what I do with the hands. Ah, labor,--it is a divine institution, and conversation with many men and hens.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Summer, Winter, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Familiar Letters - The Writings of Henry David Thoreau”, p.44, Read Books Ltd

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• The necessity of labor and conversation with many men and things to the scholar is rarely well remembered.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Men, Experience

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.516, Simon and Schuster

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• We 've wholly forgotten how to die. But be sure you do die nevertheless. Do your work, and finish it. If you know how to begin, you will know when to end.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Forgotten, Ends, Know How

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1211, Delphi Classics

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• One can hardly imagine a more healthful employment, or one more favorable to contemplation and the observation of nature.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Employment, Imagine, Contemplation

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.148, Xist Publishing

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• There are many skillful apprentices, but few master workmen.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Perfection, Masters, Workers

  Henry David Thoreau (1937). “The selected works of Thoreau”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH)

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• We are often struck by the force and precision of style to which hard-working men, unpracticed in writing, easily attain when required to make the effort. As if plainness and vigor and sincerity, the ornaments of style, were better learned on the farm and in the workshop than in the schools. The sentences written by such rude hands are nervous and tough, like hardened thongs, the sinews of the deer, or the roots of the pine.

  Henry David Thoreau

  School, Hard Work, Writing

  Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Walden and Other Writings: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.385, Modern Library

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• Steady labor with the hands, which engrosses the attention also, is unquestionably the best method of removing palaver and sentimentality out of one's style, both of speaking and writing.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Writing, Hands, Style

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.517, Simon and Schuster

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• Though the hen should sit all day, she could lay only one egg, and, besides, would not have picked up materials for another.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Eggs, Hens, Chickens

  Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Walden and Other Writings: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.386, Modern Library

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• The truth is, there is money buried everywhere, and you have only to go to work to find it.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Money, Truth Is, Buried

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.582, Simon and Schuster

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• A man may travel fast enough and earn his living on the road.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Travel, Men, Simplicity

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.665, Simon and Schuster

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• Verily, chemistry is not a splitting of hairs when you have got half a dozen raw Irishmen in the laboratory.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Hair, Half, Dozen

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Cape Cod (Annotated Edition)”, p.171, Jazzybee Verlag

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• It is the art of mankind to polish the world, and every one who works is scrubbing in some part.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Art, Ambition, World

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1771, Delphi Classics

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• An ordinary man will work every day for a year at shoveling dirt to support his body, or a family of bodies; but he is an extraordinary man who will work a whole day in a year for the support of his soul. Even the priests, men of God, so called, for the most part confess that they work for the support of the body.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Years, Support

  Henry David Thoreau (1894). “The Writings of Henry David Thoreau: With Bibliographical Introductions and Full Indexes”

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