Unfinished Work Quotes

• Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun.

  Christina Rossetti

  Inspirational, Work, Women

  Christina Georgina Rossetti, Maria Keaton (2004). “Prose Works of Christina Rossetti”, Thoemmes Pr

  87 Copy quote

  Show source

• God left the world unfinished for man to work his skill upon. He left the electricity still in the cloud, the oil still in the earth.

  George MacDonald

  Men, Clouds, Skills

  57 Copy quote

• Never show unfinished work.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Unfinished, Shows

  6 Copy quote

• In our dreams lies our unfinished work for the world.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Dream, Lying, World

  4 Copy quote

• I never want projects to be finished; I have always believed in unfinished work. I got that from Schubert, you know, the 'Unfinished Symphony.'

  Yoko Ono

  Symphony, Want, Projects

  4 Copy quote

• God is busy with the completion of your work, both outwardly and inwardly. He is fully occupied with you. Every human being is a work in progress that is slowly but inexplicably moving toward perfection. We are each an unfinished work of art both waiting and striving to be completed. God deals with each of us separately because humanity is a fine art of skilled penmanship where every single dot is equally important for the entire picture.

  Shams Tabrizi

  Art, Moving, Perfection

  131 Copy quote

• I think that, at least in my experience, it is difficult when there is unfinished work. That makes it difficult to think of dying when what you have to do is not quite done. Of course it's never quite done.

  Laura Huxley

  Thinking, Dying, Done

  Source: www.whitelotus.org

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how."

  Viktor E. Frankl

  Life, Responsibility, Men

  Viktor E. Frankl (2015). “Man's Search For Meaning, Gift Edition”, p.65, Beacon Press

  111 Copy quote

  Show source

• The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here so nobly advanced.

  Abraham Lincoln

  War, Long, World

  Gettysburg Address, Gettysburg, Pa., 19 Nov. 1863.

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• At my age, I realize that my most precious possession is time, and I've got too much unfinished work to do to spend even a minute talking about myself.

  Benny Carter

  Talking, Age, Precious Possessions

  8 Copy quote

• Secure writers don't sell first drafts. They patiently rewrite until the script is as director-ready, as actor-ready as possible. Unfinished work invites tampering, while polished, mature work seals its integrity.

  Robert McKee

  Integrity, Theatre, Directors

  Robert McKee (2010). “Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting”, p.7, Harper Collins

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I always believed that my work should be unfinished in the sense that I encourage people to add their creativity to it, either conceptually or physically. Back in the 1960s, I was calling for 'Unfinished Music,' number one, and number two, with my artwork - I was taking unfinished work into the gallery. And that's how I was looking at it.

  Yoko Ono

  Creativity, Two, Numbers

  Interview with Mark Richardson, pitchfork.com. February 12, 2007.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Of course I’m going to learn from the greats—Ronnie Lott, Ed Reed, Troy Polamalu. But there’s a lot of unfinished work they didn’t do. I want to be the standard. I want to redefine what it means to be a safety.

  Earl Thomas

  Mean, Safety, Want

  7 Copy quote

• A person taking stock in middle age is like an artist or composer looking at an unfinished work; but whereas the composer and the painter can erase some of their past efforts, we cannot. We are stuck with what we have lived through. The trick is to finish it with a sense of design and a flourish rather than to patch up the holes or merely to add new patches to it.

  Harry S. Broudy

  Past, Artist, Effort

  7 Copy quote

• But 18 years after the passage of the Civil Liberties Act, there still remains unfinished work to completely rectify and close this regrettable chapter in our Nations history.

  Xavier Becerra

  Hippie, Years, Liberty

  17 Copy quote

• The nation was founded and "dedicated," to use Lincoln's language in the "Gettysburg Address," to equality as a "self-evident truth." But this very principle of equality, as Lincoln also noted, was a "proposition." To make it a reality remained "the unfinished work" of Americans.

  Ronald Takaki

  Reality, Self, Diversity

  10 Copy quote

• While I am humbled by the widespread encouragement of so many and hold in the highest esteem those who serve us in federal office, I know that my head and my heart, my young family's future, and our unfinished work all remain firmly in the State of California - not Washington D.C. Therefore I will not seek election to the U.S. Senate in 2016.

  Gavin Newsom

  Encouragement, Heart, California

  "With Kamala Harris in for Senate bid, Tom Steyer edges closer to a run" by Maeve Reston, www.cnn.com. January 13, 2015.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• A proper autobiography is a death-bed confession. A true man finds so much work to do that he has no time to contemplate his yesterdays; for to-day and to-morrow are here, with their impatient tasks. The world is so busy, too, that it cannot afford to study any man's unfinished work; for the end may prove it a failure, and the world needs masterpieces.

  Mary Antin

  Men, Yesterday, Bed

  Mary Antin (2013). “The Promised Land”, p.12, Courier Corporation

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our true remembrance to President Kennedy is in our actions to honor the unspoken words and finish the unfinished work today and tomorrow and for as long as it takes.

  Marian Wright Edelman

  Long, Remembrance, Honor

  "Ask What You Can Do For Your Country" by Marian Wright Edelman, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 22, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source