Labor Quotes

Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.

Confucius, The Confucian Analects

The doubt of an earnest, thoughtful, patient and laborious mind is worthy of respect. In such doubt may be found indeed more faith than in half the creeds.

John Lancaster Spalding

Before all else, we seek, upon our common labor as a nation, the blessings of Almighty God.

Dwight D. Eisenhowe

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.

George Washington

If by saying that all men are born free and equal, you mean that they are all equally born; it is true, but true in no other sense; birth, talent, labor, virtue, and providence, are forever making differences.

Eugene Edwards

I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale.

Marie Curie

The body is a marvelous machine... a chemical laboratory, a power - House. Every movement, voluntary or involuntary, full of secrets and marvels.

Theodor Herzl

All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.

Seneca

Learning without thought is labor lost thought without learning is perilous.

Confucius

Try as hard as we may for perfection, the net result of our labors is an amazing variety of imperfectness. We are surprised at our own versatility in being able to fail in so many different ways.

Samuel McChord Crothers

To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.

Sir Winston Churchill

No one but a theorist believes his theory; everyone puts faith in a laboratory result but the experimenter himself.

Albert Einstein, quoted in Scientific American, September 2004, page 69

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

Thomas Jefferson

A leader is someone who steps back from the entire system and tries to build a more collaborative, more innovative system that will work over the long term.

Robert Reich

Everyone is in business for himself, for he is selling his services, labor or ideas. Until one realizes that this is true he will not take conscious charge of his life and will always be looking outside himself for guidance.

Sidney Madwed

In activity we must find our joy as well as glory; and labor, like everything else that is good, is its own reward.

Edwin P. Whipple

Any artist should be grateful for a naive grace which puts him beyond the need to reason elaborately.

Saul Bellow

Men of genius do not excel in any profession because they labor in it, but they labor in it because they excel.

William Hazlitt

I respect the man who knows distinctly what he wishes. The greater part of all mischief in the world arises from the fact that men do not sufficiently understand their own aims. They have undertaken to build a tower, and spend no more labor on the foundation than would be necessary to erect a hut.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.

Victor Hugo

If all the cars in the United States were placed end to end, it would probably be Labor Day Weekend.

Doug Larson

If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search... I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor.

Nikola Tesla, New York Times, October 19, 1931

Concern for man himself and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors, concern for the great unsolved problems of the organization of labor and the distribution of goods - - In order that the creations of our mind shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.

Albert Einstein

I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.

Francis Bacon

Early to bed and early to rise probably indicates unskilled labor.

John Anthony Ciardi

Not to know what has been transacted in former times is to be always a child. If no use is made of the labors of past ages, the world must remain always in the infancy of knowledge.

Cicero

The gates of Hell are open night and day Smooth the descent, and easy is the way But, to return, and view the cheerful skies In this, the task and mighty labor lies.

John Dryden

One who is too wise an observer of the business of others, like one who is too curious in observing the labor of bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.

Alexander Pope

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.

Victor Hugo

Men should not trust in God as if God did all, and yet labor earnestly as is he himself did all.

Allan K. Chalmers