C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Work
Work is alone noble.
Always at work.
In books, or work, or healthful play.
Work first, and then rest.
And still be doing, never done.
Plough deep while sluggards sleep.
We live not to ourselves, our work is life.
We work and that is godlike.
Better to wear out than to rust out.
Nothing is impossible to industry.
Thine to work as well as pray.
Work is the means of living, but it is not living.
The modern majesty consists in work.
Work, ah! that talisman to guard one against one’s self.
Never idle a moment, but thrifty and thoughtful of others.
Get work! Be sure it is better than what you work to get.
Too busy with the crowded hour to fear to live or die.
This we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.
God did anoint thee with His odorous oil, to wrestle not to reign.
Unless a man works he cannot find out what he is able to do.
You never will be saved by works; but let us tell you most solemnly that you never will be saved without works.
The rather since every man is the son of his own works.
The fruit derived from labor is the sweetest of pleasures.
Work, according to my feeling, is as much or a necessity to man as eating and drinking.
Unless we put heart and soul into our labor we but brutify our actions.
Avowed work, even when uncongenial, is far less trying to patience than feigned pleasure.
Without labor there were no ease, no rest, so much as conceivable.
Genuine work alone, what thou workest faithfully, that is eternal as the Almighty Founder and World-Builder Himself.
Why has no religion this command before all others: Thou shalt work?
It is our actual work which determines our value.
Man’s record upon this wild world is the record of work, and of work alone.
I doubt if hard work, steadily and regularly carried on, ever yet hurt anybody.
Work is the inevitable condition of human life, the true source of human welfare.
Patience, persistence, and power to do are only acquired by work.
We enjoy ourselves only in our work, our doing; and our best doing is our best enjoyment.
It is far better to give work which is above the men than to educate the men to be above their work.
The Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy works, and in all that thou puttest thine hand unto.
It is the primal curse, but softened into mercy, made the pledge of cheerful days and nights without a groan.
Mind, it is our best work that He wants, not the dregs of our exhaustion. I think He must prefer quality to quantity.
Lie not down wearied ’neath Woe’s weeping willow; work with a stout heart and resolute will.
Yet hence the poor are clothed, the hungry fed; health to himself, and to his infants bread, the laborer bears.
No work is worse than overwork; the mind preys on itself,—the most unwholesome of food.
Ease and speed in doing a thing do not give the work lasting solidity or exactness of beauty.
Work was made for man, and not man, for work. Work is man’s servant, both in its results to the worker and the world. Man is not work’s servant, save as an almost universal perversion has made him such.
It is not work that kills men; it is worry. Work is healthy; you could hardly put more upon a man than he can bear. Worry is rust upon the blade. It is not the revolution that destroys the machinery, but the friction.
Man hath his daily work of body or mind appointed, which declares his dignity; while other animals unactive range, and of their doings God takes no account.
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; and blessed are the horny hands of toil.
God is a worker. He has thickly strewn infinity with grandeur. God is love; He yet shall wipe away Creation’s tears, and all the worlds shall summer in His smile. Why work I not? the veriest mote that sports its one-day life within the sunny beam has its stern duties.