Logo - Feel The Words

Work Quotes

Quotes on the meaning of work.

Several quotes here describe work as a solitary process, one that takes real effort to protect from distraction, while others connect a person's politics directly to the character of their work. Related reading includes Growth Quotes.

A Swedish physicist can not discuss his work with fifty people unless he goes abroad. A Swedish economist can get opinions and instructions in his native language from thousands upon thousands of his fellow citizens.

Quotes by George Stigler

But in this Second Work if thou extract our Air and our Fire with the phlegm water, they will the more naturally and easily be drawn out of their infernal prison, and with less losse of their Spirits, than by...

Quotes by George Ripley

The transition state of manners and language cannot be too often insisted upon: for this affected the process at both ends, giving the artist in fictitious life an uncertain model to copy and unstable materials to work in.

Quotes by George Saintsbury

Work is not man's punishment. It is his reward and his strength and his pleasure.

Quotes by George Sand

If you think of a work of fiction as a kind of scale model of the world, then the positive valences - where things turn out better than you thought they would - ought to be in there somewhere, too.

Quotes by George Saunders

Unless they have disabilities to cope with, no family should get more from living on benefits than the average family gets from going out to work. No more open-ended chequebook.

Quotes by George Osborne

I'm not a legislator. I've never been a lobbyist. I've never worked a session before, but based on my conversations with leadership in the Senate and the House, I get the general sense that people want to work together to...

Quotes by George P. Bush

The invisibility of work and workers in the digital age is as consequential as the rise of the assembly line and, later, the service economy.

Quotes by George Packer

With work increasingly invisible, it's much harder to grasp the human effects, the social contours, of the Internet economy.

Quotes by George Packer

Every movement, to stay alive - a very difficult thing to do historically - has to find a way to harness that initial surge of emotion and turn it to the hard, steady, un-sexy work of recruiting new members, strategizing,...

Quotes by George Packer

Part of the mystique of blogs is their protean quality: They work both sides of the divide between politics and media, further blurring the already fuzzy distinctions between reporter, pundit, political operative, activist, and citizen.

Quotes by George Packer

We can't just throw a switch and say Indian Point is going to be safe, we have to look long-term because it will ultimately be decommissioned and we have to work aggressively now to bring in new sources of power.

Quotes by George Pataki

I knew that good people who wanted to be a part of the American dream have become trapped in dependency because the federal government and the state government had made it in their economic interest not to take a job...

Quotes by George Pataki

I want to be read. When you write a TV show like 'The Wire,' you've got three to four million readers watching your work. Even Grisham doesn't sell that many books.

Quotes by George Pelecanos

My goal is to get a real film industry started in Washington. An actual one, not where features come to town and shoot second unit for a few days. I would love to get something started here. Hire local crews....

Quotes by George Pelecanos

From my point of view, there is a lot of joy in stage work.

Quotes by George Peppard

It's not that I'm knocking the movie and television work.

Quotes by George Peppard

I try to pay it forward. I do a lot of philanthropic and charity work. Some of my greatest awards, greatest rewards, have not been for comic work but for charity work.

Quotes by George Perez

It is not only my laboratory and my place of work but also my home, so that on the 30th October I was able to share my happiness immediately with my students and collaborators and, at the same time, with...

Quotes by George Porter

Tonight I should like to thank all those who have shared my work and to acknowledge the debt that I owe to my wife whose encouragement to put research before all other things has been a great strength to me.

Quotes by George Porter

Frequently Asked Questions

What kind of quotes are on the "Work" page?
These lean toward the thoughtful side of work — the idea that "intellectual work is essentially a lonely process," the belief that one's politics and "the character of his particular work are inseparable," and an image of people unwinding after work all over the world talking about life's bigger questions.
Is there a spiritual angle to any of these?
While these particular quotes are secular, if you're looking for a spiritual perspective on work, see Prayers for that theme.
Do these quotes connect work to personal identity?
Yes, one of the strongest lines here argues that your politics and "the character of his particular work are inseparable" — the idea that what you do reflects who you are. If that resonates, Growth quotes explore a similar idea of work shaping the person.
Is there anything here about effort or persistence?
These specific quotes focus more on the nature and meaning of work than on effort itself, but Effort quotes cover that ground directly.
What about setting goals through work?
For that angle, Goal quotes is the better fit — the "Work" page here is more about the character and process of working itself.

There's also a lighter side - people unwinding after work to talk through life's bigger questions over drinks. See Effort Quotes and Goal Quotes for more on getting things done.