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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.

You see the guys sign the big contract, you see everybody on TV, but you don't see all the work that goes into that. It's a grind. And a lot of people don't see that grind.

Quotes by Draymond Green

If you've got to second-guess talking to a teammate, what you have will never work.

Quotes by Draymond Green

One thing I've always been taught at the defensive end is you hit first. In life, you throw the first punch; you don't get punched first. It's the same on defense: You've got to hit first. Do your work early....

Quotes by Draymond Green

I've been known to write on the Underground in London and on the subway in New York. I have two or three cafes in Paris that I go into. I find a corner with a little shade, and I can...

Quotes by Douglas Kennedy

Respect and mutual respect are important. I, for instance, often show my latest work so that people can see how I work.

Quotes by Douglas Kirkland

We work as a team. I think having the individual being shown as a star actually creates problems internally. We encourage all our investors to work as a team for the benefit of the founders.

Quotes by Douglas Leone

My first job was washing dishes in the basement of a nursing home for $2.10 an hour, and I learned as much about the value of hard work there as I ever did later.

Quotes by Douglas Preston

I'm pretty much a 9-to-5 kind of guy. I usually get to work about 8 in the morning, and I work until 4 or 5, and sometimes I work on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Pretty much I keep the same...

Quotes by Douglas Preston

He thinks with regret of the great days when he could at harvest time at least go down into Hungary and work on the big estates and bring back, as his wage, a side of bacon for the winter. That...

Quotes by Douglas Reed

What's it like to envision the ten-thousand-year environmental impact of tossing a plastic bottle into the trash bin, all in the single second it takes to actually toss it? Or the ten-thousand-year history of the fossil fuel being burned to...

Quotes by Douglas Rushkoff

Unlike the Tea Party, who see themselves as the customers of government, people in the Occupy Wall Street movement understand that we are the government. Stated most simply, we are trying to run a 21st-century society on a 13th-century economic...

Quotes by Douglas Rushkoff

The early cyberpunk idea was that networked computers would let us do our work at home, as freelancers, and then transact directly with peers over networks. Digital technology would create tremendous slack, allow us to apply its asynchronous, decentralized qualities...

Quotes by Douglas Rushkoff

I've long been an admirer of Philip French's way of writing as well as his knowledge of films. He was one of the few critics to be aware, and make audiences aware, of the work of people on a film...

Quotes by Douglas Slocombe

I'm short on celebrations and long on getting to work.

Quotes by Douglas Tompkins

These parks are our life's work, not the clothing chains we created, selling people clothes they don't need.

Quotes by Douglas Tompkins

We need to pay our dues to live on this earth; we need to pay the rent, and I'm doing that with the work we are carrying out here in Patagonia.

Quotes by Douglas Tompkins

The computer is a mechanism for acceleration: it accelerates economic activity, and this is eating up the world. It's eating up resources, it's processing, it's manufacturing, it's distributing, it's consuming. That's what the computer's real work does, and it does...

Quotes by Douglas Tompkins

There's a consistency in my work that pops up independent of the limitations of the technology.

Quotes by Douglas Trumbull

I meet astrophysicists almost every week who say that they went into their line of work because of '2001.'

Quotes by Douglas Trumbull

On a Friday night, I like to go out because my friends, who have been working normal hours, just want to let go after a stressful week at work.

Quotes by Douglas Booth

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.