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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.

There is no sense in making a film that no-one will go and see, just to create a perfect, but useless, work of art.

Quotes by Carlo Ponti

Most people want to become movie stars and I just want to be in the business. I already was a star. If I get the part of a lifetime and it blows up, then that's wonderful. But if the acting...

Quotes by Carl Lewis

I work with the Carl Lewis Foundation focusing on youth from high school down.

Quotes by Carl Lewis

According to my principles, every master has his true and certain value. Praise and criticism cannot change any of that. Only the work itself praises and criticizes the master, and therefore I leave to everyone his own value.

Quotes by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

I fell in love with social work, and that was my undoing as a poet.

Quotes by Carl Rakosi

Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work.

Carl Sandburg

I stayed away from mathematics not so much because I knew it would be hard work as because of the amount of time I knew it would take, hours spent in a field where I was not a natural.

Carl Sandburg

To work hard, to live hard, to die hard, and then go to hell after all would be too damn hard.

Carl Sandburg

I really try to take care of myself. I really put forth the effort to make a regimen just a part of my life. When I can't, for instance if I'm in a location someplace and I can't work out...

Quotes by Carl Weathers

I am not a celebrity. I work with celebrities, and it is very difficult. When a celebrity wears a dress, it's good for business, so brands fight for the red carpet. Me? I don't like it, because fashion becomes a...

Quotes by Carine Roitfeld

Maybe people have no idea how much work is behind a picture. It can seem very effortless, but there is a lot of work. It's exactly like doing ballet. It's hours and hours, but when you go onstage, it's just...

Quotes by Carine Roitfeld

My mom read French 'Elle' when I was a little girl, and so, when I was 15 or 16, I said, 'I want to work in fashion.'

Quotes by Carine Roitfeld

To me, makeup is fashion and vice versa. What I dress and what I wear always needs to work with my makeup, which is usually the same anyway.

Quotes by Carine Roitfeld

If Caravaggio was a photographer today, I would love to work with him. I love his dark vision - I have a dark vision.

Quotes by Carine Roitfeld

We are very lucky to work in fashion and not work in a hospital or something where the biggest deal we come across is perhaps the length of a skirt.

Quotes by Carine Roitfeld

I definitely want to work on a project with young designers, not just French but international.

Quotes by Carine Roitfeld

You discover yourself through the research of your work.

Quotes by Carine Roitfeld

When you're writing, you're on your own, and I like to work as a team.

Quotes by Carine Roitfeld

Every time you work, you have to do it all over again, to rid yourself of this dross. I suppose for a person who is not an artist or not attempting art, it is not dross, because it is the...

Quotes by Carl Andre

The region west of the Mississippi continued in the popular mind to be a strange land for which the reports of explorers and travellers did the work of fiction, and Cooper's Prairie had few followers.

Quotes by Carl Clinton Van Doren

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.