Great Throughts Treasury

"The greatest asset of any nation is the spirit of its people, and the greatest danger that can menace any nation is the breakdown of that spirit - the will to win and the courage to work." - George B. Cortelyou, fully George Bruce Cortelyou

"God gave man work, not to burden him, but to bless him, and useful work, willingly, cheerfully, effectively done, has always been the finest expression of the human spirit." - Walter R. Courtenay

"I am a great believer in Luck. The harder I work the more of it I seem to have." - Coleman Cox

"No matter how much work a man can do, no matter how engaging his personality may be, he will not advance far in business if he cannot work through others." -

"It is not work that kills, but worry." - Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, also known as Mulock, Mrs Craik, Mrs Craik, Miss Mulok, Miss Muloch, Miss Mulock

"Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work." - Bette Davis, Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis

"To awaken each morning with a smile brightening my face; to greet the day with reverence for the opportunities it contains; to approach my work with a clean mind; to hold ever before me, even in the doing of little things, the Ultimate Purpose toward which I am working; to meet men and women with laughter on my lips and love in my heart; to be gentle, kind and courteous through all the hours; to approach the night with weariness that ever woos sleep and the joy that goes with work well done - this is how I desire to waste wisely my days." - Thomas Dekker

"Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else." - Chub DeWolfe

"A man can believe a considerable deal of rubbish, and yet go about his daily work in a rational and cheerful manner." - Norman Douglas, aka George Norman Douglas

"All progress is made by men of faith who believe in what is right and, what is more important, actually do what is right in their own private affairs. You cannot add to the peace and goodwill of the world if you fail to create an atmosphere of harmony and love right where you live and work." - Thomas Dreier

"When you talk about your troubles, your ailments, your diseases, your hurts, you give longer life to what makes you unhappy. Talking about your grievances merely adds to those grievances. Give recognition only to what you desire. Think and talk only about the good things that add to your enjoyment of your work and life. If you don't talk about your grievances, you'll be delighted to find them disappearing quickly." - Thomas Dreier

"A work of art is an experience, a soul message if you like. It is educational, if you insist, but it educates only the psyche which is ripe and ready to submit to its spell. It is never explicit; it preaches, but only in symbolic terms." -

"Parents represent the last stand of the amateur. Every other trade and profession has developed standards, has required study and practice and licensing before releasing the students into his work. Only one profession remains untutored and untrained -- the bearing and rearing of our children." - Evelyn Mills Duvall

"If I were to suggest a general rule for happiness, I would say "Work a little harder; work a little longer; work!"" - Frederick H. Ecker

"As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey." -

"I never allow myself to become discouraged under any circumstances. The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-tiveness; third, common sense." -

"I never did a day's work in my life. It was all fun." -

"One might think that the money value of an invention constitutes its reward to the man who loves his work. But, speaking for myself, I can honestly say that this is not so. I continue to find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success." -

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -

"Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work." -

"There is no substitute for hard work." -

"Thinking is hard work." -

"The great task of peace is to work morals into it. The only sort of peace that will be real is one in which everybody takes his share or responsibility. World organizations and conferences will be of no value unless there is improvement in the relation of men to men." - Frederic Eggleston, fully Sir Frederic William Eggleston

"In war it serves that we may poison and mutilate each other. In peace it has made our lives hurried and uncertain. Instead of freeing us in great measure from spiritually exhausting labor, it has made men into slaves of machinery, who for the most part complete their monotonous long days' work with disgust and must continually tremble for their poor rations." - Albert Einstein

"O Youth: Do you know that yours is not the first generation to yearn for a life of beauty and freedom? Do you know that all your ancestors felt as you do - and fell victim to trouble and hatred? Do you know, also, that your fervent wishes can only find fulfillment if you succeed in attaining love and understanding of men, and animals, and plants, and stars, so that every joy becomes your joy and every pain your pain? Open your eyes, your heart, your hands, and avoid the poison your forebears so greedily sucked in from History. Then will all the earth be your fatherland, and all your work and effort spread forth blessings." - Albert Einstein

"A man’s a man; but when you see a king, you see the work of many thousand men." - George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans

"He who knows not how to use his leisure has more work than when he is working at work." -

"Every job is a self-portrait of the person who did it. Autograph your work with excellence." - Charles de Saint-Évremond, fully Charles Marguetel de Saint-Denis, seigneur de Évremond

"When men do anything for God, the very least thing, they never know where it will end, nor what amount of work it will do for Him. Love's secret, therefore, is to be always doing things for God, and not to mind because they are such very little ones." -

"The big things that come our way are seldom the result of long thought or careful planning, but rather they are the fruit of seed planted in the daily routine of our work." - William Feather

"The magic of marriage is that it creates meaningful goals to work for, struggle for, sacrifice for. It is the joint struggle that gives the relationship its meaning, and keeps people alive." - Henry Gregor Felsen

"Accustom yourself gradually to carry prayer into all your daily occupations. Speak, move, work, in peace, as if you were in prayer, as indeed you ought to be. Do everything with excitement, by the spirit of grace." - François Fénelon, fully Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon

"Almost every conspicuously successful American owes his rise to having thrown himself heartily into his work and to having done it better than ordinary. Promotion comes to those who demonstrate that they can do more and better work than others. Look upon your work as the lever by which you can rise in the world. To get the best and the most out of life, put the best and the most of yourself into it. Eventually each of us gets rewards we merit." - B. C. Forbes, fully Bertie Charles "B.C." Forbes

"I believe God is managing affairs and that He doesn't need any advice from me. With God in charge, I believe everything will work out for the best in the end. So what is there to worry about." - Henry Ford

"Nobody can think straight who does not work. Idleness warps the mind. Thinking without constructive action becomes a disease." - Henry Ford

"Profit is a by-product of work; happiness is its chief product." - Henry Ford

"The object of living is work, experience, happiness. There is joy in work. All that money can do is buy us some one else's work in exchange for our own. There is no happiness in the realization that we have accomplished something." - Henry Ford

"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probably reason why so few engage in it.'" - Henry Ford

"He who would do some great thing in this short life must apply himself to the work with such a concentration of his forces as, to idle spectators, who live only to amuse themselves, looks like insanity." - Randolph S. Foster, fully Randolph Sinks Foster

"Work as if you were to live 100 years; pray as if you were to die tomorrow." - Benjamin Franklin

"[Recipe for happiness] Work and love." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

"It may be difficult, too, for many of us, to abandon the belief that there is an instinct towards perfection at work in human beings, which has brought them to their present high level of intellectual achievement and ethical sublimation and which may be expected to watch over their development as supermen. I have no faith, however, in the existence of any such internal instinct and I cannot see how this benevolent illusion is to be preserved. The present development of human beings requires, as it seems to me, no different explanation from that of animals. What appears in a minority of human individuals as an untiring impulsion towards further perfection can easily be understood as a result of the instinctual repression upon which is based all that is most precious in human civilization." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

"Work has a greater effect than any other technique of living in the direction of binding the individual more closely to reality; in his work, at least, he is securely attached to a part of reality, the human community." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

"Rest is a state of peace between man and nature... Work is a symbol of conflict and discord; rest is an expression of dignity, peace and freedom." -

"Life is passing; youth goes, strength decays. But duty performed, work done for God - this abides forever, this alone is imperishable." - Richard Fuller

"It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity." -

"It should be the work of a genuine and noble patriotism to raise the life of the nation to the level of its privileges; to harmonize its general practice with its abstract principles; to reduce to actual facts the ideals of its institutions; to elevate instruction into knowledge; to deepen knowledge into wisdom; to render knowledge and wisdom complete in righteousness; and to make the love of country perfect in the love of man." - Henry Giles

"No ritual is too much, provided it is subsidiary to the inner work of worship; and all ritual is too much unless it ministers to that purpose." - William Ewart Gladstone

"People are always talking about originality; but what do they mean? As soon as we are born, the world begins to work on us; and this goes on to the end. And after all, what can we call our own, except energy, strength, and will. If I could give an account of all that I owe to great predecessors and contemporaries there would be but a small balance in my favor." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"There are three classes of readers; some enjoy without judgment; others judge without enjoyment; and some there are who judge while they enjoy and enjoy while they judge. The latter class reproduces the work of art on which it is engaged. Its numbers are very small." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe