quotations about labor
It is better to drink the wine of industry from an earthen cup, than the wine of indolence from a silver tankard.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
By persistent labor man may attain to all excellence.
DEMOSTHENES
attributed, Day's Collacon
He who labors diligently need never despair.
MENANDER
attributed, Day's Collacon
It has so happened in all ages of the world, that some have laboured, and others have, without labour, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong, and should not continue. To each labourer the whole product of his labour, or as nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
"Fragments of a Tariff Discussion", December 1, 1847
As salt savors the broth, so does labor give a relish to pleasure.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
The truth beyond the fetish's glimmering mirage is the relationship of laborer to product; it is the social account of how that object came to be. In this view every commodity, beneath the mantle of its price tag, is a hieroglyph ripe for deciphering, a riddle whose solution lies in the story of the worker who made it and the conditions under which it was made.
LEAH HAGER COHEN
Glass, Paper, Beans: Revolutions on the Nature and Value of Ordinary Things
Labor has a bitter root, but a sweet taste.
HALM
attributed, Day's Collacon
You don't deserve any more than your labor is worth, it doesn't matter how rich a business owner is. If you don't risk your own wealth to start your own business, you don't deserve to become wealthy like those business owners you envy.
BURGESS KRELL
user comment, "Taxpayers No Longer Have to Pay Cops to Work for Union", WND, August 11, 2015
In proportion as labor is divided, arts are perfected.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
It's hard to find cheap labor in the land of the brave and free. And the only thing that's better, that's if they work for free.
RICHARD FORD
Poems Written by a Government Prisoner in Georgia, USA
I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living.
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
remarks at the 75th Anniversary Celebration of Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn., "To Men of Vision and High Purpose", May 3, 1941
Communism deprives no man of the ability to appropriate the fruits of his labour. The only thing it deprives him of is the ability to enslave others by means of such appropriations.
KARL MARX
The Communist Manifesto
There is no right more universal and more sacred, because lying so near the root of existence, than the right of men to their own labor.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Fame lightens labour.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Labor, with its coarse raiment and its bare right arm, has gone forth in the earth, achieving the truest conquests and rearing the most durable monuments. It has opened the domain of matter and the empire of the mind. The wild beast has fled before it, and the wilderness has fallen back.... its triumphal march is the progress of civilization.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
As brightness is to rustiness, so labor excelleth idleness.
THALES
attributed, Day's Collacon
He who lives upon the fruit of his own labor, escapes the contempt of haughty benefactors.
SAADI
attributed, Day's Collacon
Labour is the source of every blessing.
AESOP
"The Brazier and His Dog", Aesop's Fables
The only real riches are labor; everything else is but the sign or abuse of it.
LEMONTEY
attributed, A Concise Exposition of the Doctrine of Association
The motto marked upon our foreheads, written upon our door-posts, channeled in the earth, and wafted upon the waves, is and must be, "Labor is honorable, and idleness is dishonorable."
T. CARLYLE
attributed, Life's Common Way