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Quotes

Labor is no disgrace.

—Hesiod, c. 700 BC

I began to realize how simple life could be if one had a regular routine to follow with fixed hours, a fixed salary, and very little original thinking to do.

—Roald Dahl, 1984

If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper that did his job well.

—Martin Luther King Jr., 1954

A man is not idle, because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labor and there is an invisible labor.

—Victor Hugo, 1862

Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another.

—Anatole France, 1881

He that would eat the nut must crack the shell.

—Plautus, c. 200 BC

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

—Upton Sinclair, 1935

The three little sentences that will get you through life. Number 1: Cover for me. Number 2: Oh, good idea, Boss! Number 3: It was like that when I got here.

—Nell Scovell, 1991
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