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You get work however you get work. People keep working, in a freelance world, and more and more of today's world is freelance, because their work is good, and because they are easy to get along with, and because they deliver the work on time. And you don't even need all three. Two out of three is fine. People will tolerate how unpleasant you are if your work is good and you deliver it on time. They'll forgive the lateness of the work if it's good, and if they like you. And you don't have to be as good as the others if you're on time and it's always a pleasure to hear from you.
Neil GaimanA work of art does not need an explanation. The work has to speak for itself. The work may be subject to many interpretations, but only one was in the mind of the artist. Some artists say to make the work readable for the public is an artistโs responsibility, but I donโt agree with that. The only responsibility to be absolutely truthful to the self. My work disturbs people and nobody wants to be disturbed They are not fully aware of the effect my work has on them, but they know it is disturbing.
Louise BourgeoisIn a play, certainly, the subject is of more importance than in any other work of art. Infelicity, triviality, vagueness of subject, may be outweighed in a poem, a novel, or a picture, by charm of manner, by ingenuity of execution; but in a drama the subject is of the essence of the work-it is the work. If it is feeble, the work can have no force; if it is shapeless, the work must be amorphous.
Henry JamesWhat work I have done I have done because it has been play. If it had been work I shouldn't have done it. . . . The work that is really a man's own work is play and not work at all. . . . When we talk about the great workers of the world we really mean the great players of the world.
Mark TwainWe aren't defined by our work. People think if you over-identify with your work, then that must mean you're giving over too much of yourself to it, that there's something wrong with that. We're trained to believe in things like work-life balance. So much work is tending towards service. It's very much about creating experiences rather than products, and it makes those boundaries between life and work very slippery.
Melissa Gira GrantIn order to be a success in business, there is one thing you must do. You cannot be successful without it. That is WORK. I have not told you anything new. Everyone knows that you cannot be successful in anything without work. Why does not everyone work? Because some lack the one thing that makes men want to work - ENTHUSIASM. That is something no one can give you. You must acquire it yourself, and the only way that you can become enthusiastic about anything is to have a thorough KNOWLEDGE of it. You have never seen an enthusiastic man who was lazy.
Thomas Watson, Jr.It must be a good thing to die conscious of having performed some real good, and to know that by this work one will live, at least in the memory of some, and will have left a good example to those that come after. A work that is good-it may not be eternal, but the thought expressed in it is, and the work itself will certainly remain in existence for a long, long time; and if afterwards others arise, they can do no better than follow in the footsteps of such predecessors and do their work in the same way.
Vincent Van GoghWork on causal theories of knowledge - early work by Armstrong, and Dretske, and Goldman - seemed far more satisfying. As I started to see the ways in which work in the cognitive sciences could inform our understanding of central epistemological issues, my whole idea of what the philosophical enterprise is all about began to change. Quine certainly played a role here, as did Putnam's (pre-1975) work in philosophy of science, and the exciting developments that went on in that time in philosophy of mind.
Hilary KornblithThe return from your work must be the satisfaction which that work brings you and the world's need of that work. With this, life is heaven, or as near heaven as you can get. Without this - with work which you despise, which bores you, and which the world does not need - this life is hell.
W. E. B. Du BoisOne of the great underlying principles governing our life is service. Most of us have to work, but do we serve? Do we work in a spirit of service? Do we work for Life and our fellows? Or do we merely work for self, in order to make a living?
Henry Thomas HamblinI understand all the work to be of a nonabstract nature regardless of the style, form, or explicit subject matter because all the work... is concerned with evoking experiences that are in themselves - and their relationship to you, the viewer - the ultimate subject and content of the work. I want to equate the experience of the work with its meaning.
Roni HornFor me, my work is pretty much a lot of my identity. I mean I live to work, basically. With money I'm able to earn I don't put into clothes especially or things like that. I use it as a way of buying time to work. That's how I see money for me. It represents time to be by myself working on these ideas. So in that sense, the work is kind of a surrogate religion, maybe not so surrogate, maybe it is part religion.
Michael C. McMillenIf you do good work for good clients, it will lead to other good work for other good clients. If you do bad work for bad clients, it will lead to other bad work for other bad clients.
Michael BierutLeisure is non-work for the sake of work. Leisure is the time spent recovering from work and in the frenzied but hopeless attempt to forget about work.
Bob BlackWe honor life when we work. The type of work is not important: the fact of work is. All work feeds the soul if it is honest and done to the best of our abilities and if it brings joy to others.
Matthew FoxYou are a free man, and let no organization come between you and your best interests. Do not let any man, or any body of men, tell you where you shall work, or where you shall not work, when you shall work, or when, you shall not work. If a man wants to belong to a labor organization, let him belong. If he does not want to belong to a labor organization, let him have perfect liberty to stay out. You own yourself. Let no man put a manacle on your hand, or foot, or head, or heart.
Thomas De Witt TalmageI have a very dear friend, a great painter, called me up very upset, the work wasnโt going wellโฆ He asked me to come to his studio -- which I did -- I looked around at the work, dozens of sketches, drawings, large pictures, and I was very close to his work, intensely involved with his work, and he asked me, โWhatโs wrong?โ And I said, โSimple โ itโs a loss of nerve.
Morton FeldmanNo man is born into the world whose work is not born with him. There is always work, and tools to work with, for those who will, and blessed are the horny hands of toil. The busy world shoves angrily aside the man who stands with arms akimbo until occasion tells him what to do; and he who waits to have his task marked out shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled.
James Russell LowellTake courage and work on. Patience and steady work - this is the only way. Go on; remember - patience and purity and courage and steady work. . . . So long as you are pure, and true to your principles, you will never fail.
Swami VivekanandaThere's no director or actor that I want to work with more than anyone else, other then maybe Johnny Depp, who I really would love to work with. I don't view any directors or actors above regular people, so I'm just happy to work with anyone, as long as they have talent.
Callan McAuliffeListen carefully to first criticisms made of your work. Note just what it is about your work that critics don't like - then cultivate it. That's the only part of your work that's individual and worth keeping.
Jean CocteauOur philosophy about activity and our attitude about hard work will affect the quality of our lives. What we decide about the rightful ratio of labor to rest will establish a certain work ethic. That work ethic - our attitude about the amount of labor we are willing to commit to future fortune - will determine how substantial or how meager that fortune turns out to be.
Jim RohnI love to not work. I love to go to the movies, I like to travel... I think I work maybe half the year. Sometimes, people think I've done three films in a year, but it's because I did a participation [cameo?] in a film. But I work for half a year, no more.
Catherine DeneuveThinking can be lateral or "sweaty". For the latter you're better off in an office and following a routine but for the former you have to be "out of your mind", so to speak. So although I recognize the merits of hard work, I find that my work goes stale if I don't go off wandering around the world every few weeks. My friends think I'm a gipsy, but that's when I do "part 1" of my best work.
Joao MagueijoFor me work is an absolute necessity, indeed I can't really drag it out, I take no more pleasure in anything than in work, that's to say, pleasure in other things stops immediately and I become melancholy if I can't get on with the work.
Vincent Van GoghWhen you want a thing deeply, earnestly and intensely, this feeling of desire reinforces your will and arouses in you the determination to work for the desired object. When you have a distinct purpose in view, your work becomes of absorbing interest. You bend your best powers to it; you give it concentrated attention; you think of little else than the realization of this purpose; your will is stimulated into unusual activity, and as a consequence you do your work with an increasing sense of power.
Grenville KleiserRunning is a huge category for us. To be able to run to work and have lightweight, breathable, windproof materials you can chuck in your bag that work on technical level but also on a lifestyle level are really important to me. I work out - and I think most people do - and I want to encourage women and inspire them in a way that fits in with their lifestyle.
Stella McCartneyYou have as great an opportunity for satisfaction in the performance of your duty as I do in mine. The progress of this work will be determined by our joint efforts. Whatever your calling, it is as fraught with the same kind of opportunity to accomplish good as is mine. What is really important is that this is the work of the Master. Our work is to go about doing good as did He.
Gordon B. HinckleyI assured the prime minister, my administration will work hard to lay the foundation of peace in the Middle - to work with our nations in the Middle East, give peace a chance. Secondly, I told him that our nation will not try to force peace, that we'll facilitate peace and that we will work with those responsible for a peace.
George W. BushListening is everything. Listening is the whole deal. That's what I think. And I mean that in terms of before you work, after you work, in between work, with your children, with your husband, with your friends, with your mother, with your father. It's everything. And it's where you learn everything.
Meryl StreepYou have to work from one point to go to another. So I admire work ethic, I think it should be reinforced through our neighborhoods, that everybody should work hard, practice makes perfect, you have to be diligent with what you want, you have to apply yourself, you have to motivate your self. You have to do for self by yourself, and then you can do things for other people. That's what I had to do, I had to do for self.
Tupac ShakurI think that no matter what you do, whether you rodeo, whether you work in an office, you work in the oilfield or you play music for a living, eventually if you do enough of it, the devil in the back of your head tries to turn it into work. You have to find new ways to make it new and make it exciting to keep that drive there.
Cody JohnsonWe dream of having a clean house - but who dreams of actually doing the cleaning? We don't have to dream about doing the work, because doing the work is always within our grasp; the dream, in this sense, is to attain the goal without the work.
Marcus BuckinghamMany white-collar workers are lucky enough to have creative-class jobs that are satisfying, which is great as long as you're still able to carve out true, work-free leisure at some point. But there's been a kind of sneaky reframing of work as play as the Silicon Valley model has been imported into other fields. Now you see adult offices that look like nursery schools, and staff paintball parties, work cultures that encourage the "We're a family here!" fantasy while preventing workers from going home at a reasonable hour to be with their actual families.
Katrina OnstadLots of people have asked me what Gracie and I did to make our marriage work. It's simple - we don't do anything. I think the trouble with a lot of people is that they work too hard at staying married. They make a business out of it. When you work too hard at a business you get tired; and when you get tired you get grouchy; and when you get grouchy you start fighting; and when you start fighting you're out of business.
George BurnsPeople know that billions of pounds are wasted. Billions of pounds never get near the families that need it. It is an absolute outrage that hard-working people go out to work every day, get up early, come back late, don't see enough of their families in order to pay taxes to fund vast bureaucracies that are inefficient in order to fund a welfare system which allows too many people to sit for the whole of their lives on out-of-work benefits without going out to look for work.
George OsborneI don't want my kids to grow up with no father like I did. I came to the conclusion a while ago that you can work until midnight and not be finished or you can work until 6 or 7 and not be finished. I decided I'd rather work until 6 or 7.
Benjamin CarsonWhen I'm writing, which is 8-9 months out of the year, I'm in a concerted writing pace, where I work 5 days a week for at least a few hours a day, maybe a little bit more. But I won't work for more than 2 hours at a time. I'll work for a couple hours and take a break.
Amy RayI don't like every other musician's work. The same way that filmmakers don't like every other filmmakers' work. Just because I'm a feminist doesn't mean I'm gonna say that I like every other woman's work, or that I appreciate another statement that another woman publicly made.
Kathleen HannaCooking is work that is traditionally done by working-class people. The work itself is not glamorous. It's repetitive, and it's a lot closer to factory work than art, whatever level you're doing it at. Certainly chefs are used to living like rock 'n' rollers to some extent, inasmuch as we get a lot of those fringe benefits without having to learn how to play guitar.
Anthony BourdainYou want to be confident when you work out because it takes a lot to make you work out. So many women really enjoy it, but it's a hard thing and you have to make yourself do it most of the time. I think you want to feel that you look good to make you want to work out a little bit more.
Stella McCartneyOne of the things about working over decades is the cumulative and the durational effect of work. That the updating process of a work happens less in changing the work than the way it's being read for a specific time.
Tom BurrBless, O Lord of the centuries and the millennia, the daily work by which men and women provide bread for themselves and their loved ones. We also offer to your fatherly hands the toil and sacrifices associated with work, in union with your Son Jesus Christ, who redeemed human work from the yoke of sin and restored it to its original dignity.
Pope John Paul IIYou see, if you take pains and learn in order to get a reward, the work will seem hard; but when you work... if you love your work, you will find your reward in that.
Leo TolstoyWhat you are lies with you. If you are lazy, and accept your lot, you may live in it. If you are willing to work, you can write your name anywhere you choose, among the only ones who live beyond the grave in this world, the people who write books that help, make exquisite music, carve statues, paint pictures, and work for others. Never mind the calico dress, and the coarse shoes. Work at you books, and before long you will hear yesterday's tormentors boasting that they were once classmates of yours.
Gene Stratton-PorterAs a young actor, there's a very small group of kids, just a handful. As you get older, all of a sudden, there's a bunch of guys your age that work. It's a very different experience when you used to be on the short list because you were young and there's only so many kids that can do the work and then all of a sudden you're in your twenties and thirties and there's a whole bunch of guys that can do your work.
Ricky Schroder