Quotes about Work

The two ideas, justice and vocation, are inseparable.... It is by way of the principle and practice of vocation that sanctity and reverence enter into the human economy. It was thus possible for traditional cultures to conceive that to work is to pray. (pg. 258, The Idea of a Local Economy)

We had, you could say, everything but money -- Grandmam and I did, anyhow. We had each other and our work, and not much time to think of what we didn't have.

Here on the river I have known peace and beauty such as I never knew in any other place. There is always work here that I need to be doing and I have many worries, for life on the edge seems always threatening to go over the edge. But I am always surprised, when I look back on times here that I know to have been laborious or worrisome or sad, to discover that they were never out of the presence of peace and beauty, for here I have been always in the world itself.

One thing work gives is the joy of not working, a minute here or there when I stand and only breathe, receiving the good of the air. It comes back. Good work done comes back into the mind, a free breath drawn.

We are working well when we use ourselves as the fellow creatures of the plants, animals, materials, and other people we are working with. Such work is unifying, healing. It brings us home from pride and from despair, and places us responsible within the human estate. It defines us as we are: not too good to work with our bodies, but too good to work poorly or joylessly or selfishly or alone. (pg. 134, The Body and the Earth)

All good human work remembers its history.

Good for the body is the work of the body, and good for the soul, the work of the soul, and good for either, the work of the other.

There is no unhappiness like the misery of sighting land (and work) again after a cheerful, careless voyage.

I do not believe we can repair the basic fabric of society until people who are willing to work have work. Work organizes life. It gives structure and discipline to life. It gives meaning and self-esteem to people who are parents. It gives a role model to children.

"A merry laugh doeth good like a medicine," said Solomon a thousand years before Christ. And today if we laughed more we would need medicine less. Aye, if we mixed laughter, love and work in the right proportion, medicine would be but a dream of things that once were.

A man can never be idle with safety and advantage until he has been so trained by work that he makes his freedom from times and tasks more fruitful than his toil has been.

Whatsoever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.'" (Ecclesiastes 9:10)