Quotes about work

Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.

Labor history was pornography of a sort in those days, and even more so in these days. In public schools and in the homes of nice people it was and remains pretty much taboo to tell tales of labor's sufferings and derring-do.

"Why are you quitting?"

"Sick of my job."

"Because what you were doing was morally bad?" suggested the voice.

"Because it wasn't getting anybody anywhere. Because it was getting everybody nowhere."

"Because it was evil?" insisted the voice.

"Because it was pointless."

Almost nobody's competent, Paul. It's enough to make you cry to see how bad most people are at their jobs. If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind.

Evidence of submission is displayed by the employee’s going through years depriving himself of his personal freedom for nine hours every day, his ritualistic and punctual arrival at an office, his denying himself his own schedule, and his not having beaten up anyone on the way back home after a bad day. He is an obedient, housebroken dog.

When Paul thought about his effortless rise in the hierarchy, he sometimes, as now, felt sheepish, like a charlatan. He could handle his assignments all right, but he didn't have what his father had, what Kroner had, what Shepherd had, what so many had: the sense of spiritual importance in what they were doing; the ability to be moved emotionally, almost like a lover, by the great omnipresent and omniscient spook, the corporate personality. In short, what Paul missed was what made his father aggressive and great: the capacity to really give a damn.

In order to get what we've got, Anita, we have, in effect, traded these people out of what was the most important thing on earth to them — the feeling of being needed and useful, the foundation of self-respect.

Ethical man accords his profession to his beliefs, instead of according his beliefs to his profession.

Someone who says “I am busy” is either declaring incompetence (and lack of control of his life) or trying to get rid of you.

What they call “play” (gym, travel, sports) looks like work.

Only in recent history has “working hard” signaled pride rather than shame for lack of talent, finesse and, mostly, sprezzatura.

Those who do not think that employment is systemic slavery are either blind or employed.