When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.
Ursula K. Le Guin
What I do, I do very well, and what I don't do well, I don't do at all.
Unknown wise person
It is not worth while to go round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar.
Henry David Thoreau
Most people are such fools that it is really no great compliment to say that someone is above the average.
W. Somerset Maugham
Make good use of bad rubbish.
Elizabeth Beresford
Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.
Thomas Jefferson
Astronomers, like burglars and jazz musicians, operate best at night.
Miles Kingson
When you are doing something difficult, tedious, or extremely time-consuming, ask yourself what would happen if you didn't do it. If the answer is nothing, or next to nothing, stop doing it.
from Real Success WITHOUT a Real Job
One principal reason why people are so often useless is that they neglect their own profession or calling, and divide and shift their attention among a multitude of objects and pursuits.
Nathaniel Emmons
The really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure.
Henry David Thoreau
If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.
G. K. Chesterton
Never let your boss know that you exist.
Workplace graffiti
Enjoyment of Work Work is work if you're paid to do it, and it's a pleasure if you pay to be allowed to do it.
Finley Peter Dunne
Find a job you like and you add five days to every week.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
My father taught me to work, but not to love it. I never did like to work, and I don't deny it. I'd rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh anything but work.
Abraham Lincoln
No one hates his job so heartily as a farmer.
H. L. Mencken
I never thought of achievement. I just did what came along for me to do the thing that gave me the most pleasure.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Life without absorbing occupation is hell.
Elbert Hubbard
Never continue in a job you don't enjoy. If you're happy in what you're doing, you'll like yourself, you'll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you'll have more success than you could possibly have imagined.
Roger Caras
If people really liked to work, we'd still be plowing the land with sticks and transporting goods on our backs.
William Feather
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I am afraid that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.
Jane Austen
I'm a free soul who hates paying attention to things I am not interested in. Consequently, I have rarely been comfortable in the role of 'employee.'
Steve Solomon
I'd rather be a failure at something I enjoy than a success at something I hate.
George Burns
No longer diverted by other emotions, I work the way a cow grazes.
Kδthe Kollwitz
The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it.
Mother Teresa