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Thoughts on work

Published: Dec 2, 2017 08:15:26 AM IST
Updated: Dec 1, 2017 10:28:40 AM IST

People don’t choose their careers—they are engulfed by them.
—John Dos Passos

Office life typically proceeds behind a mask of shallow cheerfulness, leaving workers grievously unprepared to handle the fury and sadness continually aroused by their colleagues.
—Alain de Botton

Every man’s work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.
—Samuel Butler

Diligence is the mother of good fortune, and the goal of a good intention was never reached through its opposite, laziness.
—Miguel de Cervantes


This became a credo of mine: Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work.
—Bette Davis


All labour has dignity.
—Martin Luther King Jr


One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.

—Marie Curie


The three most  harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates and a monthly salary.
 —Nassim Nicholas Taleb

How can I take an interest in my work when I don’t like it?
—Francis Bacon

A sluggard’s appetite is never filled, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.
—Proverbs 13:4

Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment.
—Robert Benchley

The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
—James Baldwin

I have found some of the best reasons I ever had for remaining at the bottom simply by looking at the men at the top.
—Frank Moore Colby

Fill today with work; fill tomorrow with hope.
—BC Forbes

Images: Mondadori Portfolio/Getty Images; Ulf Andersen/Getty Images; Culture Club / Getty Images; Howard Sochurek / The Life Picture Collection / Getty Images; John Springer Collection / Corbis / Corbis/Getty Images; Peter Turnley / Corbis / Vcg Via Getty Images; Ann Ronan Pictures / Print Collector / Getty Images; John Kobal Foundation/Getty Images; Prisma / Uig/Getty Images;Wolverhampton City Council / Arts And Heritage / Alamy


(This story appears in the 08 December, 2017 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)

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