Work Is Never Done Quotes

“Can we get back to work now?" Haley asked, sounding innocent, but Zoe didn't miss the woman's lips twitching
or the humor sparkling in her eyes. Something told her that this woman truly enjoyed torturing her husband.
"For god sake's, my little grasshopper, you love the Yankees more than I do! What the hell is going on?" He turned accusing eyes on Zoe. "How dare you brainwash my wife?" he hissed.
"A re you going to leave so that we can get some work done?" Haley demanded, turning her attention to the computer.
"No," he said stubbornly, folding his arms over his chest, glaring at them.
"Buttercream frosting," Haley said softly, never taking her eyes away from her computer screen.
Jason licked his lips as he looked his pregnant wife over hungrily. "Tonight?" he croaked out.
"If you're good," Haley said, with a small shrug. "But you have to leave-"
"Bye," Jason said quickly, cutting her off and rushing out of the trailer just as fast as he came.”

— R.L. Mathewson

“A man can work from sun to sun, But a woman's work is never done.”

— Jean Little

“I can tell you that solitude
Is not all exaltation, inner space
Where the soul breathes and work can be done.
Solitude exposes the nerve,
Raises up ghosts.
The past, never at rest, flows through it.”

— May Sarton

“God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply.”

— James Hudson Taylor

“Then, what is sacrelige [sic]? If it is nothing more than a rebellion against dogma, it is eventually as meaningless as the dogma it defies, and they are both become hounds ranting in the high grass, never see the boar in the thicket. Only a religious person can perpetrate sacrelige: and if its blasphemy reaches the heart of the question; if it investigates deeply enough to unfold, not the pattern, but the materials of the pattern, and the necessity of a pattern; if it questions so deeply that the doubt it arouses is frightening and cannot be dismissed; then it has done its true sacreligious [sic] work, in the service of its adversary: the only service that nihilism can ever perform.
(unused 1949 prefatory note to The Recognitions)”

— William Gaddis

“When the ships had lifted, they returned across the river to the silence of death. Then his grandfather told him, "Many fine things your father had planned for you: learning and useful work and a life of satisfaction and peace. Do you recall this?"
"Yes, Grandfather."
"The learning you shall have. You will learn patience and resource, the ability of your hands and your mind. You will have useful work: the destruction of evil men. What work could be more useful? This is Beyond; you will find that your work is never done-so therefore you may never know life of peace. However, I guarantee you ample satisfaction, for I will teach you to crave the blood of these men more than the flesh of woman."
The old man had been as good as his word.”

— Jack Vance

“WHATEVER YOU DO, DO IT WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT Work at it, if necessary, early and late, in season and out of season, not leaving a stone unturned, and never deferring for a single hour that which can be done just as well now. The old proverb is full of truth and meaning, "Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well." Many a man acquires a fortune by doing his business thoroughly, while his neighbor remains poor for life, because he only half does it. Ambition, energy, industry, perseverance, are indispensable requisites for success in business. Fortune always favors the brave, and never helps a man who does not help himself.”

— P.T. Barnum

“A writer's work is never done, unless he or she has no readers.”

— K. Sean Harris

“I have never understood why "hard work" is supposed to be pitiable. True, some work is soul destroying when it is done against the grain, but when it is part of "making" how can you grudge it? You get tired, of course, but the struggle, the challenge, the feeling of being extended as you never thought you could be is fulfilling and deeply, deeply satisfying.”

— Rumer Godden

“If you have a story to tell, put it out there. Get the thing done. No excuses. No procrastinating. No apologies. It will never be as good as you want it to be, so forget about perfection. Just be satisfied that you've done the best work you can do at this stage in your life as an author. Then roll the rocket onto the launch pad and fire it off. After that, write another story. Always keep going. Move fast. Stay one step ahead of the forces of distraction and self-doubt. Love your characters enough to give them a good home. Love your readers enough to give them a place of refuge from life's tragedies, big and small. And love the world you live in enough to make it the world of your dreams.”

— James Hampton

“We've dug our holes and hallowed caves Put goblin foes in shallow graves This day our work is just begun In the mines where silver rivers run
Beneath the stone the metal gleams Torches shine on silver streams Beyond the eyes of he spying sun In the mines where silver rivers run
The hammers chime on Mithral pure As dwarven mines in days of yore A craftsman's work is never done In the mines where silver rivers run
To dwarven gods we sing or praise Put another orc in a shallow grave We know our work has just began In the mines where silver rivers run”

— R.A. Salvatore

“The secret of my full identity is hidden in Him. He alone can make me who I am, or rather who I will be when at last I fully begin to be. But unless I desire this identity and work to find it with Him and in Him, the work will never be done”

— Thomas Merton

“One of those things I never exactly cared for was that phobia of appearing to be rich. To become rich is a natural thing, a result of your work, that which you've done.”

— Antonio Ermirio De Moraes

“While my parents never had the time or money to secure university education themselves, they were adamant that their children should. In comfort and in love, we were taught the joys of knowledge and of work well done. I only regret that neither my mother nor my father could live to see the day I would accept the Nobel Prize.”

— Sheldon Lee Glashow

“People who have never done theatre before, and have only worked in front of a camera, would find it very difficult, I think, to know how to command a stage and work with the logistics of being on stage. They're very different. The theatre is quite tricky, actually.”

— David Wenham

“A busybody's work is never done.”

— A. N. Wilson

“Working with actors is something I've never done before. I find it tremendous. It's hard work.”

— Anton Corbijn

“Ninety-nine percent talent ... ninety-nine percent discipline ... ninety-nine percent work. He must never be satisfied with what he does. It is never as good as it can be done. Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. An artist is a creature driven by demons. He doesn't know why they choose him and he's usually too busy to wonder why. He is completely amoral in that he will rob, borrow, beg, or steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done.”

— William Faulkner

“I never had a role that I set out for. I always wanted to have a body of work that I'm proud of. Save for two projects, which will never pass my lips, I'm happy with what I've done.”

— Richard Dreyfuss

“I would love to work with my dad! We've never done anything live together. I'm always open to working with talented people, and I think my dad certainly qualifies.”

— Jennifer Grey

“I never quite understood these actors - though I envy them sometimes - who can lie out for a year or two. I feel as though time is a real pressing issue, and I want to get as much work done in the time that I have left.”

— Sylvester Stallone

“I've always wanted to do a photo book, but I've never done one because I've never felt ready; I just didn't feel my work was good enough.”

— Lynsey Addario

“I write every day for most of the work day, and I try to write 2,500 words per day ... If I don't make it a routine and treat it like a job, I'd never get anything done.”

— David B. Coe

“The artist alone among men knows what true humility means. His reach forever exceeds his grasp. He can never be satisfied with his work. He knows when he has done well, but he knows he has never attained his dream. He knows he never can.”

— Rheta Childe Dorr

“I am crawling like one of those children who pulled coal wagons in the depths of the earth. I am on my hands and knees and listening to the boom boom above, or is it my pulse, my heart? I don't know. I must pull this weight strapped behind me, this cart filled with my own fears and inadequacies, and if there is a way out, perhaps I will find it, but not until my hands and knees have worn away the sadness in me, sadness so deep that a whale could swim in its waters and never be found. I do not know anymore what is inside and what is outside. Am I inside the whale or is the whale inside me?
He is the largest mammal on the planet. He is a mammal, not a fish. He is a mammal like me. He is me, this whale.
Wait. Slowly I stopped thinking of bus-stops and supermarket check-outs and I began to think of spring waiting until winter has done its work, its dark underground work.”

— Jeanette Winterson

“The secret to success: Don't stop to admire yourself too often. I only stopped to admire my work after I wrote eight books, before that, I never once admired myself for accomplishing anything in my profession. Don't stop to admire yourself too much, instead, admire people who have achieved more than you have, because that gives you something to keep on looking forward to. But when the time comes that you should take a look at the greatness you have done, make sure you take a really long and hard good look at it! Make sure you know your own greatness.”

— C. JoyBell C.

“The difference between a good administrator and a bad one is about five heartbeats. Good administrators make immediate choices. [ ... ] They usually can be made to work. A bad administrator, on the other hand, hesitates, diddles around, asks for committees, for research and reports. Eventually, he acts in ways which create serious problems. [ ... ] A bad administrator is more concerned with reports than with decisions. He wants the hard record which he can display as an excuse for his errors. [ ... ] Oh, they depend on verbal orders. They never lie about what they've done if their verbal orders cause problems, and they surround themselves with people able to act wisely on the basis of verbal orders. Often, the most important piece of information is that something has gone wrong. Bad administrators hide their mistakes until it's too late to make corrections.”

— Frank Herbert

“In my experience, the best creative work is never done when one is unhappy.”

— Albert Einstein

“I've known a whole lot of bulls in my time, and their work is never done.”

— Robert Earl Keen

“If a woman's work is never done, she should start earlier.”

— Ron Stevens

“If woman's sole responsibility is of the domestic type, one class will be crushed by it, and the other throw it off as a badge of poverty. The poor man's motto, 'Woman's work is never done,' leads inevitably to its antithesis - ladies' work is never begun.”

— Antoinette Brown Blackwell

“It is a great delusion to suppose that flesh-meat of any kind is essential to health. Considerably more than three parts of the work in the world is done by men who never taste anything but vegetable, farinaceous food, and that of the simplest kind. There are more strength-producing properties in wholemeal flour, peas, beans, lentils, oatmeal, roots, and other vegetables of the same class, than there are beef or mutton, poultry or fish, or animal food of any description whatever.”

— Catherine Booth

“Sabbath requires surrender. If we only stop when we are finished with all our work, we will never stop, because our work is never completely done. With every accomplishment there arises a new responsibility ... Sabbath dissolves the artificial urgency of our days, because it liberates us from the need to be finished.”

— Wayne Muller

“I think the way design was practiced for most of the 20th century was very declarative. A designer came up with a solution for a project and put it in place and shipped the solution and it landed in a reader or a customer's hands as a brochure. They would see it as a poster, or as a piece of signage. And that was sort of it. That was the end of it. I think Internet technology has really upended that whole equation because in some ways a designer's work is never really done online.”

— Khoi Vinh

“Too little process and you can't get good work done. Too much process and you can't get any work done. Most companies never find the middle.”

— Aaron Levie

“I've done a lot of movies, and you really never know. You do a movie and you think that it's great, and then you see it and it doesn't work.”

— Benicio Del Toro

“The thing about being on the majors, from the beginning, going into this, I was like, "I'm not going to be treated like a factory," because that's never the way it was done before. You're talking about a major label, we're talking about serious business; you're not an artist anymore, you're a business, you have to work in terms of product, you have to release a product, and I don't really think that way at all.”

— Beth Ditto

“In Christian work our initiative and motivation are too often simply the result of realizing that there is work to be done and that we must do it. Yet that is never the attitude of a spiritually vigorous saint. His aim is to achieve the realization of Jesus Christ in every set of circumstances.”

— Oswald Chambers

“I am determined, even if they throw mud in my face, never to show any resentment, nor break with them, nor deviate from the esteem and honor I owe them in the sight of God. If they forget themselves and say or do something offensive against your little bark, even if it is done purposely to make it sink, bear with it for the love of God, who will save you from shipwreck and calm the storm. Do not complain or even say a single work about it. In spite of everything, continue to compliment them when you meet, as if nothing were amiss.”

— Vincent De Paul

“I had never done anything with blue screen before, or prosthetics, or anything like that. Lord of the Rings was like stepping into a videogame for me. It was another world completely. But, to be honest, I basically did it so that I could have the ears. I thought they would really work with my bare head.Working with Martin Scorsese was an absolute minute-by-minute education without him ever being grandiose about it.”

— Cate Blanchett

“Never be easy for any president to deal with any Congress. But republicans got to work together. We got to get things done.”

— Chris Christie

“The successful man has enthusiasm. Good work is never done in cold blood; heat is needed for forge anything. Every great achievement is the story of a flaming heart.”

— Harry S. Truman

“I never look back and think too much about my films. I've done some work I've been proud of over the years but which of them is my favourite I really don't know. I could say the last one. I've had little jumps in my career like Unforgiven possibly.”

— Clint Eastwood

“Brushing my Grilzz Before I Booty Pop. A Woman's work is never Done!”

— Madonna Ciccone