They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.
The trouble with the profit system has always been that it is highly unprofitable to most people.
The life-fate of the modern individual depends not only upon the family into which he was born or which he enters by marriage, but increasingly upon the corporation in which he spends the most alert hours of his best years.
I signed up with a temp agency, and much to my dismay they actually found me a job. It had been a couple of years since I’d worked in an office, so I thought I should prepare for it. I went to the YMCA with a friend and had him tie me up in a burlap sack and sink me to the bottom of the pool. Just as I was about to suffocate, he yanked me up and gave me a lunch break.
Where the whole man is involved, there is no work. Work begins with the division of labor.
Work’s a curse, Saturno. I say to hell with the work you have to do to earn a living! That kind of work does us no honor; all it does is fill up the bellies of the pigs who exploit us. But the work you do because you like to do it, because you’ve heard the call, you’ve got a vocation — that’s ennobling! We should all be able to work like that. Look at me, Saturno — I don’t work. And I don’t care if they hang me, I won’t work! Yet I’m alive! I may live badly, but at least I don’t have to work to do it!
I’d like to live as a poor man with lots of money.
With money in your pocket, you are wise and handsome, and you sing well too.
Formula for success: rise early, work hard, strike oil.
There is no easy formula for determining right and wrong livelihood, but it is essential to keep the question alive. . . . We have to stop pretending that we can make a living at something that is trivial or destructive and still have a sense of legitimate self-worth. A society in which vocation and job are separated for most people gradually creates an economy that is often devoid of spirit, one that frequently fills our pocketbooks at the cost of emptying our souls.
When people go to work, they shouldn’t have to leave their hearts at home.
“Your money, or your life.” We know what to do when a burglar makes this demand of us, but not when God does.
Money may be the husk of many things, but not the kernel. It brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not loyalty; days of joy, but not peace or happiness.
To me, money is alive. It is almost human. If you treat it with real sympathy and kindness and consideration, it will be a good servant and work hard for you, and stay with you and take care of you. If you treat it arrogantly and contemptuously, as if it were not human, as if it were only a slave and could work without limit, it will turn on you with a great revenge and leave you to look after yourself alone.
Success didn’t spoil me. I’ve always been insufferable.
If a man has greatness in him, it comes to light not in one flamboyant hour but in the ledger of his daily work.
Work is love made visible.
When we truly discover love, capitalism will not be possible and Marxism will not be necessary.
As the bus slowed down at the crowded bus stop, the Pakistani bus conductor leaned from the platform and called out, “Six only!” The bus stopped. He counted out six passengers, rang the bell, and then, as the bus moved off, called to those left behind: “So sorry, plenty of room in my heart — but the bus is full.” He left behind a row of smiling faces. It’s not what you do; it’s the way that you do it.
