Avoiding Work Quotes & Sayings

My house was built by a partnership called Desire and Ignorance; they often work together, and always with disastrous consequences. It's surprising they aren't more talked of in the press. They are great survivors but incompetent builders. Desire is famous only for pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain, while Ignorance casts a veil over all his unexamined assumptions and makes wrong ones every hour. Together, they created the psychological reality where I live. Hardly a surprise, therefore, if it's unfit for purpose! — Simon Parke

Here are some questions I am constantly noodling over: Do you splurge or do you hoard? Do you live every day as if it's your last, or do you save your money on the chance you'll live twenty more years? Is life too short, or is it going to be too long? Do you work as hard as you can, or do you slow down to smell the roses? And where do carbohydrates fit into all this? Are we really all going to spend our last years avoiding bread, especially now that bread in American is so unbelievable delicious? And what about chocolate? — Nora Ephron

Writing is a legal way of avoiding work without actually stealing and one that doesn't take any talent or training — Robert A. Heinlein

The pain that's created by avoiding hard work is actually much worse than any pain created from the actual work itself. Because if you don't begin to work on those ideas that God has blessed you with, they will become stagnant inside of you and eventually begin to eat away at you. You might seem OK on the outside, but inside you will be ill from not getting those ideas out of your heart and into the world. Stalling leads to sickness. But taking steps, even baby steps, always leads to success. — Russell Simmons

Avoiding maturity is, for many men, not just a cute hobby, but a life's work - often handsomely rewarded in the infantile popular culture of the West. — Michael Leunig

I gave it a shot, Lex. I gave you your space. I let you be happy. That's what you said you wanted." He gripped her hand a little harder. "How did that work? Are you happy? Are you happy without me? — K.A. Linde

Most bloggers have no institutional credibility, and so they must build it, by linking transparently, and allowing you to easily double check their work. But more than anything, because linking sources is such an easy thing to do, and the motivations for avoiding links are so dubious, I've detected myself using a new rule of thumb: if you don't link to primary sources, I just don't trust you. — Ben Goldacre

There is no life without work, anxieties or tensions. Peace is not found in avoiding these but in understanding them and controlling their force. — Wendy Beckett

Life is only complete when your loved ones know you. When they know your true feelings, when they know who and how you love. Life is simple when your secret is gone. Gone is the pain that lurks in the stomach at work, the pain from avoiding questions, and at last the pain from hiding such a deep secret. — Robbie Rogers

Avoiding sin isn't about us not getting in trouble; it is about us trusting that the Creator knows his creation best and has designed the world to work in a certain way. — Jefferson Bethke

In short, avoiding the scourge of unemployment may have less to do with chasing after growth and more to do with building an economy of care, craft and culture. And in doing so, restoring the value of decent work to its rightful place at the heart of society. — Tim Jackson

The truth is despite the hard work and juggling required to keep the different facets of the frantic life afloat, the "superwoman" has one marvelous compensation. Being busy and being seen to be busy lets you off the hook. Buys you a way out of all aspects of your many roles you secretly despise ... like cleaning cupboards ... or entertaining your husband's business friends. When you combine wife, mother, career and all, each role become the perfect excuse for avoiding the worst aspects of the other. — Bettina Arndt

I think us gals need to stay in and just change the way it works, so men aren't being workaholics and avoiding life and relationships, and they can make films in a reasonable amount of time, so you can have a family and a life outside of work. And have more balanced, content-driven, enjoyable movies. — Joan Cusack

We work hard to do the things that we think will make us better, but we forget to focus on the things that might be sabotaging our efforts. Avoiding — Amy Morin

Genius is the capacity of avoiding hard work. — Elbert Hubbard

I used to think that finding the right one was about the man having a list of certain qualities. If he has them, we'd be compatible and happy. Sort of a checkmark system that was a complete failure. But I found out that a healthy relationship isn't so much about sense of humor or intelligence or attractive. It's about avoiding partners with harmful traits and personality types. And then it's about being with a good person. A good person on his own, and a good person with you. Where the space between you feels uncomplicated and happy. A good relationship is where things just work. They work because, whatever the list of qualities, whatever the reason, you happen to be really, really good together. — Deb Caletti

They will have to live with it for the rest of the trip now, but Alcock knows how the engine roar can make a pilot fall asleep, that the rhythm can lull a man into nodding off before he hits the waves. It is fierce work--he can feel the machine in his muscles. The sheer tug through his body. The exhaustion of the mind. Always avoiding cloud. Always looking for a line of sight. Creating any horizon possible. The brain inventing phantom turns. The inner ear balancing the angles until the only thing that can truly be trusted is the dream of getting there. — Colum McCann

Maira Kalman says, Avoiding work is the way to focus my mind. — Austin Kleon

Your terrain is the tortuous maze of truth-avoidance paths worn out by the "be somebody" types, and paved by the medal-awarding priests. Your mission is to tackle head-on, the truths that they work hard to avoid. Your own twists and turns are about avoiding or outmaneuvering those who want to deny truths and defend obvious falsehoods. — Venkatesh G. Rao

He put more effort into avoiding work than most people put into hard labor. — Terry Pratchett

For one day, or for one day for a week, refrain from something you habitually do to run away, to escape. Pick something concrete, such as overeating or excessive sleeping or overworking or spending too much time texting or checking e-mails. Make a commitment to yourself to gently and compassionately work with refraining from this habit for this one day. Really commit to it. Do this with the intention that it will put you in touch with the underlying anxiety or uncertainty that you've been avoiding. Do it and see what you discover. — Pema Chodron

Many writers-in-waiting spend a lot of time avoiding the work at hand. The most common way to avoid writing is by procrastination. This is the writer's greatest enemy. There is little to say about it except that once you decide to write every day, you must make yourself sit at the desk or table for the required period whether or not you are putting down words. Make yourself take the time even if the hours seem fruitless. Ideally, after a few days or weeks of being chained to the desk, you will submit to the story that must be told. — Walter Mosley

There is no fate, only free will, and we were just in the way of other people's free will when they decided to do the Devil's work. People are doing the Devil's work everywhere you go; there's no avoiding it unless you go live on a mountaintop somewhere, a hundred miles from everyone. — Dean Koontz

I support anything that broadens the message of gender equality and tempers the stigma of the feminist label. We run into trouble, though, when we celebrate celebrity feminism while avoiding the actual work of feminism. — Roxane Gay

I get the most work done when I'm procrastinating. While avoiding an unpleasant task, I find several other tasks twice as unpleasant, and get those out of the way first. — Marcia K. Matthews

In the world of my imagination, Esther was still my companion, and her love gave me the strength to go forward and explore all my frontiers.
In the real world, she was pure obsession, sapping my energy, taking up all the available space, and obliging me to make an enormous effort just to continue with my life.
How was it possible that, even after two years, I had still not managed to forget her? I could not bear having to think about it anymore, analyzing all the possibilities, and trying
various ways out: deciding simply to accept the situation, writing a book, practicing yoga, doing some charity work, seeing friends, seducing women, going out to supper, to the cinema (always avoiding adaptations of books, of course, and seeking out films that had been specially written for the screen), to the theater, the ballet, to soccer games. The Zahir always won, though; it was always there, making me think, I wish she was here with me. — Paulo Coelho

Did you know the average age of a gamer is thirty-two? Now, I don't see anything inherently wrong with diversion and games, but that is certainly telling about our culture, isn't it? Instead of raising families or creating culture, we are sitting around in our living rooms with our eyes glued to the television, simulating life. We are escapists, cowards, and thieves. We hide, occasionally stealing crumbs from the table of those living the good life. We are avoiding the truth that screams at us from the stillness: 'There is more. You are more than this.' So we anesthetize the truth with busyness. Maybe if we just do more, this feeling of emptiness will go away. And we won't actually have to do any real work. — Jeff Goins

Great work is the result of seeking out tension, not avoiding it. — Seth Godin

You can get away from envy by enjoying the pleasures that come your way, by doing the work that you have to do, and by avoiding comparisons with those whom you imagine, perhaps quite falsely, to be more fortunate than yourself. — Bertrand Russell

Fewer people are bent from hard work than are crooked from avoiding it. — Zig Ziglar

I haven't been out driving at this time of night in many years, much less in an unfamiliar area. These are the things that scare you as you get older. You understand night all too well, all its attendant meanings. You try to avoid it, work around it, keep it from entering your house. Your weary, ornery body tells you to stay up late, sleep less, keep the lights on, don't go into the bedroom - if you have to sleep, sleep in your chair, at the table. Everything is about avoiding the night. Because of that, I suppose that I should be scared out here in the dark, but I am finally past that, I think.
(p.204) — Michael Zadoorian

No matter how cleverly we disguise our anxieties they bear witness to the imperfect nature of the human heart. To be is to become. To become is not to be. We are a work-in-progress, incomplete, imperfect, unrealised, and by virtue of temporal actions, temporary - a verb more than a noun, an inner quest and an outward odyssey framed by metaphors, like Escher's "Print Gallery"; we make the endless journey round the pictures, retracing our steps in forgetfulness, avoiding but mindful of the space where there are no pictures, where there is no gallery, where there is nothing at all. And like flies in a fly bottle, trapped by a failure of vision, we go round and round and round the moebius loop of a print gallery of our own making, a picture inside a picture inside a picture, forever. — Billy Marshall Stoneking

I avoid talking about the way I work. But in avoiding it I seem only to have encouraged people to focus their fantasies about me in an ever more fantastical way. — Daniel Day-Lewis

It is not enough to hope for something to happen and throw it into the universe. You, too, must also work to make it happen. — M.B. Dallocchio

My favourite subject at school was avoiding unnecessary work. — Prince Philip

Susan Griffin describes it as a time when "there is no intrinsic authority to my words." "I ... clean off my desk. I make telephone calls. I know I am avoiding the typewriter. I know that in my mind, where there might be words, there is simply a blankness. I may try to write and then my words bore me." But when the time is right, the waiting will have been worth it. "Because each time I write, each time the authentic words break through, I am changed. The older order that I was collapses and dies. I lose control. I do not know exactly what words will appear on the page. I follow language. I follow the sound of the words, and I am surprised and transformed by what I record." Excerpt from "Thoughts on Writing: A Diary," in The Writer on her Work. — Judith Barrington

Just pausing for two to three breaths is a perfect way to stay present. This is a good use of our life. Indeed, it is an excellent, joyful use of our life. Instead of getting better and better at avoiding, we can learn to accept the present moment as if we had invited it, and work with it instead of against it, making it our ally rather than our enemy. — Pema Chodron

An odd by-product of my loss is that I'm aware of being an embarrassment to everyone I meet. At work, at the club, in the street, I see people, as they approach me, trying to make up their minds whether they'll 'say something about it' or not. I hate it if they do, and if they don't. Some funk it altogether. R. has been avoiding me for a week. I like best the well brought-up young men, almost boys, who walk up to me as if I were a dentist, turn very red, get it over, and then edge away to the bar as quickly as they decently can. Perhaps the bereaved ought to be isolated in special settlements like lepers. — C.S. Lewis

Often we imagine that we will work hard until we arrive at some distant goal, and then we will be happy. This is a delusion. Happiness is the result of a life lived with purpose. Happiness is not an objective. It is the movement of life itself, a process, and an activity. It arises from curiosity and discovery. Seek pleasure and you will quickly discover the shortest path to suffering. Other people, friends, brothers, sisters, neighbors, spouses, even your mother and I are not responsible for your happiness. Your life is your responsibility, and you always have the choice to do your best. Doing your best will bring happiness. Do not be overconcerned with avoiding pain or seeking pleasure. If you are concentrating on the results of your actions, you are not dedicated to your task. — Ethan Hawke

I've always been a very restless person. I work hard, spend too much time looking after my son, I dance like a mad thing, I learned calligraphy. I go to courses on selling, I read one book after another. But that's all a way of avoiding those moments when nothing is happening, because those blank spaces give me a feeling of absolute emptiness, in which not a single crumb of love exists. — Paulo Coelho

If we are going to be ready for Jesus Christ, we have to stop being religious. In other words, we must stop using religion as if it were some kind of a lofty lifestyle - we must be spiritually real. If you are avoiding the call of the religious thinking of today's world, and instead are "looking unto Jesus" (Hebrews 12:2), setting your heart on what He wants, and thinking His thoughts, you will be considered impractical and a daydreamer. But when He suddenly appears in the work of the heat of the day, you will be the only one who is ready. You should trust no one, and even ignore the finest saint on earth if he blocks your sight of Jesus Christ. — Oswald Chambers

Intellectual work is an act of creation. It is as if the mental image that is studied over a period of time were to sprout appendages like an ameba - outgrowths that extend in all directions while avoiding one obstacle after another - before interdigitating with related ideas. — Santiago Ramon Y Cajal

Avoiding fear and pain can cause them to grow stronger. The trick with fear is to go with it, to let it do it's work. Once fear has put us in touch with our inner issue it can diminish. In fact, simply acknowledging fear seems to lessen it. — John Earle

Was her whole life going to be like this now, avoiding certain songs or music that reminded her of her mistakes? Billie Holiday made her think of Eric Dalton; Iron & Wine was Jeremiah; and if things didn't work out with Kara, she'd never be able to listen to Bob Dylan again. By the time she reached her twenties, she'd be a huge, lumbering mass of musical baggage. — Cecily Von Ziegesar

You know, if they ever gave a Nobel Prize for avoiding work, every year some white guy in Iowa would get a million bucks and a trip to Sweden. — Andrew Smith

A sense of the value of time ... is an essential preliminary to efficient work; it is the only method of avoiding hurry. — Arnold Bennett

Here are a few patterns you may have seen that indicate the person you're managing is avoiding their next step of growth: covering up or attempting to brush off the severity of a mistake; hoarding data; embedding themselves as a go-to person (aka: bottleneck) by creating a system or process that only they know how to use; resorting to quick fixes instead of asking questions and looking for root causes; asking for more time or resources beyond what was agreed on in order to complete a project, instead of coming to you to talk about what went wrong so you can work together to improve it; letting tension build with a teammate or between departments instead of coming to you for advice on how to handle it. When — Jonathan Raymond

It's just another word for the same thing. You want to believe in some hidden purpose. You're trying to persuade yourself there's a reason for what happens in the world. I don't care what you call it--God or luck or harmony-- it all comes down to the same bullshit. It's a way of avoiding the facts, of refusing to look at how things really work. — Paul Auster

Somehow, the company must stay true to the founding vision while avoiding the pitfalls of rapid growth - and perhaps survive the hiring of a previously successful executive who doesn't work out. — Bing Gordon

American literature has, since the time of the Puritans, featured the jeremiad as a prolonged complaint, a prophet's indictment of his society characteristic of work such as the muckrakers' novels or Allan Ginsberg's "Howl." Doctorow struggles to accommodate this form to his artistry (as successful practitioners of the work have always done). To this end, he has repeatedly adapted genres such as the Western, the romance, and the detective novel, often playing with accepted conventions, and thus avoiding didacticism. — Michelle M. Tokarczyk

I'm not avoiding your question on my relationship to the fashion world or my work being shown in a fashion setting. My work's most often seen in the streets on billboards. I don't know if it being seen in a shop is any much different. — Robert Montgomery

Don't let the things of the world distract you. Focus on your purpose — Sunday Adelaja

I think it is important for software to avoiding imposing a cognitive style on workers and their work. — Edward Tufte

Even with the desire for a better life, we can be reluctant to do the work of boundaries because it will be a war. The battle falls into two categories: outside resistance we get from others and the resistance we get from ourselves. — Henry Cloud

The wishes of the people, seldom founded in deep disquisitions, or resulting from other reasonings than their present feelings, may not entirely accord with our true policy and interest. If they do not, to observe a proper line of conduct for promoting the one, and avoiding offence to the other, will be a work of great difficulty. — George Washington

An educated child is better equipped to handle all the challenges of life, from finding work to avoiding diseases like HIV/AIDS. — Laura Bush