I'd Rather Work Hard Quotes & Sayings

The willingness to relegate a person in my father's situation to a lower and less vigilant degree of medical attention was an accurate reflection of the values of a social system which, as I had learned in my own work in education, measures human life, more frequently than not, in rather hard-nosed and explicit terms of future payoff to the national well-being. — Jonathan Kozol

When I look back at my mule it was like he was one of these here spy-glasses and I could look at him standing there and see all the broad land and my house sweated outen it like it was the more the sweat, the broader the land; the more the sweat, the tighter the house because it would take a tight house for Cora, to hold Cora like a jar of milk in the spring: you've got to have a tight jar or you'll need a powerful spring, so if you have a big spring, why then you have the incentive to have tight, wellmade jars, because it is your milk, sour or not, because you would rather have milk that will sour than to have milk that wont, because you are a man. — William Faulkner

I'm also hard at work on plans for the Obama Library. And some have suggested that we put it in my birthplace, but I'd rather keep it in the United States.
Did anybody not see that joke coming? Show of hands. — Barack Obama

My hard work was expected rather than exceptional. It's not that my dad ever told me or even alluded to the fact that I was a failure, but my actions no longer got his unprompted attention or praise, so I constantly felt that I wasn't doing enough. That I wasn't enough. — Lily Collins

I think women dwell quite a bit on the duress under which they work, on how hard it is just to do it at all. We are traditionally rather proud of ourselves for having slipped creative work in there between the domestic chores and obligations. I'm not sure we deserve such big A-pluses for all that. — Toni Morrison

I truly believe that success is determined not on Friday nights during games but rather in practice away from the lights and glimmer where coaches and players only have each other, their sweat, their discipline and their loyalty to each other. It is at practice where the boys of America become men through hard work, dedication and perseverance. — George M. Gilbert

I don't like to be called a symbol. And I don't like to be called an icon. I will just say that I have to work very, very hard. So I'd rather be known as a hard worker. I don't think symbols do much, nor icons. — Aung San Suu Kyi

She deigned to asked me how ice queens reproduce. I grinned, and her mother looked horrified.
"We procreate by way of ice cubes, of course. We put them in our nests and let them incubate for the period of about four months, and when the temperature is right, we put them out to roost and let them flake off into billions of snowflakes, rather like tadpoles breaking in droves from their eggs. And that, child," I said, with a simulacrum of glee, "is how winter is born."
"Does it hurt?"
"No more than the approach of Monday does to most of the world. It is a natural process, you understand, but it is dreadful hard work. — Michelle Franklin

Giving my life to you may mean leading a very ordinary life or it may mean leading an extraordinary life. It may mean having a family and a career or it may mean going beyond all that to just work for others. It's hard to say. Rather than making a decision myself, I'm going to give my life to you, to do with as you will, because I know that you are my self, you are my very being. — Frederick Lenz

I know that my success comes from hard work, help from others, and being at the right place at the right time. I feel a deep and enduring sense of gratitude to those who have given me opportunities and support. I recognize the sheer luck of being born into my family in the United States rather than one of the many places in the world where women are denied basic rights. I believe that all of us - men and women alike - should acknowledge good fortune and thank the people who have helped us. No one accomplishes anything all alone.
But I also know that in order to continue to grow and challenge myself, I have to believe in my own abilities. I still face situations that I fear are beyond my capabilities. I still have days when I feel like a fraud. And I still sometimes find myself spoken over and discounted while men sitting next to me are not. But now I know how to take a deep breath and keep my hand up. I have learned to sit at the table. — Sheryl Sandberg

I don't like the idea of teaching religion in schools, and creation is not my thing, but that's a trivial point compared to saving the creation. I'd much rather have half of the people in the country be creationists and work really hard to save the creation than have everybody be evolutionists and be destroying the planet. — Paul R. Ehrlich

When I'm acting, I wish I was out there, being a part of it and making it. It's all on your name to do that. It's your vision. You're going to get slandered for your work, and I like that. As an actor, it's so hard. I'd rather direct than act. — Jason Momoa

I have to work hard to be punctual, to not lose my temper, take direction and be told what to do - and most of all listen rather than talk. — Alfie Allen

When you take the time to look at the real relationship between faith and science, you find the two are not enemies; rather, they are friends. Granted, they are friends that do not always agree on everything. No friendship ever does. They have their points of tension. Every friendship has these as well. As friends, faith and science have a great deal of history together. They work hard to hold each other accountable and challenge one another to be better (I hope you have friends like that too). — Jon Morrison

I play in a position that demands hard work and generosity and little glamour, but I like it. It's my job and I like it. I would rather intercept and steal 10 balls than shoot. That's what I'm here for, to make everyone else's jobs easier. — Sergio Busquets

I'm glad to have grown up in the countryside and played, and had to use my imagination rather than a TV and had to learn to act the hard way, to have dealt with the rejection. It's a life as well as a job, at the end the day, we all have to work for a living, but we have to have a life as well. — Jason Clarke

He shook his head. "I see you trying to be tough skinned, but that makes sense. As a woman you'll have to work twice as hard for everything. I'm not sure I could do it." He lit a cigarette and drew on it, the end flaring red in the dark. When he released the held smoke, he looked at me. "I think you're rather brave, actually." Was — Paula McLain

I'd rather see a writer write 15 minutes a day than save it all up for a Saturday. A work gets a coating on it when it's not been worked on for a while, makes it hard to break back in. — Janet Fitch

I hope someday what people can do with their lives depends on their talents and how hard they are willing to work, rather than on where they happen to be born. — Bill Gates

I'm not Dead-Eye Dan. I gave up chasin' bounties and don't plan on ever goin' back. I ain't a dime-novel hero, but I'm steady, I work hard, and I'll do my best to give you the life you deserve." Etta opened her mouth, but he shook his head at her, needing to get everything said at once. "I know I'm a good deal older than you, twelve years by my count, and most young ladies would probably wish for someone younger, less tarnished. I've seen a lot of ugliness in this life, Etta. I won't lie to you about that. I'm rather set in my ways and opinionated about how things oughta be done, but I'd like to think that God gave me some wisdom over the years, too. Wisdom that will help me be the husband and father I want to be, one who will lead his family in a way that honors the Lord." Dan — Karen Witemeyer

I never dreamt of being in the movies. I was from a very average, I would say, a rather poor family, so my big treat was to work hard all week - I mowed lawns and babysat and washed dishes and washed cars - to go to the movies. — Debbie Reynolds

I think Americans is a very special nation that was created so that people could be free. And they could be free to believe what they wanted. They could be free to work as hard as they wanted, knowing that their labor would accrue to them and to their family, that there wouldn't be a lot of people impinging upon their freedom and telling them what they had to do, and that it would be a nation that was representative of the people, and that it would have a government that was representative of the people rather than one that tried to rule the people. — Benjamin Carson

It's hard work, writing, you know. Honestly, a fight every day against your own limitations. You have to squeeze books out of your brain, you're constantly trying to solve challenges. I think most writers enjoy the feeling of having written something, rather than the process of writing it. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

They had Rembrandt on the calendar that year, a rather smeary self-portrait due to imperfectly registered color plate. It showed him holding a smeared palette with a dirty thumb and wearing a tam-o'-shanter which wasn't any too clean either. His other hand held a brush poised in the air, as if he might be going to do a little work after a while, if somebody made a down payment. His face was aging, saggy, full of the disgust of life and the thickening effects of liquor. But it had a hard cheerfulness that I liked, and the eyes were as bright as drops of dew.
I was looking at him across my office desk at about four-thirty when the phone rang and I heard a cool, supercilious voice that sounded as if it thought it was pretty good. It said drawlingly, after I had answered:
You are Philip Marlowe, a private detective? — Raymond Chandler

I am an experimenter, or rather I used to be one. Then I stopped working, and since then people think I am a theoretician. — George Placzek

I've had several work addiction cycles in my life. Those were situations when important tasks were assigned to me. I took into account that people should remember me based on what I did rather than based on what I failed to do. — Eraldo Banovac

I did not care if Ella went to Princeton, if she was exceptionally pretty, if she grew up to marry a rich man, or really if she married at all - there were many incarnations of her I felt confident I could embrace, a hippie or a housewife or a career woman. But what I did care about, what I wanted most fervently, was for her to understand that hard work paid off, that decency begat decency, that humility was not a raincoat you occasionally pulled on when you thought conditions called for it, but rather a constant way of existing in the world, knowing that good luck and bad luck touched everyone and none of us was fully responsible for our fortunes or tragedies. Above all, I wanted my daughter to understand that many people were guided by bitterness and that it was best to avoid these individuals - their moods and behavior were a hornet's nest you had no possible reason to do anything other than bypass and ignore. — Curtis Sittenfeld

Any sermon that tells listeners only how they should live without putting that standard into the context of the gospel gives them the impression that they might be complete enough to pull themselves together if they really try hard. Ed Clowney points out that if we ever tell a particular Bible story without putting it into the Bible story (about Christ), we actually change its meaning for us. It becomes a moralistic exhortation to "try harder" rather than a call to live by faith in the work of Christ. There are, in the end, only two ways to read the Bible: Is it basically about me or basically about Jesus? In other words, is it basically about what I must do or basically about what he has done? — Timothy Keller

I think most women, especially women who work hard and have a lot on their mind, prefer a man to come home, lift her off her feet and take her against the wall rather than hand her some bullshit flowers and pussyfoot around with sweet gestures all night. — Vi Keeland

I think monogamy is a little unnatural, if I'm totally honest. You change. Things alter. It's the exception rather than the rule and I think it's exceptional to cope with it and manage it. It's hard work. — Robert Powell

I would rather have one article a day of this sort; and these ten or twenty lines might readily represent a whole day's hard work in the way of concentrated, intense thinking and revision, polish of style, weighing of words. — Joseph Pulitzer

That's right. Carrington didn't want to marry the likes of me. He had to be dragged kicking and screaming
to the negotiation table."
"Did you enjoy the dragging?" He glanced down at her.
"Yes, I rather did," she confessed. "It was amusing threatening to strip his house bare to the last plank on the floor and the last spoon in the kitchen."
"My parents are convinced of your grief." She heard the smile in his voice. "They said tears streamed
down your face at his funeral."
"For nearly three years of hard work down the drain, I cried like a bereaved mother. — Sherry Thomas

Alby had a gruff, unavailable way of teaching. He did the action as he wanted it done and your job was to copy it. He didn't suffer questions well and preferred to increase the work rather than stop and clarify technique. It was early March when I started. The only other students were a myopic woman, who was clearly better suited to yoga, and Crazy Chris. Alby called him this openly. Chris didn't mind. He was crazy. He couldn't generally remember his right from his left and anything past the most basic punches was beyond him. It didn't stop him talking constantly about how he was going to join the Turkish army. It didn't stop him hitting anything he could as hard as he could whenever he could, either. — Heath Lander

When difficulties seem insurmountable, optimists react in a more constructive and creative way. They accept the facts with realism, know how to rapidly identify the positive in adversity, draw lessons from it, and come up with an alternative solution or turn to a new project. Pessimists would rather turn away from the problem or adopt escapist strategies - sleep, isolation, drug or alcohol abuse - that diminish their focus on the problem.9 Instead of confronting them with resolve, they prefer to brood over their misfortunes, nurture illusions, dream up "magic" solutions, and accuse the whole world of being against them. They have a hard time drawing lessons from the past, which often leads to the repetition of their problems. They are more fatalistic ("I told you it wouldn't work. It's always the same, no matter what I do") and are quick to see themselves as "mere pawns in the game of life. — Matthieu Ricard

I'm very nervous about taking jobs. I always make sure that, if I'm going to work with somebody, that they really understand what it is that I want to do. I'd rather not take the job than be vague about how I'm going to do something and run into trouble later on. It's a hard thing to negotiate. — Spike Jonze

If you're not willing to work hard, let someone else do it. I'd rather be with someone who does a horrible job, but gives 110% than with someone who does a good job and gives 60%. — Will Smith

As it turned out, almost every notion I had on my 13th birthday about my future turned out to be a total waste of my time. When I thought of myself as an adult, all I could imagine was someone thin, and smooth, and calm, to whom things ... happened. Some kind of souped-up princess with a credit card. I didn't have any notion about self-development, or following my interests, or learning big life lessons, or, most important, finding out what I was good at and trying to earn a living from it. I presumed that these were all things that some grown-ups would come along and basically tell me what to do about at some point, and that I really shouldn't worry about them. I didn't worry about what I was going to do. What I did worry about, and thought I should work hard at, was what I should be, instead. I thought all of my efforts should be concentrated on being fabulous, rather than doing fabulous things. — Caitlin Moran

It's really hard for me to use the term 'history' in the singular, because it suggests a reductivist view of how moments and events congeal and reflect the passage of time. I'd rather stick to the pluralness of 'histories' in order to suggest the simultaneity, the parallel forces at work, which produce lived experience. — Barbara Kruger

I think the secret is to understand that you still want to be part of the game. To do so, you have to forget all the victories you've managed to get in the previous years and have a great humility. You also need to realise that, if you want to go on, you have to work hard. If you dwell too much on your past successes and say "well, I have won nine world titles and more than 100 races", you'd rather stay home. — Valentino Rossi

Well, they did rather detest each other. Not unlike yourself and Mr. Malfoy. And then, your father did something Snape could never forgive." "What?" "He saved his life." "What?" "Yes . . ." said Dumbledore dreamily. "Funny, the way people's minds work, isn't it? Professor Snape couldn't bear being in your father's debt. . . . I do believe he worked so hard to protect you this year because he felt that would make him and your father even. Then he could go back to hating your father's memory in peace. . — J.K. Rowling