Quotes & Sayings About Livelihood

The divine mandate to use the world justly and charitably, then, defines every person's moral predicament as that of a steward. But this predicament is hopeless and meaningless unless it produces an appropriate discipline: stewardship. And stewardship is hopeless and meaningless unless it involves long-term courage, perseverance, devotion, and skill. This skill is not to be confused with any accomplishment or grace of spirit or of intellect. It has to do with everyday proprieties in the practical use and care of the created things - with right livelihood. — Wendell Berry

Business cycles naturally entail peaks and troughs in employment, and socially responsible businesses should follow successful examples like Coca-Cola, Alcoa, Saudi Aramco, Africa Rainbow Minerals, and Google in working toward mitigating joblessness and enhancing people's abilities to earn a livelihood. — Klaus Schwab

The function of our Government is to insure to all its citizens, now and hereafter, their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If we of this generation destroy the resources from which our children would otherwise derive their livelihood, we reduce the capacity of our land to support a population, and so either degrade the standard of living or deprive the coming generations of their fight to life on this continent. — Theodore Roosevelt

He returned the money with a graceful letter saying that he had found a means of livelihood which would supply him with all his needs. At the moment he had three francs in the world. — Victor Hugo

We forget today that Britain still depends for its livelihood and, indeed, its day-to-day survival, on the sea. But the Royal Navy is now pitifully small and has been reduced in size by the current Government, seeking economies to finance its social programmes. Fine while there is no threat to our security. But what use would schools and hospitals be if we could not protect our imports? — John Keegan

Squash was my livelihood and as in business, I had to stay on top. — Jahangir Khan

I think the work in front of us is the first work task given our forbearers, which is to care for the garden. Now because it's the first thing commanded, maybe it's the first thing forgotten. But it is the first admonition and it is absolutely unequivocal. It is part of right livelihood. — Wes Jackson

Emigres: Earned their livelihood by giving guitar lessons and mixing salads. — Gustave Flaubert

I'm a novelist, that's how I make my livelihood, and I concentrate on the novels. — David Mitchell

[...] nothing comes from comfort but the fear of losing it, and that's exactly where my generation made its big mistake. Yet discomfort's no good either. There's just no winning, is there? Do it one way and lose your soul; do it the other way and lose your livelihood. You guys who run the world, you've got all the bases covered. — D.R. Haney

I swear ... to hold my teacher in this art equal to my own parents; to make him partner in my livelihood; when he is in need of money to share mine with him; to consider his family as my own brothers and to teach them this art, if they want to learn it, without fee or indenture. — Hippocrates

Truth is not only a man's ornament but his instrument; it is the great man's glory, and the poor man's stock: a man's truth is his livelihood, his recommendation, his letters of credit. — Benjamin Whichcote

Skating was put on the map, supposedly from me Everybody made a life and a livelihood, um, except me. — Tonya Harding

The machines, the modern mode of production, slowly undermined domestic production and not just for thousands but for millions of women the question arose: Where do we now find our livelihood? — Clara Zetkin

Millions of people toil in the shadow of the law we make, and much of their livelihood is made possible by the existence of intellectual property rights. — Alex Kozinski

No man ought to own more property than needed for his livelihood; the rest, by right, belonged to the state. — Benjamin Franklin

You can't fight progress. The best you can do is ignore it, until it finally takes your livelihood and self-respect away. — Kurt Vonnegut

Who is willing to be satisfied with a job that expresses all his limitations? He will accept such work only as a 'means of livelihood' while he waits to discover his 'true vocation'. The world is full of unsuccessful businessmen who still secretly believe they were meant to be artists or writers or actors in the movies. — Thomas Merton

It is more important to find out what you are giving to society than to ask what is the right means of livelihood. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

I'm a true fan of animation, and it's my livelihood. Live-action is secondary to me. — Genndy Tartakovsky

I have had a very difficult time with stage fright; it undermines your well-being and peace of mind, and it can also threaten your livelihood. — Renee Fleming

No, but Liza took went and took away from me, possibly my livelihood. — David Gest

I think a lot of the guys I know and a lot of people I've talked to, what they want is very often what most people want, a kind of simple life, a livelihood, a family, people who care about them, people they can care about. I think vets on the whole want the same things that everybody else does. — Kevin Powers

If you have suffered the loss of a family member to chronic disease, if you suffer debilitating seasons of depression, if you have lost your job and livelihood, gone through a divorce that came out of the blue, know that God is not punishing you. He is not waiting for you to do something. — Tullian Tchividjian

To find out what you love to do demands a great deal of intelligence; because, if you are afraid of not being able to earn a livelihood, or of not fitting into this rotten society, then you will never find out. But, if you are not frightened, if you refuse to be pushed into the groove of tradition by your parents, by your teachers, by the superficial demands of society, then there is a possibility of discovering what it is you really love to do. So, to discover, there must be no fear of not surviving. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

This kind of compartmentalizing - separating one's livelihood from one's social aspirations - is part of the reason David Koch, the hidden hand behind a lot of ultraconservatives and, reportedly, the Tea Party movement in the United States, transforms himself into a respected arts patron by funding a theater at Lincoln Center, or why at Swiss bank that helps U.S. depositors avoid paying taxes generously supports symphony halls and the ballet. It's almost as if there are moral scales, and by tossing some loot on one side, you can balance out the precarious situation your reputation might be getting into on the other. — David Byrne

Within a system which denies the existence of basic human rights, fear tends to be the order of the day. Fear of imprisonment, fear of torture, fear of death, fear of losing friends, family, property or means of livelihood, fear of poverty, fear of isolation, fear of failure. A most insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom, condemning as foolish, reckless, insignificant or futile the small, daily acts of courage which help to preserve man's self-respect and inherent human dignity. It is not easy for a people conditioned by fear under the iron rule of the principle that might is right to free themselves from the enervating miasma of fear. Yet even under the most crushing state machinery courage rises up again and again, for fear is not the natural state of civilized man. — Aung San Suu Kyi

For better or worse, we are the Court of Appeals for the Hollywood Circuit. Millions of people toil in the shadow of the law we make, and much of their livelihood is made possible by the existence of intellectual property rights. But much of their livelihood - and much of the vibrancy of our culture - also depends on the existence of other intangible rights: The right to draw ideas from a rich and varied public domain, and the right to mock, for profit as well as fun, the cultural icons of our time. — Alex Kozinski

They can take away my livelihood and my food and" - here his voice hitched - "my grandson. But they can't take away my dreams." His — Jodi Picoult

I am also convinced that one gains the purest joy from spirited things only when they are not tied in with earning one's livelihood. — Albert Einstein

Some sheep were bleating away beside the track, pressed tight into a pen much too small. Foraged, no doubt, meaning stolen, some unlucky shepherd's livelihood vanished down the gullets and out the arses of Black Dow's army. Behind a screen of hides, not two strides from the flock, a woman was slaughtering 'em and three more doing the skinning and gutting and hanging the carcasses, all soaked to the armpits in blood and not caring much about it either. Two lads, probably just reached fighting age, were watching. Laughing at how stupid the sheep were, not to guess what was happening behind those hides. They didn't see that they were in the pen, and behind a screen of songs and stories and young men's dreams, war was waiting, soaked to the armpits and not caring. — Joe Abercrombie

My livelihood depends on the art of animators. — Andy Serkis

One other thing struck me. The margin between life and death was so very slim in Darfur, where people eked out a harsh semi-desert existence. The ability to cope was that much more limited than it had been in, say, Rwanda, a relatively fertile tropical country. Consequently, the ability to destroy people's means of livelihood was that much greater. — Mukesh Kapila

You may control a mad elephant;
You may shut the mouth of the bear and the tiger;
Ride the lion and play with the cobra;
By alchemy you may learn your livelihood;
You may wander through the universe incognito;
Make vassals of the gods; be ever youthful;
You may walk in water and live in fire;
But control of the mind is better and more difficult. — Paramahansa Yogananda

How good it is to work in the invigorating fresh air under the life-giving sun amid the inspiring beauty of nature. There are many who recognize this ... How good it is to earn you livelihood by contributing constructively to the society in which you live - everyone should, of course, and in a healthy society everyone would. — Peace Pilgrim

The encrusted religious structure is not changed by its institutional dependents--they are part of the crust. It is changed by one who goes alone to the wilderness, where he fasts and prays, and returns with cleansed vision. In going alone, he goes independent of institutions, forswearing orthodoxy ("right opinion"). In going to the wilderness he goes to the margin, where he is surrounded by the possibilities--by no means all good--that orthodoxy has excluded. By fasting he disengages his thoughts from the immediate issues of livelihood; his willing hunger takes his mind off the payroll, so to speak. And by praying he acknowledges ignorance; the orthodox presume to know, whereas the marginal person is trying to find out. He returns to the community, not necessarily with new truth, but with a new vision of the truth; he sees it more whole than before. — Wendell Berry

The avocation of assessing the failures of better men can be turned into a comfortable livelihood, providing you back it up with a Ph.D. — Nelson Algren

Leadership has to be focused on some very radical ideas that only we as 21st Century people can talk about: making sure people have a livelihood, making sure people receive a living wage, making sure the environment, the Mother Earth, is embraced and cherished and not destroyed. Making sure people are healthy in what they eat, making sure we hold people and corporations accountable for the damage they do not only to our environment but to our institutions. — Danny Glover

The future of our children is a trust we have been given. To conserve and grow, not to squander wastefully on needless excesses. The earth is a trust, to protect and to honor. Our home, our livelihood, our future rests in the quality of our stewardship. Let us become better stewards. — Helen Caldicott

For the man in the paddock, whose duty is is to sweep up manure,
the supreme terror is the possibility of a world without horses. To
tell him that it is disgusting to spend one's life shoveling up hot
turds is a piece of imbecility. A man can get to love shit if his
livelihood depends on it, if his happiness is involved. — Henry Miller

in Sante Fe time is not that shallow. There one can go deep into a continuity as the pueblos and the culture they represent take one back at least eight hundred years through a single Indian dance. For a European that continuity is life-giving. — May Sarton

That the good of the individual is contained in the good of all. (2) That a lawyer's work has the same value as the barber's inasmuch as all have the same right of earning their livelihood from their work. (3) That a life of labour, i.e., the life of the tiller of the soil and the handicraftsman is the life worth living. — Mahatma Gandhi

Bravery in simple soldiers is a dangerous trade, to which they have bound themselves to get their livelihood. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

No use kidding herself. This situation with Jarrod was a slippery slope. She'd had plenty of men since Sam, attractive, well endowed, charming in many ways. Jarrod was different, and she needed to figure out why before she found herself in the middle of stupid. She had a business to think of, people who depended on her for their livelihood, even more people present and future who needed the services she offered. It wasn't just a job, damn it, it was a mission. No one should be as out of touch with themselves as thoroughly as she had been. For as long. — Lizzie Ashworth

Whatever the color of a man's skin, we are all mankind. So every denial of freedom, of equal opportunity for a livelihood, or for an education, diminishes me. — Everett Dirksen

The US has developed two coordinate governing classes: the one, called 'business,' building cities, manufacturing and distributing goods, and holding complete and autocratic power over the livelihood of millions; the other, called 'government,' concerned with preaching and exemplification of spiritual ideals, so caught in a mass of theory, that when it wished to move in a practical world it had to do so by means of a sub rosa political machine. — Thurman Arnold

The natural resources we've depended on, if the places where they exist are not stable, our own livelihood and our health is put at risk. — Jeff Corwin

Earning of livelihood by following some profession is better than living on charity. — Umar

Our moods and insights are transitory. This current is a flow of grace moving us to our right livelihood, companions, destiny. — Julia Cameron

For me teaching has provided community and livelihood and the satisfaction of passing along what I've learned to others. — Alison Hawthorne Deming

For what justice is there in this: that a nobleman, a goldsmith, a banker, or any other man, that either does nothing at all, or, at best, is employed in things that are of no use to the public, should live in great luxury and splendour upon what is so ill acquired, and a mean man, a carter, a smith, or a ploughman, that works harder even than the beasts themselves, and is employed in labours so necessary, that no commonwealth could hold out a year without them, can only earn so poor a livelihood and must lead so miserable a life, that the condition of the beasts is much better than theirs? — Thomas More

I was born in a very poor family. I used to sell tea in a railway coach as a child. My mother used to wash utensils and do lowly household work in the houses of others to earn a livelihood. I have seen poverty very closely. I have lived in poverty. As a child, my entire childhood was steeped in poverty. — Narendra Modi

It is impossible to get a man to understand something if his livelihood depends on him not understanding. — Upton Sinclair

The right to criticize: the right to hold unpopular beliefs; the right to protest; the right of independent thought. The exercise of these rights should not cost one single American citizen his reputation or his right to a livelihood ... Otherwise none of us could call our souls our own. — Margaret Chase Smith

The ability to secure an independent livelihood and honorable employ suited to her education and capacities is the only true foundation of the social elevation of woman, even in the very highest classes of society. While she continues to be educated only to be somebody's wife, and is left without any aim in life till that somebody either in love, or in pity, or in selfish regard at last grants her the opportunity, she can never be truly independent. — Catharine Beecher

Your prim faith in the True Sect's canon serves naught. The temple preaches a loveless morality that cares not one jot for the plight of our livelihood. The priests are fat parasites, theosophizing on their rumps while folk like us break our backs, milked dry by their tithes and their rote obligations. Where does their doctrine show the least concern for our chance to enjoy the fruits of our happiness? — Janny Wurts

We need affordable childcare and paid sick leave so workers don't have to choose between their health and their livelihood. — Jackie Speier

Etatism by no means aims at the formal transformation of all ownership of the means of production into State ownership by a complete overthrow of the established legal system. Only the biggest industrial, mining, and transport enterprises are to be nationalized; in agriculture, and in medium- and small-scale industry, private property is nominally to continue. Nevertheless, all enterprises are to become State undertakings in fact. Owners are to be left the title and dignity of ownership, it is true, and to be given a right to the receipt of a 'reasonable' income, 'in accordance with their position'; but, in fact, every business is to be changed into a government office and every livelihood into an official profession. — Ludwig Von Mises

There's a lot of "fiddle-faddle" wrapped up in that word "inspiration." It is the last resort of the lazy writer, of the man who would rather sit and dream than be up and doing. If the majority of writers who depend upon fiction for a livelihood were to wait for the spirit of inspiration to move them, the sheriff would happen along and tack a notice on the front door--while the writers were still waiting. — John Milton Edwards

Families could often trace their lineage back several centuries. Their livelihood was earned from drum playing, a service considered to be dis-respectable. As members of a low caste, the drummers were forbidden to build decent houses. There were allowed to build wattle and daub huts, and to live rent-free on their patrons' properties. The right to own the country's land was restricted in this manner, a vicious condition that arose through tradition and was reinforced by law. Patterns of financial power and political hierarchy existed hand in hand. — Swarnakanthi Rajapakse

They followed the middle way of Muhammad, which included marriage, a socially useful livelihood, and a life "in the world but not of it. — Jalaluddin Rumi

I lived in the city of light for 4 years 10 months, the generosity of sacred souls sustain my livelihood. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Mothers love you to the end, and she didn't want to hold me back from my livelihood. So I left for a month and called her every couple of days. I came home and she died 24 hours later. — Lenny Kravitz

This is perhaps the greatest lesson that interdependence has to offer us about right livelihood (and right living in general) in the twenty-first century: no person, and no profession, comes out completely clean, ever. On the other hand, no one is inherently defiled. — Ethan Nichtern

Work is a mess" encourages us to first recognize that we can never have a completely neat relationship with our livelihood. Treating work's messiness as if it were a mistake or liability only creates further unnecessary distress and resentment. By developing the attitude that work is a mess, we can learn to relax and be curious about the surprises and interruptions. By engaging the messiness of work directly - appreciating both the advantages and disadvantages - we become fully equipped to engage such events in all their variations. — Michael Carroll

He continues to teach because it provides him with a livelihood; also because it teaches him humility, brings it home to him who he is in the world. The irony does not escape him: that the one who comes to teach learns the keenest of lessons, while those who come to learn learn nothing. — J.M. Coetzee

The rich man has his motorcar, His country and his town estate, He smokes a fifty-cent cigar And jeers at Fate. He frivols through the livelong day, He knows not Poverty, her pinch. His lot seems light, his heart seems gay; He has a cinch. Yet though my lamp burns low and dim, Though I must slave for livelihood- Think you that I would change with him? You bet I would! — Franklin P. Adams

I have a problem with players who don't take the loss personally. At a professional level you should - it's our job, it's our livelihood, it's who we are at this level. Every loss should be taken that personal. — Hope Solo

Cultural wisdom says 'Don't quit your day job.' Yet I think these desires represent our psyche's stretch toward wholeness. And to be whole, as many religious tranditions teach, is to make manifest a unique face of God in the world. We don't want to be irresponsible, yet for every accountant who deserts his family and sails for Tahiti, ten American men have heart attacks at their desks, after hours. — Mary Rose O'Reilley

Silence is a mirror. So faithful, and yet so unexpected, is the relection it can throw back at men that they will go to almost any length to avoid seeing themselves in it, and if ever its duplicating surface is temporarily wiped clean of modern life's ubiquitous hubbub, they will hasten to fog it over with such desperate personal noise devices as polite conversation, hummin, whistling, imaginary dialogue, schizophrenic babble, or, should it come to that, the clandestine cannonry of their own farting. Only in sleep is silence tolerated, and even there, most dreams have soundtracks. Since meditation is a deliberate descent into deep internal hush, a mute stare into the ultimate looking glass, it is regarded with suspicion by the nattering masses; with hostility by buisness interests (people sitting in silent serenity are seldom consuming goods); and with spite by a clergy whose windy authority it is seen to undermine and whose bombastic livelihood it is perceived to threaten. — Tom Robbins

Photographs were more than my livelihood. They were part of my life. The way light fell on a surface never failed to tug at my imagination. The way one picture, a single snapshot, could capture the essence of a time and place, a city, a war, a human being, was embedded in my consciousness. One day, one second, I might close the shutter on the perfect photograph. — Robert Goddard

Procrastination threatens critics' livelihood. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

been deemed old enough to contribute to the family's livelihood by taking on chores more suited to a man. He had been a little nervous the first time his father had sent him out to watch the flock alone, but his pride at being given such an important task had kept him from admitting to his fear. That was a year gone now, and tending the flock seemed a much less daunting task now. At thirteen he was just beginning to grow into a larger frame, and he felt much more mature. In fact, on days — Michael G. Manning

There are two kinds of investors, be they large or small: those who don't know where the market is headed and those who don't know what they don't know. Then again, there is a third type of investor: the investment professional, who indeed knows he doesn't know, but whose livelihood depends upon appearing to know. — William J. Bernstein

It is best to work, at whatever you have a talent for doing, without turning your greedy thought toward what some other man possesses, but take care of your own livelihood, as I advise you. — Hesiod

But I'm a rock 'n' roll singer; that's my livelihood, my occupation. — Little Richard

This was a vagrant of sixty-five, who was going to prison for not playing the flute; or, in other words, for begging in the streets, and doing noting for his livelihood. In the next cell, was another man, who was going to the same prison for hawking tin saucepans without a licence; thereby doing something for his living, in defiance of the Stamp-office. — Charles Dickens

Acting is my career and activism is my passionate hobby. But acting is my livelihood. — William Baldwin

It's this time of year when Kit mist rise in the dark, as if we're a farmer or a fisherman, someone whose livelihood depends on beating the dawn, convincing himself that what looks like night is actually morning. — Julia Glass

Education does not mean knowledge (gyan) only, it also contains a life within it; it is not an arrangement, it is a duty. It is not merely a means of livelihood; it is the precious treasure of the noble tradition of giving, bestowing. — Narendra Modi

The biggest danger we face is overfishing. We literally could fish out our oceans, some scientists believe, in the next 40, 50, 60 years. We are fishing out the top of the food chain, and it's pretty crucial because about 200 million people depend on fish and fishing for their livelihood, and about a billion people, mostly in poorer countries, depend on fish for their protein. So this is a big problem. Good news is, it's fixable. — Ted Danson

Their faith is not an Islamic one, but a satanic one. The threat of ISIS is a threat to the livelihood of every sensible person on the planet, and in its crosshairs is the faith of the world's two billion Christians and nearly all of its Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists. If they have their way, you won't live another day. — Johnnie Moore

I never dreamt of being a musician for my livelihood. I certainly never would have wanted to be in the business that I'm in, meaning the fame and the glory, the glitter, the rock star, the famous part. — Eddie Van Halen

Upon this, I (who took the boldness to speak freely before the Cardinal) said, 'There was no reason to wonder at the matter, since this way of punishing thieves was neither just in itself nor good for the public; for, as the severity was too great, so the remedy was not effectual; simple theft not being so great a crime that it ought to cost a man his life; no punishment, how severe soever, being able to restrain those from robbing who can find out no other way of livelihood. — Thomas More

In every Indigenous community I've been in, they absolutely do want community infrastructure and they do want development, but they want it on their own terms. They want to be able to use their national resources and their assets in a way that protects and sustains them. Our territories are our wealth, the major assets we have. And Indigenous people use and steward this property so that they can achieve and maintain a livelihood, and achieve and maintain that same livelihood for future generations. — Rebecca Adamson

Don't be misled into believing that somehow the world owes you a living. The boy who believes that his parents, or the government, or any one else owes him his livelihood and that he can collect it without labor will wake up one day and find himself working for another boy who did not have that belief and, therefore, earned the right to have others work for him. — David Sarnoff

Predator is not property," Grimm said in a calm, level tone. "She is not my possession. She is my home. Her crew are not my employees. They are my family. And if you threaten to take my home and destroy the livelihood of my family again, Commodore, I will be inclined to kill you where you stand. — Jim Butcher

It is a political fight between a group of well-financed, well-organized people whose freedom, livelihood, finances, reputations, or liberty is being threatened by disclosures of child sexual abuse and--on the other hand--a group of well-meaning, ill-organized, underfinanced, and often terribly naive academics who expect fair play. — Anna C. Salter

I have always found that my view of success has been iconoclastic: success to me is not about money or status or fame, its about finding a livelihood that brings me joy and self-sufficiency and a sense of contributing to the world. — Anita Roddick

It is not so evident why intellectuals need the State. Put simply, we may state that the intellectual's livelihood in the free market is never too secure. — Murray N. Rothbard

In order to gain their freedom, survivors may have to give up almost everything else. Battered women may lose their homes, their friends, and their livelihood. Survivors of childhood abuse may lose their families. Political refugees may lose their homes and their homeland. Rarely are the dimensions of this sacrifice fully recognized. — Judith Lewis Herman

It would be tempting to explain this long survival of magical practices by pointing out that they helped to provide many professional wizards with a respectable livelihood. The example of the legal profession is a reminder that it is always possible for a substantial social group to support itself by proffering solutions to problems which they themselves have helped to manufacture. — Keith Thomas

Information, education, skills, healthcare, livelihood, financial inclusion, small and village enterprises, opportunities for women, conservation of natural resources, distributed clean energy - entirely new possibilities have emerged to change the development model. — Narendra Modi

I always felt that I had anxiety of survival in terms of livelihood even when I was making plenty of money. — Leonard Baskin

In your dread of dictators you established a state of society in which every ward boss is a dictator, every financier a dictator, every private employer a dictator, all with the livelihood of the workers at their mercy, and no public responsibility. And to symbolize this state of things, this defeat of all government, you have set up in New York Harbour a monstrous idol which you call Liberty. The only thing that remains to complete this monument is to put on its pedestal the inscription written by Dante on the gate of Hell 'All hope abandon, ye who enter here. — George Bernard Shaw

Without the rich - without those who accumulated capital - those poor who could exist at all would be very much poorer indeed, scratching a livelihood from marginal lands on which every drought would kill most of the children they would be trying to raise. — Friedrich August Von Hayek

Lifestyle and livelihood are pivotal moral issues. — Stephanie Mills

Almighty God, thee only have I; thou steerest my fate, I must give myself up to thee! Give me a livelihood! Give me a bride! My blood wants love, as my heart does! — Hans Christian Andersen

The average American salesmen keeps 33 men and women at work - 33 people producing the product he sells ... and is responsible for the livelihood of 130 people. — Robert A. Whitney

The workmen in a factory may have a shadowy, unknown absentee "employer" - the thousands of individual owners of stock - whom "management" represents and tries to please by extra dividends. The workman's livelihood is at the disposition of strangers who make a single demand of their representatives: higher profits. — Fulton J. Sheen