Quotes & Sayings About Thankless

I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office. — Thomas Jefferson

I have some friends who are actors. I've watched them work. And I would say that of all the arts, acting is the most grueling, thankless. Never apologize for your work. — Kristen Stewart

I know it's thankless to be sensible in the face of someone's primitive distrust. — Don DeLillo

Is there a reason for the sudden fashion for the eight-goal tie? Maybe it's because defending is hard, and boring, and thankless, and most people who are paid a six-figure sum weekly do very little that is hard or boring or thankless. — Nick Hornby

They come in injured and mangled, we put them back together, then they stand in my halls making demands. A thankless lot to be sure. — Kristen Britain

I mean, full stops are quite important, aren't they? Yet by contrast to the versatile apostrophe, they are stolid little chaps, to say the least. In fact one might dare to say that while the full stop is the lumpen male of the punctuation world (do one job at a time; do it well; forget about it instantly), the apostrophe is the frantically multi-tasking female, dotting hither and yon, and succumbing to burn-out from all the thankless effort. — Lynne Truss

When we translate, we always to some extent betray the text we are translating. That is why translation is so hard and thankless. All you can do is to fail in the least egregious way possible. — Jay L. Garfield

Never try to convey your idea to the audience - it is a thankless and senseless task. Show them life, and they'll find within themselves the means to assess and appreciate it. — Andrei Tarkovsky

The confession of our failings is a thankless office. It savors less of sincerity or modesty than of ostentation. It seems as if we thought our weaknesses as good as other people's virtues. — William Hazlitt

So fare thee well, poor devil of a Sub-Sub, whose commentator I am. Thou belongest to that hopeless, sallow tribe which no wine of this world will ever warm; and for whom even Pale Sherry would be too rosy-strong; but with whom one sometimes loves to sit, and feel poor-devilish, too; and grow convivial upon tears; and say to them bluntly, with full eyes and empty glasses, and in not altogether unpleasant sadness - Give it up, Sub-Subs! For by how much more pains ye take to please the world, by so much the more shall ye for ever go thankless! Would that I could clear out Hampton Court and the Tuileries for ye! But gulp down your tears and hie aloft to the royal-mast with your hearts; for your friends who have gone before are clearing out the seven-storied heavens, and making refugees of long pampered Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael, against your coming. Here ye strike but splintered hearts together - there, ye shall strike unsplinterable glasses! — Herman Melville

To have may be taken from us, to have had, never. A man is thankless in the highest degree if, after losing something, he feels no obligation for having received it. — Seneca.

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child! — William Shakespeare

We need to reward the 'thankless job' of substitute teaching with better pay and chances for permanent positions. I look forward to the day when no student comes home saying, 'I didn't learn much today ... we had a sub.' — Adora Svitak

Being a parent is dirty and scary and beautiful and hard and miraculous and exhausting and thankless and joyful and frustrating all at once. It's everything. (Confessions of a Scary Mommy, Gallery Books 2012). — Jill Smokler

No-I'm not going to wallow and pretend it was 'better in the old days' - that's a tedious and thankless occupation. It's just when you live in a desert and you feel proper thirst you try to quench it in the only way you're able, by falling down to the old and dried up springs. — Larisa Miller

Being president of the United States is the most stressful, thankless job in the world and Margaret can't fathom why anyone would voluntarily pursue it. — Elin Hilderbrand

A man accepts the thankless burden of responsibility. We women do not. To us, life is a game we play one day at a time. — Clive Cussler

It's a thankless job, telling people it's a hard, hard Universe they're in. — Kurt Vonnegut

[Eddie] wondered if every criminal saw himself as the hero of his own story and if every thankless son was convinced he'd been mistreated by his father. — Alice Hoffman

The translator's task is essentially a difficult and often a thankless one. He is severely criticized if he makes a mistake, but only faintly praised when he succeeds, for often it is assumed that anyone who know two languages ought to be able to do as well as the translator who has labored to produce a text. — Eugene A. Nida

Prolonged, indiscriminate reviewing of books is a quite exceptionally thankless, irritating and exhausting job. It not only involves praising trash but constantly inventing reactions towards books about which one has no spontaneous feeling whatever. — George Orwell

When I was 5, my father was very much my hero. And he ran for political office in a very thankless campaign for a very thankless position. And he did it because his mother had instilled in him, if you are someone who has the capacity to make a great change, you have the responsibility. — Howard Warren Buffett

We treat our future selves as though they were our children, spending most of the hours of most of our days constructing tomorrows that we hope will make them happy ... But our temporal progeny are often thankless. We toil and sweat to give them just what we think they will like, and they quit their jobs, grow their hair, move to or from San Francisco, and wonder how we could ever have been stupid enough to think they'd like that. We fail to achieve the accolades and rewards that we consider crucial to their well-being, and they end up thanking God that things didn't work out according to our shortsighted, misguided plan. — Daniel M. Gilbert

I'm talking about the soul-crushing drudgery of day-to-day parenthood that we're too embarrassed to talk about. The boredom, the stress, the nagging dissatisfaction, and the sense of personal failure that parents feel when raising a kid isn't all it's cracked up to be. Perhaps worst of all is the guilt that so many women buy into because they're too ashamed to admit that despite the love they have for their kids, child rearing can be a tedious and thankless undertaking. — Jessica Valenti

Widmerpool still represented to my mind a kind of embodiment of thankless labour and unsatisfied ambition. — Anthony Powell

Thanksgiving dinner's sad and thankless. Christmas dinner's dark and blue. When you stop and try to see it From the turkey's point of view.
Sunday dinner isn't sunny. Easter feasts are just bad luck. When you see it from the viewpoint of a chicken or a duck. Oh how I once loved tuna salad Pork and lobsters, lamb chops too Till I stopped and looked at dinner From the dinner's point of view. — Shel Silverstein

What a glorious world Almighty God has given us. How thankless and ungrateful we are, and how we labor to mar his gifts. — Robert E.Lee

I am going to St. Petersburg, Florida, tomorrow. Let the worthy citizens of Chicago get their liquor the best they can. I'm sick of the job-it's a thankless one and full of grief. I've been spending the best years of my life as a public benefactor. — Al Capone

Hear, nature, hear; dear goddess, hear!
Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend
To make this creature fruitful!
Into her womb convey sterility!
Dry up in her the organs of increase;
And from her derogate body never spring
A babe to honour her! If she must teem,
Create her child of spleen; that it may live,
And be a thwart disnatured torment to her!
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth;
With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks;
Turn all her mother's pains and benefits
To laughter and contempt; that she may feel
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child! Away, away! — William Shakespeare

I know being a linesman is a thankless job, especially with guys like me around. — John McEnroe

I would have thought that your being sent by the wisest men in your country, supposedly, to fight a nearly endless, thankless, horrifying, and, finally, pointless war, would have given you sufficient insight into the nature of humanity to last you throughout all eternity! — Kurt Vonnegut

Cinema is a thankless industry where sometimes to appear on the cinematic scenery is a thing for late bloomers and people who are very patient. The places are accounted, and the space is often unwelcoming. Money is rare, and independent voices are muted by the almost complete absence of risk takers. — Xavier Dolan

Being a caretaker is, and never will be, an easy job; in fact, it is that hardest job in the world and many times a thankless job. You have to be the pillar of strength even when you feel like you are crumbling to pieces inside. — Jenna Morasca

I do not know of any religion that does not declare women to be feeble-minded, unclean, generally inferior creatures to males, although most Humans assume that we are the cream of all species. Women, alas; but thank God, Homo Sapiens! Most of us, I hope, are now aware that a woman should not have to demand Rights. The Rights were there from the beginning; they must be Taken Back Again, including the Mysteries which were ours and which were violated, stolen or destroyed, leaving us with the thankless hope of pleasing a male animal, probably of one's own species. — Leonora Carrington

The less approval I get, the more chances I have to develop a relationship with my inner sense of approval. Thankless environments are actually useful for this. They help me discover my own thankfulness and my own self-appreciation. — Vironika Tugaleva

I'd heard once in school that if a single bird were to transport all the sand, grain by grain, from the eastern seabord to the west coast of Africa, it would take ... I didn't catch the number of years, preferring to concentrate on the single bird chosen to perform this thankless task. It hardly seemed fair, because, unlike a horse or a Seeing Eye dog, the whole glory of being a bird is that nobody would ever put you to work. Birds search for grubs and build their nests, but their leisure time is theirs to spend as they see fit. I pictured this bird looking down from the branches to say, "You want me to do what?" before flying off, laughing at the at the foolish story he now had to tell his friends. — David Sedaris

The office of the public teacher is an unenviable and thankless one. — Felix Adler

For a man does not serve that he may put men under obligations. He does not distinguish between friends and enemies or anticipate their thankfulness or unthankfulness, but he most freely and most willingly spends himself and all that he has, whether he wastes all on the thankless or whether he gains a reward. — Martin Luther

Being a good embalmer is a thankless job. — Matt Groening

programming is rather thankless. u see your works become replaced by superior ones in a year. unable to run at all in a few more. — Why The Lucky Stiff

Medicine is a thankless profession. When you get paid by the rich, you feel like a flunky, by the poor like a thief. How can you take a fee from people who can't afford to eat or go to the movies? Especially when they're at their last gasp. It's not easy. You let it ride. You get soft-hearted. And your ship goes down. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Shall we mourn here deedless forever a shadow-folk mist-haunting dropping vain tears in the thankless sea — J.R.R. Tolkien

Teachers are sort of faced with a thankless task, because no matter how good they are, unless they find a way to personally rationalize the rewards of their effort, nobody else is really going to do it for them en masse. — Julius Erving

I hope you're enjoying it, though, duck, and not wasting all your time and energy in a thankless job. You've got to make the most of life and not let these little opportunities pass you by. Before you know it you'll be old and wrinkly like me and wishing you'd done more. Just make sure you're happy. — Giovanna Fletcher

I've always had the impression that real militants are like cleaning women, doing a thankless, daily but necessary job. — Francois Truffaut

That is the thankless position of the father in the family - the provider for all, and the enemy of all. — August Strindberg

For the first time since giving birth so many years before, I grew weary of motherhood, and wondered how many more generations of women could be enticed to burden themselves with the solitary and thankless procreation, nourishing, and guidance of the human race. — Jean Sasson

I would be content with any job, however thankless, in any quarter, however remote, if I had the chance of making a corner of the desert blossom and a solitary place glad. — John Buchan

Tis a thankless world — Jean Webster

I had resigned my temporary lectureship - thankless, dreary work, from which I would be suddenly distracted by the slightest song, the slightest sound coming from the country outside; in every passing cry I heard an invitation. How often I have leapt from my reading and run to the window to see - nothing pass by! How often I have hurried out of doors ... The only attention I found possible was that of my five senses. — Andre Gide

Picture to yourself, O fair young reader, a worldly, selfish, graceless, thankless, religionless old woman, writhing in pain and fear, and without her wig. Picture her to yourself, and ere you be old, learn to love and pray. — William Makepeace Thackeray

In spite of its romantic frisson, the position of muse is very vague and largely thankless for the muse herself. — Katie Roiphe

L.A. is full of screenwriters. I don't know why. On many levels, it's such a thankless occupation. — Nick Cave

Computer programmers tend, by and large, to be quirky and highly individualistic. Trying to organize or manage such awkward characters is normally as thankless as herding cats — John Naughton

Writing can be thankless. People treat writing like it's some elegant act but it's usually lonely and isolating. You will struggle over a piece of writing and then get to set and some dumb actor will say it wrong or immediately want to change it. — Amy Poehler

Ferbin's father had had the same robustly pragmatic view of religion as he'd had of everything else. In his opinion, only the very poor and downtrodden really needed religion, to make their laborious lives more bearable. People craved self-importance; they longed to be told they mattered as individuals, not just as part of a mass of people or some historical process. They needed the reassurance that while their life might be hard, bitter and thankless, some reward would be theirs after death. Happily for the governing class, a well-formed faith also kept people from seeking their recompense in the here and now, through riot, insurrection or revolution. — Iain M. Banks

Love doesn't save, it raises you up and makes you bigger, it lights you up from inside and carves out that light like wood in the forest. It nestles in the hollows of empty days, of thankless tasks, of useless hours, it doesn't drift along on golden rafts or sparkling rivers, it doesn't sing or shine and it never proclaims a thing. But at night, once the room's been swept and the embers covered over and the children are asleep
at night between the sheets, with slow gazes, not moving or speaking
at night, at last, when we're weary of our meager lives and the trivialities of our insignificant existance, each of us becomes the well where the other one can draw water ... — Muriel Barbery

If you can make a little painting for the ears with a few words, well, I like words: I like cutting them up and finding different ways of saying the same thing. I get into a spell, and it all comes easy. I don't labor over it. I go inside the song. I think you make yourself an antenna for songs, and songs want to be around you. And then they bring other songs along, and then they're all sittin' around, and they're drinking your beer, and they're sleeping on the floor. And they are using the phone. They're rude, thankless little f-ers. — Tom Waits

I started volunteering at an animal shelter, and little by little, my life started getting better. I think that is the secret. It is just being on a mission that is something bigger than me and it's thankless. You do that because it is thankless, and I am not looking for anybody to say, 'Thanks' and 'You are great!' — William McNamara

My other chore is to buy a tree- a thankless task. The only truly well-proportioned Christmas trees are the ones they use in advertisements. If you try and find one in real life you face inevitable disapointment. Your tree will lean to the left or the right. It will be too bushy at the base, or straggly at the top. Even if you do, by some miracle, find a perfect tree, if won't fit in the car and by the time you strap it to the rooftop and drive it home the branches are broken and twisted out of shape. You
wrestle it through the door, gagling on pine needles and sweating profusely, only to hear the maddening question from countless Christmases past: 'Is that really the best one you could find? — Michael Robotham

Meddling with another man's folly is always thankless work. — Rudyard Kipling

Were we to undertake an exhaustive self-scrutiny, disgust would paralyze us, we would be doomed to a thankless existence. — Emile M. Cioran

When I did 'The Social Network', David Fincher told me that I managed to make a thankless character pretty awesome. I thought that was really cool because I think he's really cool. — Dakota Johnson

Raising kids may be a thankless job with ridiculous hours, but at least the pay sucks. — Jim Gaffigan

Monotonous and thankless as her job can be sometimes, she cheers at the thought of her coworkers - a dozen of them crammed into their little offices in the basement - all cleverly disguised as harmless geeks, all capable of saving the world if called upon. — Alexis M. Smith

Politics is a thankless occupation; I have no interest in it at all. — Ben Stein

Economic controversy is generally a thankless task. You cannot hope to make any impression on your opponent. Yet he is the only reader on whose interest you can count. — Francis Ysidro Edgeworth

The month behind her had gone, leaving nothing but the blank of dead time. It had gone into the planless, thankless work of racing from emergency to emergency, of delaying the collapse of a railroad - a month like a waste pile of disconnected days, each given to averting the disaster of the moment. It had not been a sum of achievements brought into existence, but only a sum of zeros, — Ayn Rand

Sounds like a thankless job.
Sometimes the most important ones are. — Regina Jennings

Ah, how unjust to Nature and himself Is thoughtless, thankless, inconsistent man! — Edward Young

My foray into the world of adults had taught me that very few people are willing to tell you the truth. It is something reserved only for the people who loved you the most unconditionally, the ones who were willing to absorb the denial and resentment that often accompanied it. It is a thankless job, that of the truth-teller. — Tina L. Hook

It's not so much a thankless task, it's more a job with no thanks — Colin Baker

Alan," cried I, "what makes ye so good to me? What makes ye care for such a thankless fellow?"
Deed, and I don't, know" said Alan. "For just precisely what I thought I liked about ye, was that ye never quarrelled: - and now I like ye better! — Robert Louis Stevenson

9/11/01
Gina:
Especially today, with the enormity of current events, I want to convey to you again, how much you mean to me and how proud I am to be your husband. The hard work that you are engaged in right now is exhausting, invisible and largely thankless in the short term.
But honey, please know that buried at the core of this tedium is the most noble and important work in the world- God's work; the fruits of which you and I will be lucky enough to enjoy as we grow old together. Watching these little guys grow into men is a privilege that I am proud to share with you, and the perfect fulfillment of our marriage bonds.
You are a great mom.
You are a great wife.
You are my best friend.
You are very pretty.
Happy Birthday.

-Matt — Michael Spehn

The world is truly a terrible place. Every one of my generation is lost, filling the holes which are their lives with seditious and yet passionless acts of unnecessary drama. It is a world of hypocrisy and whispers, a dark mine shaft of overfed, spoiled, and thankless slaves too stupid to realize that, despite their steady stream of shallow luxuries, they are still slaves. — Jason S. Hornsby

There is no better feeling than doing well while you are doing good. If you really want to meet the nicest, most caring people in your field, get involved with charity work. The thankless hours that go into planning charity dinners, running a carnival, and gathering donations for silent auctions are noticed and appreciated. — Jay Samit

This is our life now: slaving away in thankless, monotonous jobs and spending half our salaries on fattening food. — Katrina Ramos Atienza

I've done a lot of going back and forth with my own writing, in particular translating my English language stuff into Ukrainian - poetry as well as prose. But I actually hate doing it. It is a thankless, mind-numbing process, additionally unpleasant for me because it reminds me of my ambiguous status of not belonging anywhere. — Yuriy Tarnawsky

Alas! What boots it with uncessant care To tend the homely slighted Shepherd's trade, And strictly meditate the thankless muse; Were it not better done as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair? Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days; But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with th'abhorred shears, And slits the thin-spun life. — John Milton

Justice Denied
Thousands of women, probably more
I cannot reach them behind justice doors
Many stay silent, barred just like me.
Haunted by demons, faces unseen.
Still by the hundreds, they continue to serve
Duty and country, active and reserve.
Thankless, forgotten through America's wars
Scarred like their brethren, treated as foes.
Volunteered to go to the shores.
Died like the others, shamed to the core.
Where is the dignity, long since denied?
Lost in the White House of Justice Denied
Women in service since beginning of time
Often they're treated like victims in crime.
Where is their voice, silence throughout the years?
It's dead in the Senate and House, with their tears! — Diane Chamberlain

First lady has been a thankless position. Eleanor Roosevelt was brilliant and had strong views. She was criticized for her politics and for her appearance. Mrs. Roosevelt was attacked for being too involved in politics. Bess Truman was criticized for being uninvolved in politics. — Karen DeCrow

Producing is a thankless task akin to hotel management. Unfortunately, there are not too many good hotel managers. — David Hemmings

My name is on the first leaf. If you can ever write under my name, "I
forgive her," though ever so long after my broken heart is dust pray do
it!"
"O Miss Havisham," said I, "I can do it now. There have been sore
mistakes; and my life has been a blind and thankless one; and I want
forgiveness and direction far too much, to be bitter with you. — Charles Dickens

The role of benefactor is worse than thankless, it's the role of a victim, Doctor, a sacrificial victim, yes, they want your blood, Doctor, they want your blood on the altar steps of their outraged, outrageous egos! — Tennessee Williams

Oh, misanthropy and sourness. Gary wanted to enjoy being a man of wealth and leisure, but the country was making it none too easy. All around him, millions of newly minted American millionaires were engaged in the identical pursuit of feeling extraordinary - of buying the perfect Victorian, of skiing the virgin slope, of knowing the chef personally, of locating the beach that had no footprints. There were further tens of millions of young Americans who didn't have money but were nonetheless chasing the Perfect Cool. And meanwhile the sad truth was that not everyone could be extraordinary, not everyone could be extremely cool; because whom would this leave to be ordinary? Who would perform the thankless work of being comparatively uncool? — Jonathan Franzen

We are surrounded every day by people who do thankless but important work. — Brian Kilmeade

Indeed, I should be very stupid or very thankless if I did not congratulate myself every hour of the day on the lot which it has pleased Providence to assign me. My Husband is so kind! So, in all respects, after my own heart! — Jane Welsh Carlyle

Film-making is not liberating. It drains a lot out of you, and it's fulfilling only temporarily. It's a very thankless thing at times. When you're spending all that time on a film, you don't want 40,000 people to see it - it's just not enough. You dream of more. — Xavier Dolan

I have a true aversion to teaching. The perennial business of a professor of mathematics is only to teach the ABC of his science; most of the few pupils who go a step further, and usually to keep the metaphor, remain in the process of gathering information, become only Halbwisser [one who has superficial knowledge of the subject], for the rarer talents do not want to have themselves educated by lecture courses, but train themselves. And with this thankless work the professor loses his precious time. — Carl Friedrich Gauss

So if you, O subsequent ones, ever deign to look down at us from your summit of effortless superiority, remember that you have only scaled it on the back of our efforts. For it is thankless to grope in the dark and tempting to rest until the light of understanding shines upon us. But if we are led into this temptation, your kingdom will never come. — Guy Deutscher

Don't get me wrong. Being a mom is no picnic. Raising the kids is the mother's
responsibility. It's a thankless, solitary job, like sheriff or Pope. — Stephen Colbert

It's not always thankless. Let's face it - it's not always thankless. I've gotten a lot of really great recognition and I've worked with amazing people. — Kyra Sedgwick

Scarlett O'Hara is going to be a thankless and difficult role. The part I'd like to play is Rhett Butler. — Norma Shearer

A nurse and a social worker took fifteen minutes out of their shitty thankless job in the roughest corner of town, sat on a couple of milk crates drinking coffee, flopped their real selves out of the cement and both liked what they saw. — Laura Buzo

Governance is complex, difficult, and on the whole, thankless - why ever should the Bright Young Things leave the management of their hotels, newspapers, banks, TV channels and corporations to join, like fleas on a behemoth, the government? Wherein lies the difference between the two worlds? — Upamanyu Chatterjee

I happened to notice that among the men who had willingly presented themselves for jury-service was one whom I knew to be the father of seven children. Under a law of Augustus's he was exempt for the rest of his life; yet he had not pleaded for exemption or mentioned the size of his family. I told the magistrate: "Strike this man's name off. He's a father of seven." He protested: "But, Caesar, he has made no attempt to excuse himself." "Exactly," I said, "he wants to be a juryman. Strike him off." I meant, of course,that the fellow was concealing his immunity from what every honest man considered a very thankless and disagreeable duty and that he therefore was almost certain to have crooked intentions. Crooked jurymen could pick up a lot of money by bribes, for it was a commonplace that one interested juryman could sway the opinions of a whole bunch of uninterested ones; and the majority verdict decided a case. — Robert Graves