Work Improvement Quotes & Sayings

This society [Jesuits] has been a greater calamity to mankind than the French Revolution, or Napoleon's despotism or ideology. It has obstructed the progress of reformation and the improvement of the human mind in society much longer and more fatally.

{Letter to Thomas Jefferson, November 4, 1816. Adams wrote an anonymous 4 volume work on the destructive history of the Jesuits} — John Adams

I'm never proud of my old work. I always feel as though my skills have since improved. — Criss Jami

He thought ... that man's work should be a higher step, an improvement on nature, not a degradation. He did not want to despise men; he wanted to love and admire them. — Ayn Rand

Remember my experiments with the RTG and having a hot bath? Same principle, but I came up with an improvement: submerge the RTG. No heat will be wasted that way. I started with a large rigid sample container (or "plastic box" to people who don't work at NASA). I ran a tube through the open top and down the inside wall. Then I coiled it in the bottom to make a spiral. I glued it in place like that and sealed the end. Using my smallest drill bit, I put dozens of little holes in the coil. The idea is for the freezing return air from the regulator to pass through the water as a bunch of little bubbles. The increased surface area will get the heat into the air better. Then I got a medium flexible sample container ("Ziploc bag") and tried to seal the RTG in it. But the RTG has an irregular shape, and I couldn't get all the air out of the bag. I can't allow any air in there. — Andy Weir

You have the capacity to do the work.
Find the willpower to begin work. — Lailah Gifty Akita

The prudent, penniless beginner in the world, labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land, for himself; then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This, say its advocates, is free labor-the just and generous, and prosperous system, which opens the way for all-gives hope to all, and energy, and progress, and improvement of condition to all. — Abraham Lincoln

The reality is that most innovative work is incremental improvement. It's about staying ahead of trends as opposed to reacting to trends. — Bill Sheridan

You must add value to yourself to be relevant — Sunday Adelaja

The purpose of my work is not to educate people, rather it is to enrich human life with self-awareness. — Abhijit Naskar

Science "works", of course, but from an aesthetic point of view, was it really a great improvement over mythology? Why do we insist that theories "work", when they might just as well sit around and look pretty?
I couldn't help observing that for every advance in science ... some perfectly competent goddess or demiurge is put out of work, a hypothesized spirit dies, or a living thing surrenders its autonomy. — Barbara Ehrenreich

If you try anything, if you try to lose weight, or to improve yourself, or to love, or to make the world a better place, you have already achieved something wonderful, before you even begin. Forget failure. If things don't work out the way you want, hold your head up high and be proud. And try again. And again. And again! — Sarah Dessen

Your identity or potentials need to develop relevance, get education, possess content, technical improvement to be relevant to time and the present context. The anointing of yesterday will not do for the work of today. — Ikechukwu Joseph

I have discovered there are only a handful of good ideas in the whole world. You already know them. You have heard them your entire life. Here are some of the main keys to being more successful:
Take personal responsibility.
Things change, so be flexible.
Work smart and work hard.
Serve others well.
Be nice to others.
Be optimistic.
Have goals; want something big for yourself.
Stay focused.
Keep learning.
Become excellent at what you do.
Trust your gut.
When in doubt, take action.
Earn all you can. Save all you can. Give all you can.
Enjoy all you've got.
Above all keep it simple. — Larry Winget

And Republican women have always been the backbone of our party. We do the work, we are strong believers in conservative values. Having more of those voices in place at a state level is going to be a great improvement for us as a party. — Kerry Healey

... Writing is something that you can never do as well as it can be done. It is a perpetual challenge and it is more difficult than anything else that I have ever done - so I do it. And it makes me happy when I do it well. — Ernest Hemingway,

Laziness is when you accede to the misconception that work is unnecessary. — Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

Success or failure in your work and relationships is dependent on how you manage your feelings. — Deborah Sandella

The behavioral programme of the post-social society during the post-capitalism interregnum is governed by a neoliberal ethos of competetive self-improvement, of untiring cultivation of one's marketable human capital, enthusiastic dedication to work, and cheerfully optimistic, playful acceptance of the risks inherent in a world that has outgrown government. That this programme is dutifully implemented is essential, as the reproduction of the post-capitalist society lite hangs on the thin thread of an accommodating systematic architecture. Structuralist critique of false institutions may therefore have to be complemented by a renewed culturalist critique of false consciousness. — Wolfgang Streeck

Energy efficiency should be on the priority list for all home improvement work these days. Canny builders will be able to provide homeowners with energy efficient measures which help them to save money and the planet. — Sarah Beeny

All work undertaken should be useful - not just for a day, or a year, but useful in the sense that it affords permanent improvement in living conditions or that it creates future new wealth for the Nation. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

If establishment journalists were to replicate actual stenography, it would be an improvement on most of the work they produce. — Glenn Greenwald

Effective altruism is about asking "How can I make the biggest difference I can?" and using evidence and careful reasoning to try to find an answer. It takes a scientific approach to doing good. Just as science consists of the honest and impartial attempt to work out what's true, and a committment to believe the truth whatever that turns out to be. As the phrase suggests, effective altruism consists of the honest and impartial attempt to work out what's best for the world, and a commitment to do what's best, whatever that turns out to be. — William MacAskill

Logically, you should go to school, get good grades, go to college, get a good degree, go into the workplace, then work hard and be happy.
The only problem is that happiness isn't logical. — A.C. Ping

No work you'll ever complete;
no project you'll ever attempt;
no skill you'll ever master;
no book you'll ever write;
no race you'll ever run;
no sculpture you'll ever create;
no task you'll ever perform;
no structure you'll ever build;
nothing you will ever do
is more important than the life you shape one day at a time. — Steve Goodier

Purposefully spend time to better yourself — Sunday Adelaja

In order to answer the question "Where am I going?" one needs to work for self-improvement, to possess decisiveness, to have a will to win and dedication to achieve the goal at all cost — Sunday Adelaja

There's always stuff to work on. You're never there. — Tiger Woods

Summary of Scrum vs Kanban

Similarities:
- Both are Lean and Agile
- Both use pull scheduling
- Both limit WIP
- Both use transperency to drive process improvement
- Both focus on delivering releasable software and often
- Both are based on self-organizing teams
- Both require breaking the work into pieces.
- In both, the release plan is continuously optimized based on empirical data (velocity/lead time) — Henrik Kniberg

You do not simply, mindlessly, implement the best practices. You have to think deeply about your condition. If the "best practice" seems like a useful countermeasure for your problem, you should learn from the best practice; however, what may have worked in some other place may not work for you without adjustment and even further improvement. — Jeffrey K. Liker

you give your best for today, you create a greater tomorrow. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Everything big, once started little. Discipline yourself and work to become an excellent person at what you want. Stretch yourself daily and go a little further than yesterday. Growth is the key to winning success. — Mark LaMoure

Success demands consistent effort and hard work. — Lailah Gifty Akita

We are meant to do the work of angels for we are often disguised from ourSelves. — Paresh Shah

Umpires, like players, are expected to show constant improvement each season and at each level. Inconsistent plate work and the inability to handle situations are probably the two biggest problems that minor league umpires face. — Jim Evans

Discovering passion and purpose requires figuring out what works and what doesn't. Mature, successful people establish their on rules. These rules are measured by only one standard: do they work? — Robert A. Glover

That was thirteen hundred years ago. This is really no improvement upon the work of the Roman augurs. Has the trade of interpreting the Lord's matters gone out, discouraged by the time-worn fact that nobody succeeds at it? No, it still flourishes; there was never a century nor a country that was short of experts who knew the Deity's mind and were willing to reveal it. Whenever there has been an opportunity to attribute to Him reasonings and conduct which would make a half-witted human being ridiculous, there has always been an expert ready and glad to take advantage of it. — Mark Twain

Don't let your imperfections conveniently excuse you from having discipline. Have the courage to work through your imperfections. — Matthew Donnelly

You can't expect to be who God wanted you to be if you don't improve on upon your talents, abilities, and actions to the peak of the potentials you carry. — Israelmore Ayivor

Denigrating ourselves is probably the major way that we cover over bodhichitta [open heart]. Does not trying to change mean we have to remain angry and addicted until the day we die? This is a reasonable question. Trying to change ourselves doesn't work in the long run because we're resisting our own energy. Self-improvement can have temporary results, but lasting transformation occurs only when we honor ourselves as the source of wisdom and compassion. We are, as the eighth-century Buddhist master Shantideva pointed out, very much like a blind person who finds a jewel buried in a heap of garbage. Right here in what we'd like to throw away, in what we find repulsive and frightening, we discover the warmth and clarity of bodhichitta. — Pema Chodron

Ever day you spend at work is a foundation for your future. — Abhishek Ratna

I believe that this instinct to perpetuate useless work is, at bottom, simply fear of the mob. The mob (the thought runs) are such low animals that they would be dangerous if they had leisure; it is safer to keep them too busy to think. A rich man who happens to be intellectually honest, if he is questioned about the improvement of working conditions, usually says something like this: "We know that poverty is unpleasant; in fact, since it is so remote, we rather enjoy harrowing ourselves with the thought of its unpleasantness. But don't expect us to do anything about it. We are sorry for you lower classes, just as we are sorry for a cat with the mange, but we will fight like devils against any improvement of your condition. — George Orwell

If you give up before your goal has been reached, you are a "quitter." A QUITTER NEVER WINS AND A WINNER NEVER QUITS. Lift this sentence out, write it on a piece of paper in letters an inch high, and place it where you will see it every night before you go to sleep, and every morning before you go to work — Napoleon Hill

Our enemy within are our Core Negative Beliefs. Negative beliefs hide from the Consciousness and they get exposed by the Magic of Mindfulness and Awareness. Explore Your Core Beliefs, Challenge Existing, Train Mindfulness, Understand Beauty, Work with Emptiness, Meditate — Natasa Nuit Pantovic

For all the unkind things said about envy, it would only be fair to acknowledge that not all envy is destructive. If envy leads us to work hard and to improve our skills, it becomes a stimulant to self-improvement. God has given us no quality that cannot be used for good. — Sidney Greenberg

Not many abilities are inherent. Most are acquired through patient practice, and those that are inherent are enhanced and utilized through practice too. — Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

No matter what we do, each instant contains infinite choices. What we choose to think, to say or to hear creates what we feel in the present moment, it conditions the quality of our communication and in the end the quality of our everyday life. Beliefs and attitudes are made of thoughts. Negative thoughts can be changed and by doing so we create for ourselves more pleasant inner states and have a different impact on the people around us — Dorotea Brandin

We work hard for the things we want, we compromise, we amend, we persevere, we stay believing, we show commitment. We strive! Later we will see the results — Tshepang Sharon Koji

Time creates Let time work at your projects. — Rossana Condoleo

Fantasize and start dream building. Bring your dreams into material reality. See yourself at your best. Transform yourself with dedication and work for excellence. — Mark LaMoure

Happiness supports enthusiasm and empowers creativity and initiative.
Happiness makes you a better person in your private, family, and
work spheres.
Happiness keeps you healthy and lets you stick to your plans.
Cultivate happiness as the most precious flower in your Garden.
- From HAPPY DIVORCE, by Rossana Condoleo
gardenRossana Condoleo — Rossana Condoleo

In a lot of ways home improvement is like marriage. It's not glamorous. It can take a lot of hard work and effort. There are days it feels like it might be easier to burn the whole thing to the ground and start all over again. Then you remember how much you love the house or your husband and you recommit yourself to what it takes to see the whole thing through. Even when it might involve paintbrushes and compromise and sanding and scraping all the rough edges. And when you look back on a tough patch a few months after the worst has passed, you don't remember all the hard work and the tears. You just have the satisfaction of knowing you've made something beautiful. — Melanie Shankle

I am a particular fan of integrative exercise - that is, exercise that occurs in the course of doing some productive activity such as gardening, bicycling to work, doing home improvement projects and so on. — Andrew Weil

Dream sets us on fire.
Dream gives us direction.
Dream betters our potential.
Dream helps us prioritize.
Dream adds value to our work and
life.
Dream colors our future. — Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

It is of vast consequence how ministers discharge their office, and conduct themselves towards their people in the work of the ministry, and in affairs appertaining to it. 'Tis also a matter of vast importance, how a people receive and entertain a faithful minister of Christ, and what improvement they make of his ministry. — Jonathan Edwards

I made a pleasant discovery. You work hard at something eight hours a day, you get better. Not a lot better necessarily, but a little better, and that's just fine, because improving at golf, or anything else probably, is just a matter of making an endless series of tiny improvements. — James Patterson

When the founders wrote about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they didn't mean longer vacations and more comfortable hammocks. They meant the pursuit of learning. The pursuit of improvement and excellence. In hard work is happiness. — David McCullough

My whole thing was, if I can put in 5 percent of the effort of somebody getting an A, and I can get a C minus, that's amazing," he explains. "It's certainly good enough, right? [Then] I can take the other 95 percent of the time and invest it in something I really care about. — David Heinemeier Hansson

I've discovered I am most comfortable outside my comfort zone. — Mark W. Boyer

Contrary to the outstanding work of art, outstanding theory is susceptible to improvements. — Karl Popper

The improvement of forest trees is the work of centuries. So much more the reason for beginning now. — George Perkins Marsh

The pupil's imagination is 'schooled' to accept service in place of value. Medical treatment is mistaken for health care, social work for the improvement of community life, police protection for safety, military poise for national security, the rat race for productive work. — Ivan Illich

I love theater work because of the immediate effect your performance has on the audience. And I love the repetition; I love getting on the same stage for more than a month and reciting the same lines, trying to make a small or large step towards an improvement in my acting. — Alfred Molina

You must showcase your work, achievements and performance in the best possible manner. — Abhishek Ratna

Becoming an influential personality at work is much more important than becoming a hardworking person! — Abhishek Ratna

Fortify your dream with work. Unrelenting effort turns fantasy into reality. — Manuela George-Izunwa

The Federal Reserve's objectives of maximum employment and price stability do not, by themselves, ensure a strong pace of economic growth or an improvement in living standards. The most important factor determining living standards is productivity growth, defined as increases in how much can be produced in an hour of work. — Janet Yellen

Start dream building. Raise your standards to excellence. Imagine yourself at your best and work on self-improvement. Transform yourself to a higher state of being, by concentrating on becoming excellent at what you want. — Mark LaMoure

The question is why one should be so inwardly preoccupied at all. Why not reach out to others in love and solidarity or peer into the natural world for some glimmer of understanding? Why retreat into anxious introspection when, as Emerson might have said, there is a vast world outside to explore? Why spend so much time working on oneself when there is so much real work to be done? — Barbara Ehrenreich

Self-realization is largely a matter of achieving a person's formative personality definition. People whom lack self-realization oftentimes fail to integrate their desired personality traits into all phases of their life including social life, family life, and work life. In order to achieve satisfaction with oneself, a person must know what they wish for, know how to go about achieving their goals, be capable of recognizing where they now stand, and understand how they must change in order to attain their ultimate visage. — Kilroy J. Oldster

If the Commission is to enquire into the conditions "to be observed," it is to be presumed that they will give the result of their enquiries; or, in other words, that they will lay down, or at least suggest, "rules" and "conditions to be (hereafter) observed" in the construction of bridges, or, in other words, embarrass and shackle the progress of improvement to-morrow by recording and registering as law the prejudices or errors of to-day. [Objecting to any interference by the State with the freedom of civil engineers in the conduct of their professional work.] — Isambard Kingdom Brunel

If you want money, you must work to earn it. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I'm single, footloose and fancy free, I have no responsibilities, no anchors. Work, friendship and self-improvement, that's me. — Joel Edgerton

Knowing how you want your work to look helps you decide who best to work with and where. — Michele Jennae

But even though I know my flaws are many (many many many), and there are always ways I could be better, and I should never stop working for that - I also need to give myself a break. I can cut myself some slack sometimes. Because I'm a work in progress. Because nobody is perfect. At least I acknowledge the mistakes I've made, and am making. At least I'm trying. That means something, doesn't it?
And just because I have room for improvement doesn't mean I'm worthless, or that I have nothing to offer to, like, the world. — Hannah Harrington

You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end,each of us must work for our own improvement and, at the same time, share a genaral responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think can be most useful. — Marie Curie

We have to prove to the disinherited majority of the world that ecology and conservation will not work against their interest but will bring an improvement in their lives. — Indira Gandhi

The capital ... shall form a fund, the interest of which shall be distributed annually as prizes to those persons who shall have rendered humanity the best services during the past year ... One-fifth to the person having made the most important discovery or invention in the science of physics, one-fifth to the person who has made the most eminent discovery or improvement in chemistry, one-fifth to the one having made the most important discovery with regard to physiology or medicine, one-fifth to the person who has produced the most distinguished idealistic work of literature, and one-fifth to the person who has worked the most or best for advancing the fraternization of all nations and for abolishing or diminishing the standing armies as well as for the forming or propagation of committees of peace. — Alfred Nobel

Dedicate time to yourself and do things that help you grow — Sunday Adelaja

A person can transfigure the disquiet of solitude in a positive or negative manner. Periods of enforced solitude can cause a person to develop eccentricities of conduct and character, parley with a number of mental aberrations, partake in self-destructive diversions, or use their time productively to contemplate worldly issues and diligently work on self-improvement. — Kilroy J. Oldster

If you do not work on self- improvement or do not develop strength of character, you will be inclined to succumb to the opinions of the people surrounding you or to the standards criminally imposed on you by the society — Sunday Adelaja

Make use of your people's parts to the utmost, as your helpers, in an orderly way, under your guidance, or else they will make use of them in a disorderly and dividing way in opposition to you. It hath been a great cause of schism, when ministers would contemptuously cry down private men's preaching, and with desire not to make any use of the gifts that God hath given them for their assistance; but thrust them too far from holy things, as if they were a profane generation. The work is likely to go poorly on if there be no hands employed in it but the ministers. God giveth not any of His gifts to be buried, but for common use. By a prudent improvement of the gifts of the more able Christians, we may receive much help by them, and prevent their abuse, even as lawful marriage preventeth fornication. — Richard Baxter

Very few managers know how to effectively tap the biggest source of performance improvement available to them: namely, the creativity and knowledge of the people who work for them. — Alan G. Robinson

No one seriously doubts Socrates' maxim: The unexamined life isn't worth living. Self-assessment and attempts at self-improvement are essential aspects of "the good life." Yes, we should engage in ruthless self-reflection and harsh scrutiny, but we should simultaneously acknowledge that such introspection will, at best, only result in a partial view of our minds at work. Complete objectivity is not an option. — Robert A. Burton

Knowing your true self will help you work more effectively to reach your goals. It will lead you down the road to success. It will bring you a calmness that will improve your attitude and your relationships with others. — Auliq Ice

Even time is a concept. In reality we are always in the eternal present. The past is just a memory, the future just an image or thought. All our stories about past and future are only ideas, arising in the moment. Our modern culture is so tyrannized by goals, plans, and improvement schemes that we constantly live for the future. But as Aldous Huxley reminded us in his writings, An idolatrous religion is one in which time is substituted for eternity ... the idea of endless progress is the devil's work, even today demanding human sacrifice on an enormous scale. — Jack Kornfield

I will do my very best while there is still grace. — Lailah Gifty Akita

It's easier to say (I'm going to be myself and if anyone wants to be with me, then she/he has to accept me as I am ... flaws and all) than it is for us to work at reducing our flaws and making ourselves more acceptable. — Darrell Roberts

I think I have a lot of room for improvement. My serve is okay, but I need to work on a lot of things: return, transition game, backhand. — Andy Roddick

If you want to work on your acting, work on yourself. — Anton Chekhov

(The presence of evil) in his life provokes him into either overcoming it or yielding to it. If the first, it has led him to work for his own improvement; if the second it has led him to acknowledge his own weakness. Sooner or later, the unpleasant consequences of such weakness will lead him to grapple with it, and develop his power of will ... Immediately and directly, it may either strengthen him or weaken him. Ultimately, it can only strengthen him. — Paul Brunton

According to Teleology, each organism is like a rifle bullet fired straight at a mark; according to Darwin, organisms are like grapeshot of which one hits something and the rest fall wide.
For the teleologist an organism exists because it was made for the conditions in which it is found; for the Darwinian an organism exists because, out of many of its kind, it is the only one which has been able to persist in the conditions in which it is found.
Teleology implies that the organs of every organism are perfect and cannot be improved; the Darwinian theory simply affirms that they work well enough to enable the organism to hold its own against such competitors as it has met with, but admits the possibility of indefinite improvement. — Thomas Henry Huxley

This is why the "apply some principles" approach to marriage improvement doesn't work. So long as we choose to turn a blind eye to how we are fallen as men or women, and to the unique style of relating that we have forged out of our sin and brokenness, we will continue to do damage to our marriages. — John Eldredge

How do I structure my life to be at peace with who I am, & comfortable with what I'm doing & not doing? — Elizabeth Grace Saunders

One thing I've learned: we don't stumble accidentally into an amazing life. It takes decision, a commitment to consistently work on ourselves. — Kamal Ravikant

Success = 1 part work + 1 part play + 1 part keep your mouth shut — Albert Einstein

Perfectionism doesn't believe in practice shots. It doesn't believe in improvement. Perfectionism has never heard that anything worth doing is worth doing badly
and that if we allow ourselves to do something badly we might in time become quite good at it. Perfectionism measures our beginner's work against the finished work of masters. Perfectionism thrives on comparison and competition. It doesn't know how to say, "Good try," or "Job well done." The critic does not believe in creative glee
or any glee at all, for that matter. No, perfectionism is a serious matter. — Julia Cameron

I learned that unless you start working, if you're frozen out of work, you will never learn the habits, the discipline, the values of cooperation and improvement unless you get a job, and that's what statistic show. It's, unless you get a job and keep it, you will not get out of poverty. If you do, you have a very good chance of working out of poverty. — Charles Koch

1.9% had agricultural jobs, more than a 20-fold improvement in productivity per person. So if all people wanted was to be fed, the average person needs to work — Daniel Berleant

I do not rush into actual work. When I get a new idea, I start at once building it up in my imagination, and make improvements and operate the device in my mind. When I have gone so far as to embody everything in my invention, every possible improvement I can think of, and when I see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete form the final product of my brain. — Nikola Tesla

If you're not afraid of working hard, self-reliance comes easy! — Lorii Myers