Work Life Philosophy Quotes & Sayings

A singular confusion exists about the notions of 'culture' and 'civilization'.
Culture began with the 'prologue in heaven.' With its religion, art, ethics, and philosophy, it will always be dealing with man's relation to that heaven from whence he came. Everything within culture means a confirmation or a rejection, a doubt or a reminiscence of the heavenly origin of man. Culture is characterized by this enigma and goes on through all time with the steady striving to solve it.
On the other hand, civilization is a continuation of the zoological, one-dimensional life, the material exchange between man and nature. This aspect of life differs from other animals' lives, but only in its degree, level, and organization. Here, one does not find man embarrassed by evangelical, Hamletian, or Karamasovian problems. The anonymous member of society functions here only by adopting the goods nature and changing the world by his work according to his needs. — Alija Izetbegovic

Be sure not to turn your life into a series of tasks which must always be performed... I know it can seem appealing to live in a state of accomplishing things, always succeeding, always getting things done. But consider this. A whole life lost. A sacrifice to your fragile sense of order. — Kevin Hooyman

Don't work for something in Exchange, Work on something for a Change. — Kevin Awad

Christianity is not only the revelation of truth, but also the fountain of holiness under the unceasing inspiration of the spotless example of its Founder, which is more powerful than all the systems of moral philosophy. It attests its divine origin as much by its moral workings as by its pure doctrines. By its own inherent energy, without noise and commotion, without the favor of circumstance - nay, in spite of all possible obstacles, it has gradually wrought the greatest moral reformation, we should rather say, regeneration of society which history has ever seen while its purifying, ennobling, and cheering effects upon the private life of countless individuals are beyond the reach of the historian, though recorded in God's book of life to be opened on the day of judgment. To appreciate this work, we must first review the moral condition of heathenism in its mightiest embodiment in history. — Philip Schaff

The best gifts are never given, but claimed. — Warren Ellis

My philosophy of life is that if we make up our mind what we are going to make of our lives, then work hard toward that goal, we never lose - somehow we win out. — Ronald Reagan

Only then, approaching my fortieth birthday, I made philosophy my life's work. — Karl Jaspers

True religion must raise to work at the bar and the bench, on the couch and on the streets, in the cottage of the poor man and in the penthouse of the entrepreneur, with the fisherman that is catching fish and with the students that are studying. — Abhijit Naskar

Here's what I think ... There is no unfucked up. People think there is, but there's not. We're all fucked up in different ways. It's simply a question of making your fuck-ups work for you.-Aidan — Gemma Burgess

Gandhi said, "I'm going to throw all the arms into the ocean and send all the armies to work in the fields and in the gardens." And Louis Fischer asked, "But have you forgotten? Somebody can invade your country." Gandhi said, "We will welcome them. If somebody invades us, we will accept him as a guest and tell him, 'You can also live here, just the way we are living. There is no need to fight.'" But he completely forgot all his philosophy - that's how revolutions fail. It is very beautiful to talk about these things, but when power comes into your hands . . . First, Mahatma Gandhi did not accept any post in the government. It was out of fear, because how was he going to answer the whole world if they asked about throwing the weapons into the ocean? What about sending the armies to work in the fields? He escaped from the responsibility for which he had been fighting his whole life, seeing that it was going to create tremendous trouble for him. If — Osho

But if life were a mellow elementary school run by well-meaning education Ph.D.s, the Deliverator's report card would say: Hiro is so bright and creative but needs to work harder on his cooperation skills. — Neal Stephenson

Love cost its like working a full time job you got to put work and effort into it,and that's why it fails with a lot of people because they on the job part time !!! #GeminiStatus — Jojo1980

Live a simple life, doing what you love. — Lailah Gifty Akita

What was true of an ancient community of Christian believers struggling with a powerful and appealing philosophy is also true for Christians in a postmodern context. Arguments that deconstruct the regimes of truth at work in the late modern culture of global capitalism are indispensable. So also is a deeper understanding of the counterideological force of the biblical tradition. But such arguments are no guarantee that the biblical metanarrative will not be co-opted for ideological purposes of violent exclusion, nor do arguments prove the truth of the gospel. Only the nonideological, embracing, forgiving and shalom-filled life of a dynamic Christian community formed by the story of Jesus will prove the gospel to be true and render the idolatrous alternatives fundamentally implausible. — Brian J. Walsh

Our ability to detect and measure the passage of time is burdensome. The conception and sensation of time bears down upon all of us. It weighs us down; it compresses our souls. There is a variety of ways to escape the dull passage of time or the fearfulness of our accelerating march towards death. We must choose our mechanisms for dealing with the inexorability of time and our finiteness. We can fill our void with work or pleasure, laughter or pain, and fretfulness or courage. We can seek a sense of purposefulness or acknowledge the meaninglessness of life. We can seek to escape the drudgery and pain of life through alcohol, drugs, or pleasure seeking, or by working to support our families and create artistic testaments to our worldly existence. — Kilroy J. Oldster

If you're trying to figure out why something's not working," Old Lou had explained, "just focus on the things that do work. Move through those things first and eventually you'll find the one part that's stuck. — Danika Stone

My big philosophy is: Try and work with good people, because the process is your life. That's going to be really, really hard. I'm glad I learned the lesson, 'Failure is OK.' — Dana Fox

If we have any role at all, I think it's the role of optimism, not blind or stupid optimism, but the kind which is meaningful, one that is rather close to that notion of the world which is not perfect, but which can be improved. In other words, we don't just sit and hope that things will work out; we have a role to play to make that come about. — Chinua Achebe

People of Haiti, I am the heir to the political philosophy, the doctrine and the revolution which my late father incarnated as president-for-life [and] I have decided to continue his work with the same fierce energy and the same intransigence. — Jean-Claude Duvalier

The sun doesn't live in England; it comes here on holiday when we're all at work. — Benny Bellamacina

Create a goal and a purpose to live for, work for, and die for. — Debasish Mridha

How can the heart and mind work together? The mind wants logic and to travel in straight lines, while the heart wants to be free and travel upward in spirals to dizzying heights. — Gillian Duce

It occurs to me to wonder: do I believe in any god, or even positively not believe, as James does? I believe in systems and methods. I believe in the beauties of philosophy and poetry. I believe that the work we do and leave behind us is our afterlife; and I believe that history lies, but sometimes so well that I can't bring myself to resent it. I believe that truth is beauty, but not, I'm afraid, the reverse. It doesn't seem sufficient to sustain one in life's rigorous moments. Perhaps I shall embrace Islam. Its standards for poetry seem very high. — Emma Bull

When you engage in work that you love, you are happy. — Debasish Mridha

I may not, perhaps, be forgiven for introducing sober matters with a frivolous notion, but the problem of making sense out of the seeming chaos of experience reminds me of my childish desire to send someone a parcel of water in the mail. The recipient unties the string, releasing the deluge in his lap. But the game would never work, since it is irritatingly impossible to wrap and tie a pound of water in a paper package. There are kinds of paper which won't disintegrate when wet, but the trouble is to get the water itself into any manageable shape, and to tie the string without bursting the bundle.

The more one studies attempted solutions to problems in politics and economics, in art, philosophy, and religion, the more one has the impression of extremely gifted people wearing out their ingenuity at the impossible and futile task of trying to get the water of life into neat and permanent packages. — Alan W. Watts

Work a lifetime to pay off a house. you finally own it, and there's nobody to live in it. — Arthur Miller

Women have got it all wrong now. They give it up too soon, and the men don't respect them. And before you tell me I don't have a clue, let me tell you something. By the time I let my future husbands climb into my bed, I'd made them work for it. And you know what? By the time they left it the next morning, they were begging for me to marry them. — Rose Wynters

You think maybe if you just work harder and faster, you can hold off the chaos, but then one day you're changing a patio light bulb with a five-year life span and you realize how you'll only be changing this light maybe ten more times before you'll be dead. — Chuck Palahniuk

The value of time cannot be bought with money. — Lailah Gifty Akita

The philosophy that I have worked under most of my life is that the serious study of natural history is an activity which has far-reaching effects in every aspect of a person's life. It ultimately makes people protective of the environment in a very committed way. It is my opinion that the study of natural history should be the primary avenue for creating environmentalists. — Roger Tory Peterson

It was a horrible process to get to this. It took me my whole life. If you're new at this - and by 'new at it,' I mean 15 years in, or even 20 - you're just starting to get traction ... Give it a minute. — Louis C.K.

Human mortality linked to the human ability consciously to choose how to act by exhibiting free will, humility, hard work, kindness, and compassion provide exemplary opportunities to learn and develop self-discipline. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Ideas and philosophies have a shelf-life. They must be kept fresh and renewed or they will spoil. If left unattended, the same ideas and philosophies that once nourished you and helped you grow can poison you and make you sick. Become aware of new ideas that can refresh your way of life and be open to the fact that your old ideas and philosophies can work for you for some time, but when the shelf-life has passed, those ideas and philosophies could also harm you. — Steve Maraboli

Work hard, do your best, live the truth, trust yourself, have some fun ... and you'll have no regrets. — Byrd Baggett

To think is an act of choice. The key to what you so recklessly call 'human nature,' the open secret you live with, yet dread to name, is the fact that man is a being of volitional consciousness. Reason does not work automatically; thinking is not a mechanical process; the connections of logic are not made by instinct. — Ayn Rand

I don't really have a life philosophy; my thing is just rebelling against pretty much organized religion. That is my main thing, because personally I think it's a crutch for people that are too weak to get through life on their own. I'm the kind of guy that says if I don't see it, then it doesn't work. And nobody can show me God. — Kerry King

The only thing Martha and I have in common is that we both used to model. Martha Stewart is extremely talented. Her designs are picture perfect. Our philosophy is life is messy, and rather than being afraid of those messes we design products that work the way we live. — Kathy Ireland

When you don't have, or feel that you don't have, an extra moment to read philosophy, history, or science, when great literature, plays, and novels are as foreign to you as hieroglyphics, do you have any cahnce of seeing your work, career, or life in a new light? You might be doing well in the race, but it's the same race essentially down the same track with the same opponents that may prove to be less than sufficient in enabling you to get those kinds of things done that you want to have completed. — Jeff Davidson

Maybe you had to be dying to finally get to do what you wanted.
I fidgeted around with the puzzle pieces for a while longer, but I wasn't lucky. Nothing seemed to fit without a whole lot of work.
Then I had this thought: What if it was enough to realize that you would die someday, that none of this would go on forever? Would that be enough? — Carol Rifka Brunt

Don't work in a restaurant if you can't control your hunger for food. — Thabiso Monkoe

The great souls work with great passion. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Everything that is great in life is the product of slow growth; the newer, and greater, and higher, and nobler the work, the slower is its growth, the surer is its lasting success. Mushrooms attain their full power in a night; oaks require decades. A fad lives its life in a few weeks; a philosophy lives through generations and centuries. If you are sure you are right, do not let the voice of the world, or of friends, or of family swerve you for a moment from your purpose. — William George Jordan

But mostly what we think of as the 'meaning' of life concerns the style of the private autobiography we each write and which records how we 'see' ourselves. Whether this autobiography reads as a narrative of progress in which difficulties are transcended, or is chaotic, is the test of whether one's life seems to be meaningful or not. Meaning is something we find, or fail to find, as we follow through this project. We can see how love figures here: love is a major theme, but how we see our experience of love depends upon our general thinking. If, for example, we work with extremely high expectations of love we impose a tragic style upon our self-perceptions: for our experience of love will always be seen under an aspect of failure - failure focused upon ourselves or others. Hence the more subtle our thinking about love, the more intelligently we discriminate ideals from reality, the more interesting our autobiography becomes. — John Armstrong

Beauty surrounds us, but oftentimes it takes a person with a poetic perception, an artist's way of looking at the world, to first notice the sublime, and then stagecraft the splendor of nature so that other people can perceive their synoptic vision. The spirit and aesthetic intention behind the work is what assigns the work its artistic quality. Great works of poetry and writing, for instance, express not simply a criticism of life, but also encompass a philosophy for living. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Work like it is your passion, vision, and mission. Love like you are drunk with love without intermission. — Debasish Mridha

May we recognise the uniqueness of every individual and seek to complement each other. — Lailah Gifty Akita

But sometimes you simply can't make yourself feel like acting. And in those situations, motivational advice risks making things worse, by surreptitiously strengthening your belief that you need to feel motivated before you act. By encouraging an attachment to a particular emotional state, it actually inserts an additional hurdle between you and your goal. The subtext is that if you can't make yourself feel excited and pleased about getting down to work, then you can't get down to work. — Oliver Burkeman

I can only run at pace of my breath. — Lailah Gifty Akita

When we all work together for love, for unity,
there will be friendship, happiness, and beauty. — Debasish Mridha

If there is any intelligence guiding this universe, philosophy wishes to know and understand it and reverently work with it; if there is none, philosophy wishes to know that also, and face it without fear. If the stars are but transient coagulations of haphazard nebulae, if life is a colloidal accident, impersonally permanent and individually fleeting, if man is only a compound of chemicals, destined to disintegrate and utterly disappear, if the creative ecstasy of art, and the gentle wisdom of the sage, and the willing martyrdom of saints are but bright incidents in the protoplasmic pullulation of the earth, and death is the answer to every problem and the destiny of every soul
then philosophy will face that too, and try to find within that narrowed circle some significance and nobility for man. — Will Durant

There are three houses that the ultimate adult must leave: their parents' house, their employer's house, and their teacher's house. So they must someday found their own home, their own business, and their own school of thought so that they can live under their own roof at home, at work, and in thought. — Agona Apell

You will surely succeed in life with great passion and desire for self-study. — Lailah Gifty Akita

This world is a place of business. What an infinite bustle! I am awaked almost every night by the panting of the locomotive. It interrupts my dreams. There is no sabbath. It would be glorious to see mankind at leisure for once. It is nothing but work, work, work. I cannot easily buy a blank-book to write thoughts in; they are commonly ruled for dollars and cents. An Irishman, seeing me making a minute in the fields, took it for granted that I was calculating my wages. If a man was tossed out of a window when an infant, and so made a cripple for life, or scared out of his wits by the Indians, it is regretted chiefly because he was thus incapacitated for - business! I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself, than this incessant business. — Henry David Thoreau

Here's my philosophy in life: If there's a fire, you put it out. If there's a flood, you fill sandbags and you build a dike. You roll up your sleeves and you get to work. — James Cameron

My philosophy is this: Life is too short to work another minute at a job you don't love. — J.R. Rain

Whenever you get something in this world, you lose something too - that's just the way things work. — Banana Yoshimoto

First know the Self and then talk of social reformation. — Abhijit Naskar

The woman who undergoes this operation can sense the morphogenetic field at work in her face. She can feel the lines of force as they guide the embryonic cells into the patterns they must form. Why should a woman let her life be determined by tired collagens or by a shortage of zinc which weakens her electromagnetic field, the matrix of life? The goal of life is living. Life is a field of opportunity, guiding the individual forward along paths created by the meshed forces or objective possibilities as they interweave with a person's own potentialities. And this philosophy of life is now bodied forth in the faces of beautiful women. (Motherhood — William S. Wilson

Let those who want to save the world if you can get to see it clear and as a whole. Then any part you make will represent the whole if it's made truly. The thing to do is work and learn to make it. — Ernest Hemingway,

I knew a man who gave twenty years of his life to a scatterbrained woman, sacrificing everything to her, his friendships, his work, the very respectability of his life and who one evening recognized that he had never loved her. He had been bored, thats all, bored like most people. Hence he had made himself out of whole cloth a life full of complications and drama. Something must happen and that explains most human commitments. Something must happen even loveless slavery, even war or death. — Albert Camus

You must dare greatly, to receive the grace for greatness. — Lailah Gifty Akita

You ought to recognise your special talent, for your specific purpose. — Lailah Gifty Akita

This primary question of life organization is immensely important. If making money is the main goal, a person can often forget what his or her true interests are or how he or she wants to deserve recognition from others. It is much more difficult to add on other values to a life that started out with just making money in mind than it is to make some personally interesting endeavor financially possible or even profitable. — Pekka Himanen

It feels great to do what you love. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Sometimes, in a summer morning,
having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise
till noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs,
in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sing around or
flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at
my west window, or the noise of some traveller's wagon on the distant
highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew in those seasons
like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the
hands would have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but
so much over and above my usual allowance. I realized what the Orientals
mean by contemplation and the forsaking of works. For the most part, I
minded not how the hours went. The day advanced as if to light some
work of mine; it was morning, and lo, now it is evening, and nothing
memorable is accomplished. — Henry David Thoreau

Do we work for and pay for all this convenience in order to live our lives, or do we live our lives in order to work for and pay for all this convenience? — Colin Beavan

Education is not a thing apart from life - not a "system," nor a philosophy; it is direct teaching how to live and how to work. — Booker T. Washington

I wish to be a product not a consumer. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Throughout my life, I have tried to share my philosophy that getting and staying healthy doesn't have to feel like work. I don't diet or slave away in a gym - what I do is make excellent food choices. — Suzanne Somers

Contentment is a state of mind and body when the two work in harmony, and there is no friction. The mind is at peace, and the body also. The two are sufficient to themselves. Happiness is elusive
coming perhaps once in a life-time
and approaching ectasy. — Daphne Du Maurier

Writer's groups work for some new writers, not for others. I was never cut out for a writer's group. So much depends on the people in it. What are they criticizing about your work? Grammar, syntax, plot holes? Or are they criticizing your personal style, your world view and your personal philosophy? If they're criticizing the latter, it's not a good group for you, no matter what support you might think you're getting from it. Your style, your perspective, and your philosophy of life are the main things you have to sell; they are what make you different, and you shouldn't
in fact you can't
change them. — Dean Koontz

NOT to my contemporaries, not to my compatriots but to
mankind I commit my now completed work in the confidence that it will not be without value for them, even
if this should be late recognised, as is commonly the lot
of what is good. For it cannot have been for the passing
generation, engrossed with the delusion of the moment,
that my mind, almost against my will, has uninterruptedly
stuck to its work through the course of a long life.
preface to the second edition of the world as will and representation — Arthur Schopenhauer

Philosophy is a necessary activity because we, all of us, take a great number of things for granted, and many of these assumptions are of a philosophical character; we act on them in private life, in politics, in our work, and in every other sphere of our lives
but while some of these assumptions are no doubt true, it is likely, that more are false and some are harmful. So the critical examination of our presuppositions
which is a philosophical activity
is morally as well as intellectually important. — Karl Popper

Don't let life's challenges discourage you. Some things are just out of your control. Make it work for you! The most painful lessons of the past can teach you how to survive in the present . — Carlos Wallace

My philosophy of life is that I am deeply, deeply serious about my work and for the rest I like to have a few laughs. — Maggi Hambling

How to earn a viable standard of living while giving vent to their desire to perform creative activities is the quintessential challenge for modern humans. Some people settle for jobs filled with drudgery and in their free time immerse themselves in hobbies that provide them with personal happiness. Other people prefer to find work that makes them happy, even if this occupation requires them to live a more modest standard of living. The greater their impulse is for curiosity and creativity, the less likely that a person will exchange personal happiness for economic security. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Life's more important than a living. So many people who make a living are making death, not life. Don't ever join them. They're the gravediggers of our civilization - The safe men. The compromisers. The moneymakers. The muddlers-through.
Politics is full of them ... so is businesses ... so is the church. They're popular. Successful. Some of them work hard, other are slack, but all of them could tell a good story.
Never where there such charming gravediggers in the world's history. — James Hilton

The source of man's rights is not divine law or a congressional law, but the law of identity. A is A _ and man is man. Rights are conditions of existence required by man's nature for his proper survival. If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product for his work. If life on earth is his purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being: nature forbids him the irrational — Ayn Rand

In books and movies, all the loose ends are tired, things are resolved, mysteries are solved, they catch the killer, the boy gets the girl, a sick baby is miraculously healed. In reality it doesn't always work that way. The killer gets away, the girl is in love with another boy, things just get buried under new dramas and don't get resolved. Life is far more complicated than the life depicted in a book or a movie. — Cindy Vine

We can work together for a better world with men and women of goodwill, those who radiate the intrinsic goodness of humankind. To do so effectively, the world needs a global ethic with values which give meaning to life experiences and, more than religious institutions and dogmas, sustain the non-material dimension of humanity. Mankind's universal values of love, compassion, solidarity, caring and tolerance should form the basis for this global ethic which should permeate culture, politics, trade, religion and philosophy. It should also permeate the extended family of the United Nations. — Wangari Maathai

When you love your work then it isn't work, it's your love affair. — Debasish Mridha

The supreme principle of socialism is that man takes precedence over things, life over property, and hence, work over capital; that power follows creation, and not possession; that man must not be governed by circumstances, but circumstances must be governed by man. — Erich Fromm

One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away. — Stephen Hawking

Your personal philosophy is the greatest determining factor in how your life works out. — Jim Rohn

I would rather live a joyful simple life, doing what I love, than to be unhappy and rich. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Chase your dreams even with the last breath. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Think about love, work with love, give away and live with love. — Debasish Mridha

Doing what you love is a sacred life. — Lailah Gifty Akita

See yourself as a long-term work in progress, not a short-term project of preservation. — Oli Anderson

Each person must implement their preferred problem solving method to address existential questions pertaining to life and death, living and loving, working and playing, resting and restructuring. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Who says you need to wait until you 'feel like' doing something in order to start doing it? The problem, from this perspective, isn't that you don't feel motivated; it's that you imagine you need to feel motivated. If you can regard your thoughts and emotions about whatever you're procrastinating on as passing weather, you'll realise that your reluctance about working isn't something that needs to be eradicated or transformed into positivity. You can coexist with it. You can note the procrastinatory feelings and act anyway. — Oliver Burkeman

And as their penile pain began to subside, the two men were able to form more complex thoughts, resulting in a collaborative work: the development of a worldview that might be described as penilosophy. — Zack Love

Have you noticed how the cleverest people at school are not those who make it in life?
People who are conventionally clever get jobs on their qualifications (the past), not on their desire to succeed (the future).
Very simply, they get overtaken by those who continually strive to be better than they are. — Paul Arden

Every moment of our life has a purpose, that every action of ours, no matter how dull or routine or trivial it may seem in itself, has a dignity and a worth beyond human understanding ... For it means that no moment can be wasted, no opportunity missed, since each has a purpose in man's life, each has a purpose in God's plan. Think of your day, today or yesterday. Think of the work you did, the people you met, moment by moment. What did it mean to you- and might it have meant for God? Is the question too simple to answer, or are we just afraid to ask it for fear of the answer we must give? — Walter J. Ciszek

It's easy to put the links between the increases in mental illness, depression, ADHD, and the like, with the speed of the modern world. People never get the chance to do nothing, or when they do, they lack the control to prevent their mind from racing off in a thousand different directions. So much so that their doing nothing becomes a thousand different things and the thousand different things becomes stress, anxiety, worry and fear. Left untreated these simple everyday things become well entrenched in our psyches and start to dominate our lives. We have a chronic addiction with doing and we love to use our busyness as a stamp of our hard work and hectic lives and we get stuck in this busy trap of always doing. — Evan Sutter

My parents have a strong work ethic, but their attitude to life, their philosophy, is: 'whatever makes you happy.' — Sally Hawkins

The work of great poetry is to aid us to become free artists ourselves ... The art of reading poetry is an authentic training in the augmentation of consciousness, perhaps the most authentic of healthy modes. — Harold Bloom

Let your work speak,
Let your work scream,
Let your work live,
Forever. — Akash Lakhotia

Both life and work were a great more reewarding when you didn't take them quite so seriously — Kirsten Beyer

Both life and work were a great deal more rewarding when you didn't take them seriously. — Kirsten Beyer