There are those that say, and those that do.

The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.

ALWAYS GIVE 100% AT WORK: 12% Monday 23% Tuesday 40% Wednesday 20% Thursday 5% Friday

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."

"Every game ever invented by mankind is a way of making things hard for the fun of it."

During his 1960 presidential campaign, John F. Kennedy often closed his speeches with the story of Colonel Davenport, the Speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives: On May 19th, 1780 the sky of Hartford darkened ominously, and some of the representatives, glancing out the windows, feared the end was at hand. Quelling a clamor for immediate adjournment, Davenport rose and said, "The Day of Judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. Therefore, I wish that candles be brought."

Unamuno, the Spanish philosopher, tells about the Roman aqueduct at Segovia, in his native Spain. It was built in 109 A.D. For eighteen hundred years, it carried cool water from the mountains to the hot and thirsty city. Nearly sixty generations of men drank from its flow. Then came another generation, a recent one, who said, "This aqueduct is so great a marvel that it ought to be preserved for our children, as a museum piece. We shall relieve it of its centuries-long labor." They did; they laid modern iron pipes. They gave the ancient bricks and mortar a reverent rest. And the aqueduct began to fall apart. The sun beating on the dry mortar caused it to crumble. The bricks and stone sagged and threatened to fall. What ages of service could not destroy idleness disintegrated.

Planning is of no use at all unless it eventually degenerates into work.

"There are no menial jobs, only menial attitudes."

"I long to accomplish a great and noble task; but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble."

"The secret of joy in work is contained in one word: excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it."

My first job was working in an orange juice factory, but I got canned...couldn't concentrate. Then I worked in the woods as a lumberjack, but I just couldn't hack it, so they gave me the ax. After that I tried to be a tailor, but I just wasn't suited for it. Next I tried working in a muffler factory but that was exhausting. Next was a job in a shoe factory; I tried but I just didn't fit in. I became a professional fisherman, but discovered that I couldn't live on my net income. I managed to get a good job working for a pool maintenance company, but the work was just too draining. So then I got a job in a gymnasium, but they said I wasn't fit for the job. I finally got a job as a historian until I realized there was no future in it. SO I RETIRED, AND I FOUND I AM A PERFECT FIT FOR THE JOB!

As a boy, Chiune Sugihara dreamed of becoming Japan's ambassador to Russia. By the 1930s, as ambassador to Lithuania, he was a step away from fulfilling his dream. One morning a huge throng gathered outside his home. Sugihara learned they were Jews who'd fled there from Poland, seeking Sugihara's help for Japanese visas that would permit them to escape the German Gestapo. Three times Sugihara wired Tokyo for permission to provide the visas; three times he was rejected. Sugihara, a committed Christian, had to choose between his dream and the lives of the crowd. Sugihara chose to disobey orders. For the next 28 days he wrote visas by hand, barely sleeping or eating. Recalled to Berlin, he departed still writing visas and shoving them through the train window into the hands of refugees running alongside. Ultimately his work saved 6,000 lives. Back in Japan, Sugihara's remaining days were spent selling light bulbs. When his story was finally told, his son was asked, "How did your father feel about his choice?" "My father's life was fulfilled. When God needed him to do the right thing, he was available to do it."

A guest at a hotel was in a hurry to check out when he realized he did not have his briefcase. He went to the bellboy and said, "Would you please hurry to room 1203? I think I left my briefcase there. My limo for the airport leaves in six minutes, so please hurry." The man checked out, and after a few minutes the bellboy came hurrying across the lobby. "Yes, sir," he said. "Your briefcase is still there in 1203." He did just as he was told.

"It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong."

Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.

Adults are always asking children what they want to be when they grow up -- they’re looking for ideas.

The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water. -- John Gardner, Excellence, (New York: Harper and Row, 1971)

Either you let your life slip away by not doing the things you want to do, or you get up and do them. -- Carl Ally

Work is a passage of self-discovery. It is not the pots we are forming, but ourselves. -- M.C. Richards, potter

If you observe a really happy man you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing double dahlias in his garden, or looking for dinosaur eggs in the Gobi desert. He will not be searching for happiness as if it were a collar button that was rolled under the radiator. He will not be striving for it as a goal in itself. He will have become aware that he is happy in the course of living life twenty-four crowded hours of the day. -- W. Beran Wolfe

The honest work of yesterday has lost its social status, its social esteem. -- Peter F. Drucker

Man stand for long time with mouth open before roast duck fly in. -- Chinese Proverb

Persistence is the hard work that you do after you are tired of doing the hard work you already did. -- Newt Gingrich Source: Breffni Baggot (Breffni@neca.com)

The best plan is only a plan... unless it degenerates into work.

Some snappy comebacks you'd like to use at the office, but can't 1. I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public. 2. I'll try being nicer if you'll try being smarter. 3. I don't work here. I'm a consultant. 4. It sounds like English, but I can't understand a word you're saying. 5. I like you. You remind me of when I was young and foolish. 6. I have plenty of talent and vision. I just don't care. 7. I will always cherish the initial misconceptions I had about you. 8. Thank you. We're all refreshed and challenged by your unique point of view. 9. The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist. 10. Do I look like a people person? 11. Errors have been made. Others will be blamed. 12. Chaos, panic, & disorder — my work here is done. 13. How do I set a laser printer to stun?

A man can do only what a man can do. But if he does that each day he can sleep at night and do it again the next day.

One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.

Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.

If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.

In medieval Europe the government learned they were out of silver and could not make any more coins. An order was given to search the land for silver. The only silver to be found was in cathedrals as statutes of saints. The order was given - 'take them, melt them down and put the saints back into circulation.'

Most middle-class Americans tend to: - Worship their work; - Work at their play; and - Play at their worship.... That which we worship, we serve, and that which we serve we will give our all - heart, soul, mind and body. By: Gordon Dahl Source: Gordon Dahl, Work, Play, and Worship in a Leisure Oriented Society, 1985

It appears, on close examination, that work is less boring than amusing oneself. By: Baudelaire

It's not so much how busy you are, but why you are busy. The bee is to be praised. The mosquito is swatted. By: Marie O'Connor

George MacLeod, founder of the Iona Community in Scotland, often took the job of cleaning the community's latrines so that he would 'not be tempted to preach irrelevant sermons on the dignity of labor.' By: Wm. Willimon Source: Jobs and Callings: A Theology of Work in The Christian Ministry magazine, May/June 1997, pg. 15

We are not, the Sabbath declares, created for endless, grinding toil. We are created for intimate, contemplative relationship with God. By: Wm. Willimon Source: Jobs and Callings: A Theology of Work in The Christian Ministry magazine, May/June 1997, pg. 14

'Your work is a very sacred matter. God delights in it, and through it he wants to bestow his blessing on you.'

Demons try to possess people, to own them. A demonic organization is one that tries to take over the lives of its members. As only too many people have found, their jobs can easily possess them, taking countless hours out of their lives and still seeking more. So it can be with our churches.

Work is having responsibility for resources in order to benefit others and serve God. This does not equal having a job for pay. Serving a family, volunteering, belonging to a neighborhood, owning possessions, being a citizen as well as holding a job all qualify as work biblically. The key issue is how do you view these responsibilities? Do you handle these as worshipful service to God? By: Pete Hammond Source: Lecture, 1989

Martin Luther on work in the mid-1500s, said, “...[household work] has no appearance of sanctity; and yet these very works in connection with the household are more desirable than all the works of the monks and nuns.... Seemingly secular works are a worship of God and an obedience well pleasing to God.” By: Martin Luther Source: in commentary on Gen. 3:15 as cited by Forrester

Work this side of eternity contains an element of hardness. Different jobs demand different muscles and skills, but work will always be difficult. Adam’s disobedience etched that one in stone. By: Clayton Blackstone Source: “Who’s The Boss”, Christian Advent Witness magazine, May, 1989, pg. 4-9

It is not only prayer that gives God glory, but work. Smiting on an anvil, sawing on a beam, whitewashing a wall, driving horses, sweeping, scouring, everything gives God some glory if being in His grace you do it as your duty...To lift up the hands in prayer gives God glory, but a man with a dung fork in his hand, a woman with a slop pail, give him glory too. He is so great that all things give Him glory if you mean they should. By: Gerald Manley Hopkins Source: A Hopkins Reader, Oxford, 1953

..work is not, primarily, a thing one does to live, but the thing one lives to do. It should be the full expression of the worker’s faculties, the thing in which he finds spiritual, mental, and bodily satisfaction, and the medium in which he offers himself to God. By: Dorothy Sayers Source: Creed or Chaos, Sophia Press, 1949, 1974, pg. 73

The conviction of the Christian workman is that every single piece of work he produces must be good enough to show God. By: William Barclay Source: Galatians/Ephesians Commentary

Regarding tentmaking: Take for example the way in which Sozome speaks of Zeno, who was the bishop of Majuma (that is Gaza) at the end of the fourth century. Sozomen says that Zeno, ‘by pursuing his trade of weaving linen, continued to earn the means of supplying his own want and of providing for others. He never deviated from this conduct till the close of his life, although he exceeded all other priests of that province in age and although he presided over the people and property of the largest church.’ By: Paul Stevens Source: Liberating the Laity, InterVarsity Press, 1985, quoting Roland Allen

More on tentmaking. “The fourth Council of Carthage...5lst canon reads: ‘Let a cleric however learned in the word of God get his livelyhood by a craft’. The 52nd, ‘Let the cleric procure his food and raiment by a craft, or by agriculture without interfering with his official duty.’ And the 53rd, ‘Let all clerics who are strong enough to work learn both crafts and letters’. These canons became the rule for the church over wide areas, and for a long period of time, and the 53rd is quoted as authoritative in England in the eighth century be Ecbert, archbishop of York.” By: Paul Stevens Source: Liberating the Laity, InterVarsity Press, 1985, pg l35

When I hear someone say, ‘I couldn’t work for a corporation with a profit motive or which demands more than forty hours a week,’ I say something like this: ‘Do you know that the christian slaves to whom Paul wrote were working sixteen hours a day for masters that were fornicating with female slaves, making dirty business deals with trades from other parts of the Roman empire and going to baths and the gymnasium at night for orgies? To these slaves Paul says, ’Treat your masters as though they were Jesus. You are not working for them but for Jesus. And it is worship’. By: Paul Stevens Source: Liberating the Laity, InterVarsity Press, 1985, pg l58

"Why do we demean daily work as “secular?” The Bible is full of people who went to work every day. They produce goods (cattle farmers - Abraham; vineyard tenders - Amos; iron workers - Tubalcain; carpenters - Jesus; tentmakers - Priscilla; and textile producers - ?.) Manage resources (grain supplies - Joseph; employee/slaves - Onesimus; building projects - Nehemiah; armies - Deborah; finances - Matthew; and governments - Hezekiah.) Serve the public (medicine - Luke; courts - ?; civil rights - Moses; public finance - ?; community development - Barnabas; urban rehabilitation - Ezra.) Performers and entertainers (musicians - Miriam; sculptors - ?; seamstresses - ?; dancers - David; worship leaders - Zachariah; writers - Paul, Luke, Solomon. God does not view these people and their work as ignoble, irrelevant or ‘secular.’ By including them in the Scriptures they become a 'great cloud of witnesses' encouraging us to faithfulness and obedience in all that we do.

An excellent thing is the study of the Torah (1st five books of the OT) combined with some secular occupation, for the labor demanded by them both puts sin out of one’s mind. All study of the Torah which is not combined with work will ultimately be futile and lead to sin. By: Rabbi Gamaliel III Source: Pirque Aboth, ii,12, 1st Century AD

...Father John Hugo talked of work, ‘That physical work was hard, mental work harder, and spiritual work the hardest of all.

Historically there was a sense that work was God given and that our identity was tied to it appropriately. Hence in the old world peoples name were tied to their work skill - Miller, Baker, Carpenter, Hufnagle (horseshoer), Kowolski (Blacksmith). By: Pete Hammond Source: research, 1988

If it falls to your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo carved marble. Sweep streets as Shakespeare wrote pictures. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven will have to say, "Here lives the street sweeper who did his job well." By: Martin Luther King

One pastor asked the other, ‘How many members does your church have?’ The reply came back, ‘Do you want to know how many in training on Sunday or how many in battle during the week?’

We must attack the enemy's line of communication. What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects - with their Christianity latent. By: C.S. Lewis Source: C.S. Lewis, God In The Dock, Christian Apologetics@, 1945, paragraph #9, page 93

A truck driver declared, “I always thought I was in the world to go to church. Now I see that I am in the church in order to go into the world.” By: Nelvin Vos Source: Seven Days a Week, Nelvin Vos, Laity Exchange Books, 1985, pg. 20

Mr. Business went to Mass; he never missed a Sunday. Mr Business went to hell for what he did on Monday. By: Ed Willock

When I became a professor, I discovered very quickly that the meaning of my work lay not in the science of transmitting information but in my relationship with my students.... It is important for me that my students know that I am a Christian. By: Jacques Ellul Source: Radix Magazine, Vol. 22, Number 4, “Interview With Jacques Ellul: On Vocation and Ethics in the Workplace”, page 12

A pastor was surprised that I would consider going into politics, and strongly advised me that I not become involved such a discredited profession. We had a heated argument, and he finally asked, `If you want to be of service to other people, why don’t you go into the ministry or into some honorable social service work?’ On the spur of the moment I retorted, `How would you like to be a pastor of a church with 80,000 members?’ He finally admitted it was possible to stay honest and at the same time minister to the needs of the 80,000 citizens of the l4th senate district (of Georgia). By: Jimmy Carter Source: Why Not The Best?, 1975, page 79

People who don't want to get dragged into some kind of work often develop a protective incompetence at it. Paul Erdos was particularly good at this. By seeming unable even to cut a grapefruit in half (let alone go to the store and buy one), he forced other people to do such things for him, leaving all his time free for math. Erdos was an extreme case, but most husbands use the same trick to some degree.

[The Egyptian leader Amasis answered] Men who possess bows bend them only when they need to use them. If bows were bent all the time, they would break and would therefore be of no use when needed. This is also the nature of a man: if he wanted to work hard all the time and never allowed himself time to play, he would go mad without knowing it, or have a stroke. Knowing this well, I give each activity its turn.