An innovation is one of those things that society looks at and says, if we make this part of the way we live and work, it will change the way we live and work. --Dean Kamen (in Top 30 Innovations of the Last 30 Years)

Together with a culture of work, there must be a culture of leisure as gratification. To put it another way: people who work must take the time to relax, to be with their families, to enjoy themselves, read, listen to music, play a sport. --Pope Francis (in Leisure: The Basis of Culture)

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 (in Reimagining the Cosmos)

Everyone has been made for some particular work and the desire for that work has been put in every heart. --Rumi (in How to Help Teens Find Their Purpose)

One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man. --Elbert Hubbard (in Taking an Empowered and Creative View Towards Technology)

The inner work can be so much harder than the outer work and so underrated. But its so necessary. --Eliza Ramos (in Eliza Ramos: Into the Real)

So often, we leave the selfless side of ourselves for nights and weekends, for our charity work. It is our duty to inject that into our day-to-day business, into the work that we do, to improve corporations, to improve civil society, and to improve government. --Leila Janah (in Growing Your Own Garden: Emotional Resilience for Entrepreneurs)

It's creating a difference, being part of something, and doing work we're proud of. This is the song of significance. This is what motivates people to do the work that can't be automated, mechanized or outsourced. And this is the song that humans yearn to sing together. --Seth Godin (in Seth Godin: The Song of Significance)

So long as the inner work is strong, the outer work will never be puny. --Meister Eckhart (in Pico Iyer on the Wisdom of Travelers )

“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work.” --Thomas Edison (in Untitled)

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each one of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. --Robert F. Kennedy (in Untitled)

Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it. --Michael Jordan (in Untitled)

Trouble is only opportunity in work clothes. --Henry J. Kaiser (in Untitled)

This is the true joy in life, being recognized by yourself as a mighty one, being a force of nature instead of a feverish clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for it’s own sake; Life is no brief candle to me, it is a sort of splendid torch which I’ve got to hold up for a moment. I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations. --George Bernard Shaw (in A Splendid Torch)

Rest when you're weary. Refresh and renew yourself, your body, your mind, your spirit. Then get back to work. --Ralph Marston (in Four Tips To Prevent Burnout)

The first time I entered into a redwood forest, I dropped to my knees and began crying because the spirit of the forest just gripped me. The knowledge, the spirituality, the power that has no words, that power that makes your hair stand on end, see? the power that gives you goosebumps even to remember. When I entered what I call the majestic cathedral of the redwoods, the spirituality of the holiest of holy temples which are these forests, dropped me to my knees because trying to rationalize what happens in these forests intelligently doesn’t work. The intelligent side of rationalizing these forests is talking about what the destruction’s doing to them. --Julia Butterfly Hill (in Untitled)

I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings. My wisdom flows from the Highest Source. I salute that Source in you. Let us work together for unity and love. --Gandhi's Prayer For Peace (in Untitled)

Every year, I get frustrated. I get tired. I get sore, and I say 'This is my last year.' But then I go, and I get up at 5 in the morning and work until midnight ... on my feet all the time. And then when I finally sit down, I realize I could do this another year. --Gerald Tamayo, volunteer doctor in Philippines (in Doctors Going the Extra Mile)

It's amazing, addictive. The first view of the Earth is magical. It is a very overpowering realization that the Earth is so small. It affected me. I could not get over the notion that in such a small planet, with such a small ribbon of life, so much goes on. It is as if the whole place is sacred. You get the feeling that I need to work extraordinarily hard along with other human beings to respect that. --Kalpana Chawla (in Untitled)

We people of the world need to find ways to get to know one another - for then we will recognize that our likenesses are so much grater than our differences, however great our differences may seem. Every cell, every human being, is of equal importance and has work to do in this world. --Peace Pilgrim (in Untitled)

Choose a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life. --Confucius (in Untitled)

One has to work in the world; naturally, carry on your worldly affairs, but understand that that which has come about by itself - that is, this body, mind and consciousness - has appeared in spite of the fact that nobody has asked for it. The life force and the mind are operating, but the mind will tempt you to believe that it is "you". Therefore, understand always that you are the timeless, spaceless witness. And even if the mind tells you that you are the one who is acting, don't believe the mind. Always keep your identity separate from that which is doing the working, thinking and talking. That which has happened - that is, the apparatus which is functioning - has come upon your original essence, but you are not that apparatus. --Nisargadatta Maharaj (in Untitled)

All my work is meant to say, "You may encounter defeats, but you must not be defeated." --Maya Angelou (in Ultimate Garbage Bag)

The mind seeks to nail life down and get it to stop moving and changing. When this doesn't work, the mind begins to seek the changeless, the eternal, something that doesn't move. But the mind of thought is itself an expression of life's movement and so must always be in movement itself. --Adyashanti (in Untitled)

When our eyes see our hands doing the work of our hearts, the circle of creation is completed inside us, the doors of our souls fly open and love steps forth to heal everything in sight. --Michael Bridge (in Creatives at Work)

The "seven social sins": Knowledge without character, Science without humanity, Wealth without work, Commerce without morality, Politics without principles, Pleasure without conscience, Worship without self-sacrifice. --Gandhi (in Seven Social Sins)

I am only a child, yet I know that if all the money spent on war was spent on ending poverty and finding environmental answers, what a wonderful place this would be. In school you teach us not to fight with others, to work things out, to respect others, to clean up our mess, not to hurt other creatures, to share, not be greedy. Then why do you go out and do the things you tell us not to do? You grownups say you love us, but I challenge you, please, to make your actions reflect your words. --Severn Cullis-Suzuki (in I am Only a Child)

Don't check your values at the door when you go to work. --Laura Scher (in Modern-Day Robin Hood)

Those who do monumental work don't need monuments. --Baba Amte (in Mother of Thirteen)

In every community there is work to be done. In every nation, there are wounds to heal. In every heart there is the power to do it. --Marianne Williamson (in Neighborhood Day)

There is no easy way out. I've never heard knocking on my door at 5am: "Jack, this is Jesus. I'll work out for you today." --Jack La Lanne (in Jack La Lanne, Fit for Life)

I do not want to talk about what you understand about this world. I want to know what you will do about it. I do not want to know what you hope. I want to know what you will work for. I do not want your sympathy for the needs of humanity. I want your muscle. --Robert Fulghum (in Just say Yes!)

If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together. --Lila Watson, Aboriginal Australian (in Work Together)

If I am never asked the question by Oprah herself, I would like to say there is only one thing I know for sure: God does work in mysterious ways. --Terrie Maier (in Embracing a Miracle)

Work is love made visible. --Kahlil Gibran (in Love blooms in NYC cab)

I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions and big success. I am for those tiny, invisible, loving, human forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, which, if given time, will rend the hardest monuments of pride. --William James (in Invisible Forces)

The true way to render ourselves happy is to love our work and find in it our pleasure. --Francoise de Motteville (in Wonder Welders)

Frodo: I wish none of this had happened. Gandalf: So do all who see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world than the will of evil. --J. R. R. Tolkien - Lord of the Rings (in Untitled)

Look at each day as a chance to invest life into life. Each day is a chance to work miracles in the lives of others. --Jim Rohn (in Invest in Life)

If you have a dream and don't work at it, what good is the dream? --Rita Simo (in Music for the People)

If you are coming to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you are coming because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together. --Lilla Watson (in Work Together)

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars. --Walt Whitman (in Living Machines)

In every community there is work to be done. In every nation, there are wounds to heal. In every heart there is the power to do it. --Marianne Williamson (in Community Healing)

Establishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war. --Maria Montessori (in Peace)

When Nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (in Reading A Blade of Grass)

Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself. --Samuel Butler (in What Your Musical Taste Says About You)

I have one life and one chance to make it count for something . . . I'm free to choose what that something is, and the something I've chosen is my faith. Now, my faith goes beyond theology and religion and requires considerable work and effort. My faith demands -- this is not optional -- my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference. --Jimmy Carter (in Faith)

Meaning has to do with human relationships and our contribution to progressive purpose and growth in understanding and responsibility. Helping make the world a better place for us all through our work brings meaning to it. --Dave Smith (in To Be of Use)

Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it. --Michael Jordan (in 20 Teens Who Will Change The World)

Problems are only opportunities dressed in work clothes. --Henry Kaiser (in World's Largest Love Letter)