Work

Work gathers quotations that trace what we do with our days and what our days do to us. Here you’ll find lines about craft and competence, ambition and drudgery, vocation and mere employment—along with the quiet ethics of showing up, learning, and finishing. Writers and thinkers weigh the dignity of labor against its costs: time traded, bodies worn, minds narrowed or sharpened. The category also holds sharper observations on bosses, wages, class, and the invisible work of care, as well as the strange intimacy between identity and occupation. Some quotes praise discipline and purpose; others question productivity as a measure of worth. Together they map the workshop, the office, the field, and the inner ledger where effort becomes meaning.