Meaningful Work Quotes

“She was part of a group that helped tilt the world just a tiny bit the right way. Yes, she, one tiny person, was part of it. Hardly noticeable, true, but “hardly” was more than nothing. “Hardly” made all the difference in the world in how she saw herself.”
― Ray Smith, The Magnolia That Bloomed Unseen

“I have finally figured out the meaning of life: there's no such thing. And that's a beautiful thing, because that means that WE get to choose it ourselves. Life has no meaning besides the meaning you give it. You are indeed the author of your destiny. So why not write a book worth reading?”
― Dean Bokhari

“It was more that he did better being busy, keeping to a routine. It helped hold the black dogs of thought at bay. Also he had learned that a person could be happy with having done the best they could under the circumstances. It didn't always have to be bright and shiny and impressive to the outside observer.”
― Ellen Airgood, South of Superior

“If you want a meaningful life for yourself don't ask "What can the world offer to me?" but "What can I offer to the world?”
― Bangambiki Habyarimana, The Great Pearl of Wisdom

“He considered for a moment, then started to play a piece that was very familiar to Ruth, although she had no idea what it was. It was lilting and wistful, and she could have sung the melody if she had wished.
'Alright?' He raised his eyebrows inquiringly.
'Yes. Exactly.'
It was effortless and perfect, and he played it through to the end, closing with the softest and most delicate chords, which hung and faded in the quiet hall like the grains of dust raining through the evening light. Ruth was touched. It was all she had wanted. He did not move until there was complete silence again, then he closed the lid without saying anything, and stood up, shoving back the chair. ... 'What was that piece?'
'A Brahms waltz.'
'Hasn't it got a name?' she wanted it to remember.
'Number fifteen. Opus thirty-nine.'
It hadn't sounded like numbers to Ruth.”
― K.M. Peyton, The Beethoven Medal

“Whatever great meaningful and impactful work we are doing now is only the beginning, let's keep moving forward for a better tomorrow.”
― George Stamatis

“Stop running side races and wonder why the finish line doesn’t have anyone at the end of it clapping for you.”
― Richie Norton

“A man might go to an office and run a computer that would correlate great masses of figures that came from sales reports on how well, let’s say, buttons—or something equally archaic—were selling over certain areas of the country. This man’s job was vital to the button industry: they had to have this information to decide how many buttons to make next year. But though this man held an essential job in the button industry, was hired, paid, or fired by the button industry, week in and week out he might not see a button. He was given a certain amount of money for running his computer; with that money his wife bought food and clothes for him and his family. But there was no direct connection between where he worked and how he ate and lived the rest of his time. He wasn’t paid with buttons. As farming, hunting, and fishing became occupations of a small­er and smaller per cent of the population, this separation between man’s work and the way he lived—what he ate, what he wore, where he slept—became greater and greater for more people. Ashton Clark pointed out how psychologi­cally damaging this was to humanity. The entire sense of self-control and self-responsibility that man acquired during the Neolithic Revolution when he first learned to plant grain and domesticate animals and live in one spot of his own choosing was seriously threatened. The threat had been com­ing since the Industrial Revolution and many people had pointed it out, before Ashton Clark. But Ashton Clark went one step further. If the situation of a technological society was such that there could be no direct relation between a man’s work and his modus vivendi, other than money, at least he must feel that he is directly changing things by his work, shaping things, making things that weren’t there before, moving things from one place to another. He must exert energy in his work and see these changes occur with his own eyes. Otherwise he would feel his life was futile.”
― Samuel R. Delany, Nova

“What is the point of art? To make a point. Art can show you something you never saw before.”
― J.r. Rim

“JOY and PURPOSE in Meaningful Work WILL KEEP YOU SANE.”
― LANCE WALLNAU, 9/4/21

“Work should be about finding the daily lesson in one's self as well as providing one's daily bread.”
― Larry a Lee, The Federal Plantation: A Tale of Subjugation and Injustice

“I have a shameful confession to make: Secretly, I am not lazy. I’ve learned that if I do literally nothing for more than a year, two at most, I start to get depressed. I’m not recanting my old manifesto. I still hope to make it to my grave without ever getting a job job — showing up for eight or more hours a day to a place with fluorescent lighting where I’m expected to feign bushido devotion to a company that could fire me tomorrow and someone’s allowed to yell at you but you’re not allowed to yell back.

But once I become genuinely engaged in a project, I can become fanatically absorbed, spending hundreds of hours on it, no matter how useless and unremunerative. As a teacher, I edit my students’ writing with a nit-picking precision and big-picture ambition they may likely never experience again. And I don’t believe most people are lazy. They would love to be fully, deeply engaged in something worthwhile, something that actually mattered, instead of forfeiting their limited hours on Earth to make a little more money for men they’d rather throw fruit at as they pass by in tumbrels.

It’s no coincidence that so many social movements arose during the enforced idleness of quarantine. One important function of jobs is to keep you too preoccupied and tired to do anything else. Grade school teachers called it “busywork” — pointless, time-wasting tasks to keep you from acting up and bothering them. ("It’s Time to Stop Living the American Scam", The New York Times)”
― Tim Kreider

“The undeniable boost this gives her is not a simple question of schadenfreude or, at the other end of the spectrum, altruism. It is the product of meaningful work: the sense of purpose we create by cultivating our gifts and sharing them with the world.”
― Sarah Krasnostein, The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster

“The real flex? A business that wins—and a family that knows you love them.”
― Joseph C. Kunz Jr., Money's Dirty Little Secrets: How to Break the Rules, Get Filthy Rich, and Laugh All the Way to the Bank