Labour Quotes - Page 34

• But a rise in the wages of labour would not equally affect commodities produced with machinery quickly consumed, and commodities produced with machinery slowly consumed.

  David Ricardo

  Wages, Commodity, Machinery

  David Ricardo, John Ramsay McCulloch (1852). “The Works of David Ricardo. With a notice of the life and writings of the author: by J. R. McCulloch”, p.26

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• If a commodity were in no way useful, - in other words, if it could in no way contribute to our gratification, - it would be destitute of exchangeable value, however scarce it might be, or whatever quantity of labour might be necessary to procure it.

  David Ricardo

  Way, Would Be, Might

  David Ricardo (1817). “On the Principles of Political Economy, and Taxation”, p.2

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• Ive been really clear that my first job as leader of the Labour Party and co-leader of the labour movement is to engage with our base.

  David Cunliffe

  Jobs, Party, Labour Movement

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• He wears himself out by his labours, and grows old through his love of possessing wealth.

  Horace

  His Love, Wealth, Grows

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• It is folly to waste labour about trifles.

  Martial

  Waste, Trifles, Folly

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• [On her political writings:] It is, I confess, very possible that these my Labours may only be destined to line Trunks, or preserve roast Meat from too fierce a Fire; yet in that Shape I shall be useful to my Country.

  Mary Wortley Montagu

  Country, Writing, Fire

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• The poet must be alike polished by an intercourse with the world as with the studies of taste; one to whom labour is negligence, refinement a science, and art a nature.

  Isaac D'Israeli

  Art, World, Taste

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, p. 605-09, Literary Character of Men of Genius, Vers de Société, 1922.

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• When you meet anyone in the flesh you realize immediately that he is a human being and not a sort of caricature embodying certain ideas. It is partly for this reason that I don't mix much in literary circles, because I know from experience that once I have met and spoken to anyone I shall never again be able to feel any intellectual brutality towards him, even when I feel I ought to - like the Labour M.P.s who get patted on the back by dukes and are lost forever more.

  George Orwell

  Circles, Ideas, Forever

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• What a labour writing is ... making one sentence do the work of a page; that's what I call hard work.

  Virginia Woolf

  Hard Work, Writing, Pages

  Virginia Woolf (1975). “The Letters of Virginia Woolf: 1932-1935”

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• When we have discovered a continent, or crossed a chain of mountains, it is only to find another ocean or another plain upon the further side. . . . O toiling hands of mortals! O wearied feet, travelling ye know not whither! Soon, soon, it seems to you, you must come forth on some conspicuous hilltop, and but a little way further, against the setting sun, descry the spires of El Dorado. Little do ye know your own blessedness; for to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Travel, Ocean, Feet

  'Virginibus Puerisque' (1881) 'El Dorado'

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• Under a Labour government, there's virtually nowhere you can put your savings where they would be safe from the state. ... If you put money in a sock they'd probably nationalize socks.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Government, Would Be, Saving

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• In thy discourse, if thou desire to please;
  All such is courteous, useful, new, or wittie:
  Usefulness comes by labour, wit byease;
  Courtesie grows in court; news in the citie.

  George Herbert

  Desire, News, Courtesy

  George Herbert (1861). “The Poetical Works of G. H. and R. Heber. With Memoir”, p.9

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• Next, to make them expert in the usefullest points of grammar; and withal to season them and win them early to the love of virtue and true labour, ere any flattering seducement or vain principle seize them wandering, some easy and delightful book of education would be read to them; whereof the Greeks have store, as Cebes, Plutarch, and other Socratic discourses.

  John Milton

  Children, Book, Winning

  John Milton, James Augustus St. John, Charles Richard Sumner (1872). “The Prose Works of John Milton ...: With a Preface, Preliminary Remarks, and Notes”, p.468

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• In vain our labours are, whatsoe'er they be, unless God gives the Benediction.

  Robert Herrick

  Giving, Action, Vain

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• Tis hard to find God, but to comprehend
  Him, as He is, is labour without end.

  Robert Herrick

  God, Ends, Hard

  Robert Herrick (1891). “The Hesperides & Noble Numbers”

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• Demosthenes, when taunted by Pytheas that all his arguments "smelled of the lamp," replied, "Yes, but your lamp and mine, my friend, do not witness the same labours.

  Plutarch

  Lamps, Argument, Witness

  "Life of Demosthenes". Book by Plutarch,

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• If there is to be any romance in marriage woman must be given every chance to earn a decent living at other occupations. Otherwise no man can be sure that he is loved for himself alone, and that his wife did not come to the Registry Office because she had no luck at the Labour Exchange.

  Rebecca West

  Men, Wife, Office

  Rebecca West, Jane Marcus (1982). “The Young Rebecca: Writings of Rebecca West, 1911-17”, New York : Viking Press

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• What it 't to us, if taxes rise or fall,
  Thanks to our fortune, we pay none at all.
  Let muckworms who in dirty acres deal,
  Lament those hardships which we cannot feel,
  His grace who smarts, may bellow if he please,
  But must I bellow too, who sit at ease?
  By custom safe, the poets' numbers flow,
  Free as the light and air some years ago.
  No statesman e'er will find it worth his pains
  To tax our labours, and excise our brains.
  Burthens like these with earthly buildings bear,
  No tributes laid on castles in the air.

  Charles Churchill

  Pain, Smart, Dirty

  Charles Churchill (1866). “Poetical Works: With a Memoir by James L. Hannay and Copious Notes by W. Tooke”, p.89

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• under a monopolistic economic system the opportunity to earn a living by one's labour comes to be regarded as a privilege instead of a natural right. Women are simply held to be less entitled to this privilege than men.

  Suzanne La Follette

  Work, Opportunity, Men

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• It always seems to me that one of the saddest things about the death of a literary man is the fact that the breaking-up of his collection of books almost invariably follows; the building up of a good library, the work of a lifetime, has been so much labour lost, so far as future generations are concerned. Talent, yes, and genius too, are displayed not only in writing books but also in buying them, and it is a pity that the ruthless hammer of the auctioneer should render so much energy and skill fruitless.

  Stuart Dodgson Collingwood

  Book, Writing, Men

  Stuart Dodgson Collingwood (1898). “The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll (Rev. C.L. Dodgson)”

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• Without wishing in the slightest degree to disparage the skill and labour of breadmakers by trade, truth compels us to assert our conviction of the superior wholesomeness of bread made in our own homes.

  Eliza Acton

  Food, Home, Skills

  Eliza Acton (1868). “Modern Cookery, for Private Families: Reduced to a System of Easy Practice, in a Series of Carefully Tested Receipts, in which the Principles of Baron Liebig and Other Eminent Writers Have Been as Much as Possible Applied and Explained”, p.594

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• In my view it is better for the Labour Party, the leadership and the new prime minister that he be given the maximum flexibility.

  John Richard Reid

  Party, Views, Ministers

  "Reid to resign with Blair". www.theguardian.com. May 6, 2007.

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• On the face of it, these look like bad times for Labour and for Ed Miliband's leadership. There seems to be no strategy, no narrative and little energy. Old faces from the Brown era still dominate the shadow cabinet and they seem stuck in defending Labour's record in all the wrong ways: we didn't spend too much money, we'll cut less fast and less far, but we can't tell you how.

  Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman

  Cutting, Shadow, Energy

  New Statesman, January 5, 2012.

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• Even if nothing worse than wasted mental effort could be laid to the charge of theology, that alone ought to be sufficient to banish it from the earth ... What a vast amount of labour and learning has been expended, as uselessly as emptying shallow puddles into sieves! How much intellect has been employed mousing after texts, to sustain preconceived doctrines!

  Lydia M. Child

  Effort, Doctrine, Puddles

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• The only thing worse than being misquoted is being sentenced to two years' hard labour for buggery

  Oscar Wilde

  Years, Two, Hard

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