Real Work Quotes

• Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.

  James M. Barrie

  Inspirational, Motivational, Hipster

  24 Copy quote

• Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.

  Thomas A. Edison

  Inspirational, Motivational, Real

  Ford Times, Vol. 6, p. 136, 1912.

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• Being busy does not always mean real work.

  Thomas A. Edison

  Real, Mean, Infinite Intelligence

  Ford Times, Volume 6 (p. 136), 1912.

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• Nothing is work unless you'd rather be doing something else.

  George Halas

  Work, Office Jobs, Nfl

  24 Copy quote

• Real success is finding your lifework in the work that you love.

  David McCullough

  Love, Motivational, Success

  FaceBook post by David McCullough from Aug 17, 2012

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• The real work of an expedition begins when you return.

  Louise Boyd

  Real, Return, Expeditions

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• On Saturday afternoons when all the things are done in the house and there's no real work to be done, I play Bach and Chopin and turn it up real loudly and get a good bottle of chardonnay and sit out on my deck and look out at the garden.

  Maya Angelou

  Real, Garden, Play

  18 Copy quote

• The question is why one should be so inwardly preoccupied at all. Why not reach out to others in love and solidarity or peer into the natural world for some glimmer of understanding? Why retreat into anxious introspection when, as Emerson might have said, there is a vast world outside to explore? Why spend so much time working on oneself when there is so much real work to be done?

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Real, Understanding, Might

  Barbara Ehrenreich (2009). “Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America”, p.76, Macmillan

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• The obliterated place is equal parts destruction and creation. The obliterated place is pitch black and bright light. It is water and parched earth. It is mud and it is manna. The real work of deep grief is making a home there.

  Cheryl Strayed

  Real, Grief, Home

  Cheryl Strayed (2013). “Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Someone Who’s Been There”, p.202, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• When you're really trying to make serious change, you don't want people to get caught up in emotion because change isn't emotion. Because change isn't emotion. Its real work and organization and strategy - that's just the truth of it. I mean, you pull people in with inspiration, but then you have to roll up your sleeves and you've got to make sacrifices and you have got to have structure.

  Michelle Obama

  Inspirational, Real, Hard Work

  "One-On-One With Michelle Obama". Interview with Katie Couric, www.cbsnews.com. February 14, 2008.

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• In the sales profession, the real work begins after the sale is made.

  Brian Tracy

  Real, Work, Educational

  8 Copy quote

• I have never seen people who could do real work except under the stimulus of encouragement and enthusiasm and the approval of the people for whom they are working.

  B. C. Forbes

  Encouragement, Real, People

  5 Copy quote

• I know the pressures of being the daughter of a great actress. But it's inspiring. You learn so much that other people don't get to learn until later on. My father being a director, I learnt a real work ethic.

  Natasha Richardson

  Inspiring, Daughter, Mother

  12 Copy quote

• If it's knowledge and wisdom you want, then seek out the company of those who do real work for an honest purpose.

  Edward Abbey

  Real, Purpose, Want

  Edward Abbey (2006). “Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast”

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• Don't look back until you've written an entire draft, just begin each day from the last sentence you wrote the preceeding day. This prevents those cringing feelings, and means that you have a substantial body of work before you get down to the real work which is all in . . . The edit.

  Will Self

  Real, Mean, Writing

  "Will Self's rules for writers" by Will Self, www.theguardian.com. February 22, 2010.

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• All real works of art look as though they were done in joy.

  Robert Henri

  Art, Real, Joy

  Robert Henri (1960). “The art spirit”, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

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• I'm not dead and I don't have blue hair but some people say there are similarities. It is usually intolerable to watch myself onscreen but this time it's fine. I think it's beautiful and a real work of art.

  Helena Bonham Carter

  Beautiful, Art, Real

  8 Copy quote

• It's when you've stopped writing and are doing other things, especially when you're asleep, that the real work is done.

  Robert Harris

  Real, Writing, Done

  4 Copy quote

• Deleting 200 spams a day is a drag. And I was checking my email constantly, rather than getting on with my real work, which is reading and writing. Email was becoming a distraction, a burden rather than a liberation.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Real, Reading, Writing

  "Why I decided to pull the plug on email" by Tom Hodgkinson, www.theguardian.com. March 6, 2007.

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• [Mid-list writers are now] less greed on the part of both publishers and chain booksellers. It is easier for them to publish and sell only blockbusters and leave the real work to small presses.

  W. P. Kinsella

  Real, Greed, Lists

  Interview with Rob Darnell, robdarnell.com. August 21, 2015.

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• All the real work is done in the rehearsal period.

  Donald Pleasence

  Real, Done, Rehearsal

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• the real "work" of prayer is to become silent and listen to the voice that says good things about me. To gently push aside and silence the many voices that question my goodness and to trust that I will hear the voice of blessing-- that demands real effort.

  Henri Nouwen

  Prayer, Real, Blessing

  27 Copy quote

• I loved taking off. In my own house, I seemed to be often looking for a place to hide - sometimes from the children but more often from the jobs to be done and the phone ringing and the sociability of the neighborhood. I wanted to hide so that I could get busy at my real work, which was a sort of wooing of distant parts of myself.

  Alice Munro

  Jobs, Children, Real

  FaceBook post by Alice Munro from Sep 05, 2011

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• I believe there's a calling for all of us. I know that every human being has value and purpose. The real work of our lives is to become aware. And awakened. To answer the call.

  Oprah Winfrey

  Inspirational, Life, Positive

  "Every Person Has a Purpose" by Oprah Winfrey, www.oprah.com. November 2009.

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• It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.

  Wendell Berry

  Inspirational, Life, Wisdom

  Wendell Berry (2011). “Standing by Words”, p.97, Counterpoint Press

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