work quotes

They are fools that think that wealth or women or strong drink or even
drugs can buy the most in effort out of the soul of a man. These things offer
pale pleasures compared to that which is greatest of them all, that task which
demands from him more than his utmost strength, that absorbs him, bone and
sinew and brain and hope and fear and dreams -- and still calls for more.
They are fools that think otherwise. No great effort was ever bought.
No painting, no music, no poem, no cathedral in stone, no church, no state was
ever raised into being for payment of any kind. No parthenon, no Thermopylae
was ever built or fought for pay or glory; no Bukhara sacked, or China ground
beneath Mongol heel, for loot or power alone. The payment for doing these
things was itself the doing of them.
To wield onself -- to use oneself as a tool in one's own hand -- and
so to make or break that which no one else can build or ruin -- THAT is the
greatest pleasure known to man! To one who has felt the chisel in his hand
and set free the angel prisoned in the marble block, or to one who has felt
sword in hand and set homeless the soul that a moment before lived in the body
of his mortal enemy -- to those both come alike the taste of that rare food
spread only for demons or for gods."
-- Gordon R. Dickson, "Soldier Ask Not"

Plumbing is one of the easier of do-it-yourself activities,
requiring only a few simple tools and a willingness to stick your arm into a
clogged toilet. In fact, you can solve many home plumbing problems, such as
annoying faucet drip, merely by turning up the radio. But before we get
into specific techniques, let's look at how plumbing works.
A plumbing system is very much like your electrical system, except
that instead of electricity, it has water, and instead of wires, it has
pipes, and instead of radios and waffle irons, it has faucets and toilets.
So the truth is that your plumbing systems is nothing at all like your
electrical system, which is good, because electricity can kill you.
-- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"

Please try to limit the amount of "this room doesn't have any bazingas"
until you are told that those rooms are "punched out." Once punched out,
we have a right to complain about atrocities, missing bazingas, and such.
-- N. Meyrowitz

Please keep your hands off the secretary's reproducing equipment.

There must be more to life than having everything.
-- Maurice Sendak

There is no Father Christmas. It's just a marketing ploy to make low income
parents' lives a misery. ... I want you to picture the trusting face of a
child, streaked with tears because of what you just said. I want you to
picture the face of its mother, because one week's dole won't pay for one
Master of the Universe Battlecruiser!
-- Filthy Rich and Catflap

Put your best foot forward. Or just call in and say you're sick.

Nothing succeeds like success.
-- Alexandre Dumas

Dealing with the problem of pure staff accumulation,
all our researches ... point to an average increase of 5.75% per year.
-- C.N. Parkinson

Never invest your money in anything that eats or needs repainting.
-- Billy Rose

Mundus vult decipi decipiatur ergo.
-- Xaviera Hollander
[The world wants to be cheated, so cheat.]

“Necessity is the mother of invention" is a silly proverb. ”Necessity
is the mother of futile dodges" is much nearer the truth.
-- Alfred North Whitehead

There are many of us in this old world of ours who hold that things break
about even for all of us. I have observed, for example, that we all get
about the same amount of ice. The rich get it in the summer and the poor
get it in the winter.
-- Bat Masterson

Column 1 Column 2 Column 3

0. integrated 0. management 0. options
1. total 1. organizational 1. flexibility
2. systematized 2. monitored 2. capability
3. parallel 3. reciprocal 3. mobility
4. functional 4. digital 4. programming
5. responsive 5. logistical 5. concept
6. optional 6. transitional 6. time-phase
7. synchronized 7. incremental 7. projection
8. compatible 8. third-generation 8. hardware
9. balanced 9. policy 9. contingency

The procedure is simple. Think of any three-digit number, then select
the corresponding buzzword from each column. For instance, number 257 produces
“systematized logistical projection,” a phrase that can be dropped into
virtually any report with that ring of decisive, knowledgeable authority. "No
one will have the remotest idea of what you're talking about," says Broughton,
"but the important thing is that they're not about to admit it."
-- Philip Broughton, "How to Win at Wordsmanship"

Many people are unenthusiastic about your work.

If you want to know what god thinks of money, just look at the people he gave
it to.
-- Dorthy Parker

A cow is a completely automated milk-manufacturing machine. It is encased
in untanned leather and mounted on four vertical, movable supports, one at
each corner. The front end of the machine, or input, contains the cutting
and grinding mechanism, utilizing a unique feedback device. Here also are
the headlights, air inlet and exhaust, a bumper and a foghorn.
At the rear, the machine carries the milk-dispensing equipment as
well as a built-in flyswatter and insect repeller. The central portion
houses a hydro- chemical-conversion unit. Briefly, this consists of four
fermentation and storage tanks connected in series by an intricate network
of flexible plumbing. This assembly also contains the central heating plant
complete with automatic temperature controls, pumping station and main
ventilating system. The waste disposal apparatus is located to the rear of
this central section.
Cows are available fully-assembled in an assortment of sizes and
colors. Production output ranges from 2 to 20 tons of milk per year. In
brief, the main external visible features of the cow are: two lookers, two
hookers, four stander-uppers, four hanger-downers, and a swishy-wishy.

If you want to put yourself on the map, publish your own map.

Business is a good game -- lots of competition and minimum of rules.
You keep score with money.
-- Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari

The trouble with the rat-race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.
-- Lily Tomlin

There is a good deal of solemn cant about the common interests of capital
and labour. As matters stand, their only common interest is that of cutting
each other's throat.
-- Brooks Atkinson, "Once Around the Sun"

Bullwinkle: You just leave that to my pal. He's the brains of the outfit.
General: What does that make YOU?
Bullwinkle: What else? An executive.
-- Jay Ward

If what they've been doing hasn't solved the problem, tell them to
do something else.
-- Gerald Weinberg, "The Secrets of Consulting"

Between 1950 and 1952, a bored weatherman, stationed north of Hudson
Bay, left a monument that neither government nor time can eradicate.
Using a bulldozer abandoned by the Air Force, he spent two years and
great effort pushing boulders into a single word.

It can be seen from 10,000 feet, silhouetted against the snow.
Government officials exchanged memos full of circumlocutions (no Latin
equivalent exists) but failed to word an appropriation bill for the
destruction of this cairn, that wouldn't alert the press and embarrass
both Parliament and Party.

It stands today, a monument to human spirit. If life exists on other
planets, this may be the first message received from us.
-- The Realist, November, 1964.

If bankers can count, how come they have eight windows and only four tellers?

Keep your boss's boss off your boss's back
-- Murphy's Laws on Work n°11

If ever the pleasure of one has to be bought by the pain of the other, there
better be no trade. A trade by which one gains and the other loses is a fraud.
-- Dagny Taggart, "Atlas Shrugged"

At work, the authority of a person is inversely proportional to the
number of pens that person is carrying.

At these prices, I lose money -- but I make it up in volume.
-- Peter G. Alaquon

I'm always looking for a new idea that will be more productive than its cost.
-- David Rockefeller