Work

“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life”

“Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black”

“As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death”

“As to diseases, make a habit of two things — to help, or at least, to do no harm”

“Baseball always has been and always will be a game demanding team play. You can have the nine greatest individual ball players in the world, but if they don't play together the club won't be worth a dime”

“Be so good they can't ignore you”

“Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness”

“By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart”

“Crazy-busy is a great armor, it's a great way for numbing. What a lot of us do is that we stay so busy, and so out in front of our life, that the truth of how we're feeling and what we really need can't catch up with us”

“Defects are not free. Somebody makes them, and gets paid for making them”

“Desire to have things done quickly prevents their being done thoroughly”

“Do not wait; the time will never be just right. Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along”

“Every habit and faculty is maintained and increased by the corresponding actions: the habit of walking by walking, the habit of running by running. If you would be a good reader, read; if a writer, write”

“Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing”

“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do”

“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled”

“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration”

“Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration”

“Getting the right people in the right jobs is a lot more important than developing a strategy”

“Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance”

“He has half the deed done who has made a beginning”

“Hitch your wagon to a star”

“Hitting a baseball — I've said it a thousand times — is the single most difficult thing to do in sport”

“I can't understand how anyone can write without rewriting everything over and over again”

“I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance”

“I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success...Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything”

“I have never thrown an illegal pitch. The trouble is some of my pitches were never seen by this generation until I came along”

“I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours”

“If A is success in life, then A equals X plus Y plus Z. Work is X, play is Y and Z is keeping your mouth shut”

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted”

“In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man; if you want anything done, ask a woman”

“in the zone”

“Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind”

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner”

“It is well said, then, that it is by doing just acts that the just man is produced, and by doing temperate acts the temperate man”

“Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day”

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do”

“Let us cultivate our garden”

“Loyalty to a company, it's nonsense”

“Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art”

“Management is the most noble of professions if it's practiced well. No other occupation offers as many ways to help others learn and grow”

“Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well”

“Never write an advertisement which you wouldn't want your own family to read”

“No great thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen”

“No man will make a great business who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit of doing it”

“No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem”

“Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not”

“Premature optimization is the root of all evil”

“Put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket”

“Quality comes not from inspection, but from improvement of the production process”

“Real artists ship”

“Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it's about deliberately choosing to be different”

“Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle”

“Strong, deeply rooted desire is the starting point of all achievement”

“Success ultimately rests on small things, lots of small things”

“The beginning is the most important part of the work”

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—'tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning”

“The first thing is character, before money or anything else. Money cannot buy it. A man I do not trust could not get money from me on all the bonds in Christendom”

“The life so short, the craft so long to learn”

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do”

“The purpose of an organization is to enable common men to do uncommon things”

“The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it”

“The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way”

“There has always been a saying in baseball that you can't make a hitter, but I think you can improve a hitter. More than you can improve a fielder”

“There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all”

“They also serve who only stand and wait”

“They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself”

“Time is Money”

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit”

“We're on to Cincinnati”

“When a man is at peace with his gods and ancestors, his harvest will be good or bad according to the strength of his arm”

“Work is love made visible”

“Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down”