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Labor Quotes

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Labor Quotes

“What happens in a strike happens not to one person alone.... It is a crisis with meaning and potency for all and prophetic of a future. The elements in crisis are the same, there is a fermentation that is identical. The elements are these: a body of men, women and children, hungry; an organization of feudal employers out to break the back of unionization; and the government Labor Board sent to "negotiate" between this hunger and this greed.”

MenChildrenPersonsBodyGovernmentHappensBreakElementsLaborOrganizationCrisisGreedHungerStrikesHungryBoardsEmployersIdenticalMen WomenPropheticPotencyFermentation
Book:Harvest song: collected essays and stories
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“I know not whether it would be too bold an assertion to say that candor makes capacity.... But in order to try the truth of any observation relating to the mind, the easiest method is to illustrate it by outward objects. If, for instance, a man was to sweat and labor all the days of his life to fill a chest which was already full, the absurdity of his vain endeavor would be glaring. In the same manner, when the human mind is filled and stuffed with notions brought thither by fallacious inclinations, there is no room for truth to enter: candor being banished, passions alone bear the sway.”

IfsKnowsMenTryingMindHumansWould BeOrderPassionRoomsEducationObjectsBearsCapacityLaborMethodFilledNotionInstanceObservationVainHuman MindEndeavorChestsSweatAbsurdityInclinationAssertionCandor
Author:Sarah Fielding
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“I often used to think myself in the case of the fox-hunter, who, when he had toiled and sweated all day in the chase as if some unheard-of blessing was to crown his success, finds at last all he has got by his labor is a stinking nauseous animal. But my condition was yet worse than his; for he leaves the loathsome wretch to be torn by his hounds, whilst I was obliged to fondle mine, and meanly pretend him to be the object of my love.”

IfsThinkingLastsUsedAnimalMarriageCasesConditionsObjectsMinesBlessingLaborHuntingCrownsFoxesTornHuntersObligedDisillusionmentUnheardHounds
Author:Sarah Fielding
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“The classroom, with all its limitations, remains a location of possibility. In that field of possibility we have the opportunity to labor for freedom, to demand of ourselves and our comrades, an openness of mind and heart that allows us to face reality even as we collectively imagine ways to move beyond boundaries, to transgress. This is education as the practice of freedom.”

WayMindHeartRealityFacesMovingOpportunityFreedomEducationPracticeImagineFieldsPossibilityDemandLaborRemainsBoundariesLimitationOpennessClassroomLocationHeart And MindComrade
Author:Bell Hooks
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“The 'survival of the fittest' is beneficently inevitable; the capitalist is powerless against labor, unless the State . . . steps in, and helps him catch and fleece his victims. The old plea of despotism, that liberty is unsafe, reappears now in the mistaken notion that competition is hostile to labor.”

StatesHelpingLibertyStepsSurvivalLaborVictimCompetitionNotionInevitableCapitalistMistakenPowerlessHostileDespotismSurvival Of The FittestUnsafeFleece
Book:The Collected Works of Ezra H. Heywood
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“Extended families have never been the norm in America; the highest figure for extended-family households ever recorded in Americanhistory is 20 percent. Contrary to the popular myth that industrialization destroyed "traditional" extended families, this high point occurred between 1850 and 1885, during the most intensive period of early industrialization. Many of these extended families, and most "producing" families of the time, depended on the labor of children; they were held together by dire necessity and sometimes by brute force.”

ChildrenSometimesTogetherAmericaForceFiguresPeriodsHighestPercentLaborMythContraryTraditionalDestroyedHouseholdNormBrutesBrute ForceIndustrializationExtended FamilyHigh Points
Book:The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap
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“The developments in the North were those loosely embraced in the term modernization and included urbanization, industrialization,and mechanization. While those changes went forward apace, the antebellum South changed comparatively little, clinging to its rural, agricultural, labor-intensive economy and its traditional folk culture.”

LittlesCultureTermEconomyChangedDevelopmentLaborSouthFolksTraditionalClingingIndustrializationModernizationMechanizationUrbanizationAntebellum
Author:C. Vann Woodward
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“I have a feeling-as compelling as a religious conviction-that if industry will constantly pass on to the worker and the customer all the savings of labor-saving machinery and invention, rather than siphon them off into the pools of watered securities, it will by that process keep distribution and production in balance and go as far toward Utopia as our poor human natures will go or be driven.”

IfsHumansFeelingsProcessReligiousPoorSecurityHuman NatureIndustryBalanceLaborWorkersProductionsConvictionCustomersDrivenInventionSavingPoolCompellingDistributionMachinerySavingsUtopia
Author:Samuel B. Pettengill
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“What is memory but the repository of things doomed to be forgotten, so you must have History. You must have labor to invent History. Being faithful to all that happens to you of significance, recording days, dates, events, names, sights not relying merely upon memory which fades like a Polaroid print where you see the memory fading before your eyes like time itself retreating.”

HappensEyeNamesMemoriesEventsLaborSightForgottenFaithfulSignificancePrintFadesDoomedFadingBeing FaithfulPolaroids
Author:Joyce Carol Oates
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“In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars.”

MenShouldReligionMoralityLaborClaimsVainFoundingTributeSeparation Of Church And StatePillarsFounding Fathers ReligionFounding Fathers ReligiousFounding AmericaAmerican Founding FathersChristian HeritageReligion And GovernmentMorality And ReligionFarewell AddressGod And CountryChristian Morality
Book:Washington's Farewell Address to the People of the United States of America: Published in September, 1796
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“It is a sign of our times, conspicuous to the coarsest observer, that many intelligent and religious persons withdraw themselves from the common labors and competitions of the market and the caucus, and betake themselves to a certain solitary and critical way of living, from which no solid fruit has yet appeared to justify their separation.”

WayPersonsCertainReligiousCommonSolitudeLaborIntelligentCompetitionFruitCriticalSeparationOur TimeJustifySolitaryObserversReligious LifeReligious PersonCaucus
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)
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“Major League Baseball's labor negotiations involve two paradoxes. The players' union's primary objective is to protect the revenues of a very few very rich owners - principally, the Yankees'. The owners' primary objective is a more egalitarian distribution of wealth. The union believes that unconstrained spending by the richest three teams pulls up all payrolls. Most owners believe that baseball's problems--competitive imbalance, the parlous financial conditions of many clubs--result from large and growing disparities of what are mistakenly treated as 'local' revenues.”

BelieveTwoProblemThreeWealthResultsRichGrowingPlayerTeamConditionsProtectMajorsLaborBaseballUnionsFinancialClubsSpendingLocalsObjectivesTreatedPrimariesLeagueOwnersParadoxNegotiationDistributionRevenueYankeesImbalanceDisparityMajor LeaguePayrollPull UpsDistribution Of WealthMajor League Baseball
Author:George Will
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“Let every woman ask herself: "Why am I the slave of man? Why is my brain said not to be the equal of his brain? Why is my work notpaid equally with his? Why must my body be controlled by my husband? Why may he take my labor in the household, giving me in exchange what he deems fit? Why may he take my children from me? Will them away while yet unborn?" Let every woman ask.”

MenGivingMayChildrenSaidBodyAsksBrainFitHusbandEqualLaborSlaveMy ChildrenMy HusbandControlledHouseholdUnbornMale Dominance
Author:Voltairine de Cleyre
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“Between labor and play stands work. A man is a worker if he is personally interested in the job which society pays him to do; whatfrom the point of view of society is necessary labor is from his point of view voluntary play. Whether a job is to be classified as labor or work depends, not on the job itself, but on the tastes of the individual who undertakes it. The difference does not, for example, coincide with the difference between a manual and a mental job; a gardener or a cobbler may be a worker, a bank clerk a laborer.”

IfsMenMayDoePlayJobsIndividualDifferencesWorkViewsPayExampleDependsTasteLaborWorkersPoint Of ViewGardenerManualsClerksLaborersCobblers
Author:W. H. Auden
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“The majority of America's colossal fortunes have been made by entering industries in their early stages and developing leadership in them.... Think of what opportunities the present and the future contain in such fields as ship-building and ship-owning, aircraft, electrical development, the oil industry, different branches of the automotive industry, foreign trade, international banking, invention, the chemical industry, moving pictures, color photography, and, one night add, labor leadership.”

ThinkingHas BeensMadeDifferentAmericaMovingNightOpportunityStageFieldsBuildingColorDevelopmentIndustryPhotographyLaborTradeMajorityAddFortuneInternationalOilInventionShipsDevelopingBranchesChemicalsEnteringBankingOne NightElectricalAircraftColossalOil IndustryColor PhotographyForeign Trade
Author:B. C. Forbes
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