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Toil Quotes

“If human pleasure did not have both a lid and a time limit, we would not bestir ourselves to do things that were not pleasurable, such as toiling for our subsistence. And then we would not survive. By the same token, should our mass mind ever become discontented with the restricted pleasures doled out by nature, as well as disgruntled over the lack of restrictions on pain, we would omit the mandates of survival from our lives out of a stratospherically acerbic indignation. And then we would not reproduce. As a species, we do not shout into the sky, “The pleasures of this world are not enough for us.” In fact, they are just enough to drive us on like oxen pulling a cart full of our calves, which in their turn will put on the yoke. As inordinately evolved beings, though, we can postulate that it will not always be this way. “A time will come,” we say to ourselves, “when we will unmake this world in which we are battered between long burden and brief delight, and will live in pleasure for all our days.” The belief in the possibility of long-lasting, high-flown pleasures is a deceptive but adaptive flimflam. It seems that nature did not make us to feel too good for too long, which would be no good for the survival of the species, but only to feel good enough for long enough to keep us from complaining that we do not feel good all the time.”

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Book:The Conspiracy Against the Human Race
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“It is as difficult for most poor people to truly believe that they could someday escape poverty as it is for most wealthy people to truly believe that their wealth could someday escape them.”

BelieveHardHumorHopeEasyDifficultWealthLossSimplePoorPovertyStruggleRichTroubleHumilityHumourToughDifficultyHumbleArroganceSomedaySatireWealthyProblemsArrogantToilStrainEscapeDisbeliefStraightforwardExhaustingLoseBankruptcyEffortlessPainlessHassleUncomplicatedBankruptDemandingSmooth SailingPunishingDuck SoupEvadeGruelingTiringBurdensomeElementaryWearisomeChild S PlayArduousFacileFatiguingStrenuousUnchallengingA BreezeA CinchA Piece Of CakeA SnapArduousnessBack BreakingEasy As PieKids StuffLaboriousLaboriousnessNo SweatOnerousTrouble FreeUndemanding
Author:Mokokoma Mokhonoana
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“If we had to earn our age by thinking for ourselves at least once a year, only a handful of people would reach adulthood.”

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Author:Mokokoma Mokhonoana
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“Antisthenes was not the first to differ significantly from the Hesiodic assessment of work. Rather, his proposition that ponos is a good rather than an unwelcome punishment was preceded by the emergence of an "industrious optimism" especially after the late fifth century. Optimistic man sets himself above environmental forces and asserts himself in the world as an indomitable force. Rather than accepting a god-given lot, he dares to "take fate by the throat." Rather than plodding the old furrows, he strikes out in a new direction, gives himself new tasks, implements his own plans, accepts his own failures. Some are more driven than others. The most ambitious impose upon themselves the greatest tasks and work incessantly for success. Some terrible restlessness goads these imperialists on, and as they hunt victory relentlessly they stamp down the weak and scoff at talk of justice. What do they want? It is hard to tell, since no success seems to satisfy them. Each triumph inspires new undertakings, each disaster resilient hope. They seem to toil on without end, as if human desire itself were infinite.”

PovertyCynicismToilCynicsHesiodAntisthenesIndustrious Optimism
Book:The Greek Praise of Poverty: Origins of Ancient Cynicism
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“Freedom of enterprise was from the beginning not altogether a blessing. As the liberty to work or to starve, it spelled toil, insecurity, and fear for the vast majority of the population. If the individual were no longer compelled to prove himself on the market, as a free economic subject, the disappearance of this kind of freedom would be one of the greatest achievements of civilization.”

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Book:One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
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“Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end; Each changing place with that which goes before, In sequent toil all forwards do contend. Nativity, once in the main of light, Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd, Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight, And Time that gave doth now his gift confound. Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth And delves the parallels in beauty's brow, Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth, And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow: And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand. Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.”

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Book:The Sonnets and Narrative Poems
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“...Yet I somehow knew enough about him--because I somehow also knew enough about myself--to understand that his uncompleted thoughts were the lifeblood of his being. That was why I stayed away from those boxes. His thoughts were the ship on whose prow he stationed himself while the ice-strewn seas leaped and dived below. They were matters of calculatedly outrageous assumption, elephantine diligence, missilelike prophecy, and an unending, unruly wager regarding their eventual worth; they were going to be attacked with branching, incremental logic, andmet after months of toil--if not after years of it--by either the maniacal astonishment of discovery or by the shame-tipped dart of folly. The fact of all of this was like genetic information inside me. I knew it even as a teenager. I knew it even as a teenager on a substituted, entactogenic amphetamine. I had probably known it as a child. And I knew equally well that the risk of the toil he now began performing every day upstairs in his new office, despite the apparent risklessness of his quotidian life, might at any time overwhelm him, even more so in his fragile state. I knew that these mortal risks were hidden away each evening, that they were held at bay till the following afternoon by the cardboard tops that he placed over his boxes. I understood, even at the age I was then, and even in my newly altered condition, that the work was to be hallowed.”

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Book:A Doubter's Almanac
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“When I look around, I sometimes feel discouraged. Why do people make no more effort? "They do nothing and yet they complain that it is unfair." I looked speechless at the ham. "The way I look at it, people make an effort so that they are about to sign, but maybe I'm wrong" "They do not exert themselves, they just toil in it," he said without further ado. "It has nothing to do with the type of effort I'm talking about. It's more active and focused.”

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Book:Norwegian Wood
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“When the fuel is dried up in a vehicle, it stops driving automatically. You are a vehicle in the spiritual and the physical world, so you need some oil for alacrity, in order to get to your destination. The greater the quantity of your oil, the more you cover the distance, and the more you cover the distance, the closer you get to your success.”

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Author:Michael Bassey Johnson
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“Many were the last resting-places of toilers of the wheat there on those hills. And surely in the long frontier days, and in the ages before, men innumerable had gone back to the earth from which they had sprung. The dwelling-places of men were beautiful; it was only life that was sad. In this poignant, revealing hour Kurt could not resist human longings and regrets, though he gained incalculable strength from these two graves on the windy slope. It was not for any man to understand to the uttermost the meaning of life.”

DeathHistoryLaborToilPioneersDwelling PlaceFrontierGraveyards
Book:The Desert of Wheat
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“When I speak of God, I mean that god who prevented man from putting forth his hand and taking also of the fruit of the tree of life that he might live forever; of that god who multiplied the agonies of woman, increased the weary toil of man, and in his anger drowned a world—of that god whose altars reeked with human blood, who butchered babes, violated maidens, enslaved men and filled the earth with cruelty and crime; of that god who made heaven for the few, hell for the many, and who will gloat forever and ever upon the writhings of the lost and damned.”

GodEarthLostHeavenChristianityHellBloodCrimeBibleAngerSlaveryCrueltyAgonyFloodWearyToilJudaismJehovahMaidensTree Of LifeYahwehThe BibleDamnedButcherViolateThe FloodWrithing
Book:Some Mistakes of Moses
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“But as the work proceeded I was continually reminded of the fable about the elephant and the tortoise. Having constructed an elephant upon which the mathematical world could rest, I found the elephant tottering, and proceeded to construct a tortoise to keep the elephant from falling. But the tortoise was not more secure than the elephant, and after some twenty years of very arduous toil, I came to the conclusion that there was nothing more that I could do in the way of making mathematical knowledge indubitable.”

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Book:Autobiography
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“There is an old song which asserts 'the best things in life are free.' Not true! Utterly false! This was the tragic fallacy which brought on the decadence and collapse of the democracies of the twentieth century; those noble experiments failed because the people had been led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they wanted...and get it without toil, without sweat, without tears. Nothing of value is free. Even the breath of life is purchased at birth only through gasping effort and pain.”

PeopleBelieveWantedPainLife IsValuesSongEffortDemocracyCenturyTearsBirthVoteBreathsNobleExperimentsBest ThingsTragicSweatCollapseThings In LifeToilTwentieth CenturyFallacyDecadenceBest Things In LifeOld SongBest Things In Life Are Free
Book:Starship Troopers
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“Let observation with extensive view, Survey mankind from China to Peru; Remark each anxious toil, each eager strife, And watch the busy scenes of crowded life.”

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Book:The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius /c by Arthur Murphy, Esq
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