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Workers Quotes

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Workers Quotes

“The conventional explanation for Jewish success, of course, is that Jews come from a literate, intellectual culture. They are famously "the people of the book." There is surely something to that. But it wasn't just the children of rabbis who went to law school. It was the children of garment workers. And their critical advantage in climbing the professional ladder wasn't the intellectual rigor you get from studying the Talmud. It was the practical intelligence and savvy you get from watching your father sell aprons on Hester Street.”

PeopleChildrenBookSchoolLawCultureCoursesFatherStudyStreetsIntellectualAdvantageSellsWorkersJewCriticalPracticalsExplanationClimbingConventionalLaddersGarmentsLaw SchoolRabbiSavvyRigorAprons
Book:Outliers: The Story of Success
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“This was not the old Chichikov. This was some wreckage of the old Chichikov. The inner state of his soul might be compared to a demolished building, which has been demolished so that from it a new one could be built; but the new one has not been started yet, because the infinitive plan has not yet come from the architect and the workers are left in perplexity.”

Has BeensSoulStatesMightLeftPlansBuildingBuiltWorkersArchitectPerplexityWreckageInfinitive
Book:Dead Souls: A Novel
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“He was the most perfectly formed man she'd ever imagined. He was movie stars, men in underwear commercials, guys at the gym, the construction worker in the red T-shirt who'd whistled at her but she'd pretended she hadn't heard; he was the men in three-piece suits whose brains were as sexy as their bodies; he was lazy, indolent seventeen-year-old boys whose muscles bulged out of their clothes, rodeo stars, and those smooth-cheeked, eyeglassed men who held their children tenderly. He was all of them.”

MenYearsChildrenBodyGuyThreeStarsBrainBoysPiecesHeardClothesRedWorkersSexySuitsShirtsMusclesLazyGymConstructionSmoothT ShirtMovie StarUnderwearSeventeenRodeoConstruction WorkersSeventeen Years Old
Book:Sweet Liar
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“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.”

StillsReasonHandsMotivationalOrderCoursesHoursOur LivesHavensLaborChaosWorkersDecadesFinding YourselfSchedulesSectionsWriting LifeCatchingWrecksMockWhimLifeboatsScaffolding
Author:Annie Dillard
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“Sometimes human beings are very much like bees. Bees are fiercely protective of their hive, provided you are outside it. Once you’re in, the workers sort of assume that it must have been cleared by management and take no notice; various freeloading insects have evolved a mellifluous existence because of this very fact. Humans act the same way.”

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Author:Neil Gaiman
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“[...] endless action and reaction. Those beautifully rounded pebbles which you gather on the sand and which you hold in your hand and marvel at their exceeding smoothness, were chiseled into their varies and graceful forms by the ceaseless action of countless waves. Nature is herself a great worker and never tolerates, without certain rebuke, any contradiction to her wise example. Inaction is followed by stagnation. Stagnation is followed by pestilence and pestilence is followed by death.”

HandsActionFormCertainWiseExampleWorkersWaveEndlessReactionsSandContradictionTolerateVaryInactionStagnationPebblesRebukePestilenceAction And Reaction
Author:Frederick Douglass
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“You don’t owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don’t owe it to your mother, you don’t owe it to your children, you don’t owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked ‘female’.”

MenChildrenMotherSpacePayStreetsCivilizationFemaleWorkersPartnersYour ChildrenEmpoweringWomen EmpowermentSpouseEmpowering WomenFemale EmpowermentEmpowered WomenWomen Empowering WomenInspirational Strong WomenCo WorkerStrong Women And LoveYour BoyfriendPrettinessEmpowering Female
Author:Erin McKean
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“Except for the small revolutionary groups which exist in all countries, the whole world was determined upon preventing revolution in Spain. In particular the Communist Party, with Soviet Russia behind it, had thrown its whole weight against the revolution. It was the Communist thesis that revolution at this stage would be fatal and that what was to be aimed at in Spain was not workers' control, but bourgeois democracy. It hardly needs pointing out why 'liberal' capitalist opinion took the same line.”

WorldNeedsCountryWholeWould BeLinesPartyBehindsOpinionDemocracyGroupsStageParticularRevolutionWeightWorkersDeterminedRussiaWhole WorldRevolutionaryThrownCommunistSovietCapitalistSpainPointingBourgeoisPreventingThesisSoviet RussiaCommunist Party
Book:Homage to Catalonia / Down and Out in Paris and London
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“Unfortunately, the real minimum wage is always zero, regardless of the laws, and that is the wage that many workers receive in the wake of the creation or escalation of a government-mandated minimum wage, because they lose their jobs or fail to find jobs when they enter the labor force. Making it illegal to pay less than a given amount does not make a worker’s productivity worth that amount—and, if it is not, that worker is unlikely to be employed.”

IfsDoeRealGovernmentJobsLawGivenForceLosesPayFailingCreationAmountLaborWorkersProductivityIllegalZeroMinimumEmployedUnlikelyMinimum WageEscalationLabor Force
Author:Thomas Sowell
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“Another study, of 38,000 knowledge workers across different sectors, found that the simple act of being interrupted is one of the biggest barriers to productivity. Even multitasking, that prized feat of modern-day office warriors, turns out to be a myth.”

DifferentTurnsFoundSimpleStudyModernOfficeWorkersMythProductivityWarriorBarriersInterruptedFeatsModern DayMultitaskingKnowledge Workers
Book:Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
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“She didn’t understand why it was happening,” he said. “I had to tell her she would die. Her social worker said I had to tell her. I had to tell her she would die, so I told her she was going to heaven. She asked if I would be there, and I said that I would not, not yet. But eventually, she said, and I promised that yes, of course, very soon. And I told her that in the meantime we had great family up there that would take care of her. And she asked me when I would be there, and I told her soon. Twenty-two years ago.”

IfsYearsSaidTwoWould BeCareDiesCoursesHeavenSocialHappeningsYears AgoTwentiesWorkersTake CareTwo YearsSocial WorkerGreat FamilyHazel GraceTwenty TwoTwo Years AgoGoing To HeavenHazel Grace Lancaster
Author:John Green
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“The legacy of women's war work is our present post-industrial employment structure. It was the war that created the demand for a technologically advanced, de-skilled, low-paid, non-unionized female workforce and paved the way for making part-time work the norm for married women now. A generation later, it was the daughters of wartime women workers who completed their mothers' campaign for equal pay.”

WayWarMotherPayGenerationsDemandEqualMarriedLowsDaughterFemalePaidStructureWorkersEqualityCampaignsEmploymentPostsLegacyNormWorkforcePart TimeWartimeEqual PayMarried Women
Author:Linda Grant
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“Of true knowledge at any time, a good part is merely convenient, necessary indeed to the worker, but not to an understanding of his subject: One can judge a building without knowing where to buy the bricks; one can understand a violin sonata without knowing how to score for the instrument. The work may in fact be better understood without a knowledge of the details of its manufacture, of attention to these tends to distract from meaning and effect.”

MayFactsUnderstandingAttentionKnowledgeKnowingSubjectsEffectsBuildingJudgingUnderstoodInstrumentsWorkersDetailsScoreBricksConvenientViolinTrue KnowledgeSonatas
Author:Jacques Barzun
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“Experts kill me. Economic experts, that is. Corporations, foundations, publications and governments pay them by the bucketful, and they fill buckets with forecasts that change more frequently than white-collar, workers do shirts. What Lies Ahead is the usual title. What Lies would often be more appropriate. If women's hemlines changed as rapidly as an economist's forecasts, the fashion people and the textile industry would be more profitable than any other. In fact, if all the country's economists were laid end to end, they still wouldn't reach a conclusion.”

PeopleIfsStillsEndsCountryFactsGovernmentWould BeLyingWhitePayKnowledgeEconomicFashionChangedIndustryFoundationWorkersConclusionTitlesCorporationsShirtsExpertsAppropriateUsualEconomistKill MeProfitablePublicationCollarsBucketsOften IsForecastsWhite CollarTextiles
Author:Malcolm Forbes
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“What the church should be telling the worker is that the first demand religion makes on him is that he should be a good workman. If he is a carpenter he should be a competent carpenter. Church by all means on Sundays-but what is the use of church if at the very center of life a man defrauds his neighbor and insults God by poor craftsmanship.”

IfsMenLifeShouldFirstsMeanUseReligionChurchPoorDemandWorkersNeighborInsultSundayGood WorkCompetentCarpenterWorkmenCraftsmanship
Author:Dwight D. Eisenhower
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“Doing for people what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment. In the last analysis, the welfare of the workers depends upon their own initiative. Whatever is done under the guise of philanthropy or social morality which in any way lessens initiative is the greatest crime that can be committed against the toilers. Let social busybodies and professional "public morals experts" in their fads reflect upon the perils they rashly invite under this pretense of social welfare.”

PeopleWayDoneLastsSocialMoralDangerousCrimeDependsOughtMoralityWorkersCommittedExperimentsWelfareAnalysisExpertsInvitesInitiativePhilanthropyPerilPretenseFadsGuiseSocial WelfareBusybodies
Book:The American Federationist
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“Contrast 1968, when the CEO of General Motors took home, in pay and benefits, about sixty-six times the amount paid to a typical GM worker. Today the CEO of Wal-Mart earns nine hundred times the wages of his average employee. Indeed, the wealth of the Wal-Mart founder's family in 2005 was estimated at about the same ($90 billion) as that of the bottom 40% of the US population: 120 million people.”

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Book:Ill Fares the Land
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“I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker in this cause. The example of great and pure characters is the only thing that can produce fine ideas and noble deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and always tempts its owners irresistibly to abuse it”

WorldInspirationalIdeasCharacterHelpingHandsHumanityCausesWealthMoneyExampleProduceFinePureAbuseWorkersDeedsNobleConvincedSelfishAppealsSelfishnessOwnersDevotedNoble Deeds
Book:The World As I See It
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“Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”

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Author:Nelson Mandela
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“The People's democratic dictatorship is based on the alliance of the working class, the peasantry and the urban petty bourgeoisie, and mainly on the alliance of the workers and the peasants, because these two classes comprise 80 to go per cent of China's population. These two classes are the main force in overthrowing imperialism and the Kuomintang reactionaries. The transition from New Democracy to socialism also depends mainly upon their alliance.”

PeopleTwoForceClassDemocracyDependsDemocraticWorkersPopulationChinaSocialismCommunismTransitionCentsDictatorshipUrbanWorking ClassImperialismPettyPeasantsAlliancesReactionariesBourgeoisie
Book:Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (The Little Red Book) & Other Works
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“In our world of big names, curiously, our true heroes tend to be anonymous. In this life of illusion and quasi-illusion, the person of solid virtues who can be admired for something more substantial than his well-knownness often proves to be the unsung hero: the teacher, the nurse, the mother, the honest cop, the hard worker at lonely, underpaid, unglamorous, unpublicized jobs.”

WorldWellsPersonsHardBigsJobsMotherNamesVirtueTeacherHonestHumilityHard WorkHeroProveIllusionLonelyWorkersThis LifeOur WorldNurseHeroismCopHelpfulnessBeing A HeroHard WorkerTrue HeroUnderpaidUnsung Hero
Book:The Image or What Happened to the American Dream
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“Research indicates that workers have three prime needs: Interesting work, recognition for doing a good job, and being let in on things that are going on in the company.”

NeedsJobsThreeInterestingCompanyResearchOrganizationWorkersAppreciationRecognitionEngagedEmployeePrimeEngagementEngagingGood JobEmployee EngagementCompany CultureBest PerformanceEmployee InspirationalMotivate EmployeesEmployee RecognitionRecognition And AppreciationSelf RecognitionEmployee Appreciation
Author:Zig Ziglar
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“Immigrant families have integrated themselves into our communities, establishing deep roots. Whenever they have settled, they have made lasting contributions to the economic vitality and diversity of our communities and our nation. Our economy depends on these hard-working, taxpaying workers. They have assisted America in its economic boom.”

MadeHardAmericaNationsCommunityEconomyEconomicHard WorkDependsDiversityRootsWorkersImmigrationContributionImmigrantsLastingVitalityIntegratedOur CommunityDeep Roots
Author:Edward Kennedy
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“To the extent that our workers compete with low-paid Mexicans, it is as much through undocumented immigration as trade. This pattern threatens low-paid, low-skill U.S. workers. The combination of domestic reforms and NAFTA-related growth in Mexico will keep more Mexicans at home. It is likely that a reduction in immigration will increase the real wages of low-skilled urban and rural workers in the United States.”

RealStatesHomeGrowthUnitedUnited StatesSkillsLowsIncreasePaidTradeWorkersPatternsImmigrationReformCombinationRelatedMexicoUrbanWagesReductionNaftaUrban And Rural
Author:William J. Clinton
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