Toil Quotes

“The chains that break you, are the chains that make you. And the chains that make you, are the chains you break.”
― Anthony Liccione

“The sea is endless when you are in a rowboat.”
― Adolfo Bioy Casares, The Invention of Morel

“Our toil must be in silence, and our efforts all in secret; for this enlightened age, when men believe not even what they see, the doubting of wise men would be his greatest strength.”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula

“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.”
― William Shakespeare, The Sonnets and Narrative Poems

“As the sun shines I will make hay
To keep failure at bay
For there remaineth a pay
For my honest toil each day.”
― Ogwo David Emenike

“Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ballads and Other Poems

“In the end economics is about people ... And economic growth is about a better life for individuals - more choice, less fear, less toil and hardship. ... Yang Li tried factory work and decided that it wasn't for her. Now she says that 'I can close the salon whenever I want.' Economics is about Yang Li's choice.”
― Tim Harford, The Undercover Economist

“Naked we were born, naked shall we return to grave. What then is the toil?”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“Consider what intemperate lovers undergo for the sake of evil desires, and how much exertion others expend for the sake of making profit, and how much suffering those who are pursuing fame endure, and bear in mind that all of these people submit to all kinds of toil and hardship voluntarily. Is it then not monstrous that they for no honorable reward endure such things, while we for the sake of the ideal good - that is not only the avoidance of evil such as wrecks our lives, but also the acquisition of virtue, which we may call the provider of all goods -- are not ready to bear every hardship?
And yet would not anyone admit how much better it is, in place of exerting oneself to win someone else's wife, to exert oneself the discipline of one's desires; in place of enduring hardships for the sake of money, the train oneself to want little; instead of giving oneself trouble about getting notoriety; instead of trying to find a way to injure an envied person, to enquire how not to envy anyone; and instead of slaving, as sycophants do, to win false friends, to undergo suffering in order to possess true friends?
Since toil and hardship are a necessity for all, both for those who seek better and worse, it is preposterous that those pursuing the better are not much more eager in their efforts than those for whom there is small hope of reward for all their pains. ...
It remains for me to say that who is unwilling to exert himself almost always convicts himself as unworthy of good, since all good is gained by toil.”
― Musonius Rufus, Lectures and Fragments

“Whoever strives in ceaseless toil, Him we may grant redemption”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust

“Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.”
― Christina Rossetti, Up-hill

“After some point, working harder makes achieving the goal harder or even impossible.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“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.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“Where achievements and fulfillments dwell, there emptiness its grey clouds sends. For man is mostly alive and satisfied during the period of his toil. Not by being, but by becoming. A passionate denizen of the kingdom of the Potential.”
― Giannis Delimitsos

“Early sweats make up later pleasures”
― Israelmore Ayivor, Six Words Inspiration

“No, I don’t want to live a fairy-tale life fashioned of pixie-dust and enchanted forests. I would much rather forge a life out of the dust and grime of this soiled existence, for to fashion a life out of materials such as these is truly magic.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“...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.”
― Ethan Canin, A Doubter's Almanac

“The road to success is rough and tough, you boil and toil but you finally smile in style.”
― Vincent Okay Nwachukwu, Weighty 'n' Worthy African Proverbs - Volume 1

“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.”
― Zane Grey, The Desert of Wheat

“Everybody wants to be in relationship; but no one is willing to take the toil that comes with it.”
― Anoir Ou-Chad

“There is no toil without tears.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“Through him I learned that you can preserve a pure heart and a fine mind and can enjoy the tender and beautiful things of life while you work in unending toil.”
― Max Winkler, A Penny from Heaven

“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.”
― Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society

“Many men toil for the comfort of the few.”
― Anthony T. Hincks

“The garden asks only that I weed it and water it. And in exchange for something that demands so little of me, my tiny garden toils day and night to produce a harvest that demands everything of it.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“The only thing you have to do in this life is to toil.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“Toil is the only price you must persistent pay for living.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“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.”
― Will Desmond, The Greek Praise of Poverty: Origins of Ancient Cynicism

“Misery melts him down by day, and sleep at night. His preoccupation with his business day has made his sleep insoluble.”
― Djuna Barnes, Nightwood

“Master, I've filled my contract, wrought in Thy many lands;
Not by my sins wilt Thou judge me, but by the work of my hands.
Master, I've done Thy bidding, and the light is low in the west,
And the long, long shift is over... Master, I've earned it— Rest.”
― Robert W. Service