Lifes Work Quotes

An adult should not be forced into marriage as a child is forced to eat his peas. Peas are only part of a meal. Marriage is a life's work. ~ Loretta Chase

After we've discovered what God called us to do, after we've discovered our life's work, we should set out to do that work so well that the living, the dead, or the unborn couldn't do it any better. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

I don't know if you remember me, but I used to work here in the factory."
Were you one of those despicable spies who every day tried to steal my life's work and sell it to those paraseeded cop cat, candy making cads?"
No sir!"
Then wonderful, welcome back! ~ Johnny Depp

You can't hurt him. He's an endangered species!"
"Vampires are not endangered." Van's tone made it clear that it was his life's work to rectify this regrettable situation.
"No, not that," Zack said dismissively. "He's a Victorian!"
"Brainwashed," Van muttered.
"Crazy," Sarah proclaimed.
"Steampunk," I corrected with a sigh. ~ Helen Keeble

The music industry itself is changing so quickly, that everything new, like Spotify, all feels to me a bit like a grand experiment. And I'm not willing to contribute my life's work to an experiment that I don't feel fairly compensates the writers, producers, artists, and creators of this music. And I just don't agree with perpetuating the perception that music has no value and should be free. ~ Taylor Swift

If my life's work could fit on a stamp, I'd want you to lick it before I die. ~ Jarod Kintz

On one of those rare occasions when Bach appraised his own life's work, he remarked: I worked hard. ~ Johann Sebastian Bach

....The important thing is not where we die but how we live. Being native to a place is a labor of love and a life's work. It means stitching your life to that of a place with a thread spun from mindfulness, attentiveness, husbandry, pilgrimage, and witness. Stories knit these components of practice together. Flung outward, they clothe our relationships; flung inward, they map the soul. Stories enable us to enter and dwell attentively in a place; they enable us to travel and return, then eventually to leave for good. We need stories to stay alive spiritually: without them we would all turn into hungry ghosts. Stories are the only things we can take with us out of this world. They are the wings that bear us up or the chains that drag us down. In the end, it is stories that enable us to die. ~ John Tallmadge

The elements of trial and error, similar to earth and sky, and fire and water, delineates the constituent modules of our lives. Living robustly includes more failures than successes. We achieve adeptness to living by exhibiting a willingness to make good faith mistakes and learn from each misadventure. Every effort that fails to achieve our expected result is understandably frustrating. The fact is that without ideas and dreams and devoid of occasional crash landings, a person can never hope to achieve any worthy acts to temper resounding personal disappointment. Meaningful success is ultimately defined when a person dies, when an entire life's work devoted to performing passionate and compassionate enterprises can be judge as a whole unit. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Successful people know that hours, like capital, can be consciously allocated with the goal of creating riches - in the form of a changed world, a life's work - over time. Indeed, successful people understand that work hours must be more carefully stewarded than capital because time is absolutely limited. You can earn more money, but the mightiest among us is granted no more than 168 hours per week, and it is physically impossible to work for all of them. ~ Laura Vanderkam

The credit for Erté's rediscovery must be given to French writer Jacques Damase, who met the artist when preparing a book on the Parisian music-hall. It was not merely his active presence which astounded Damase, but the fact that neatly stored away were thousands of perfectly preserved drawings representing a life's work. The immediate result was an exhibition at Galerie Motte in 1965, organised with Jacques Perrin, who the following year held another exhibition at his own gallery in Paris. Through the Motte exhibition, Erté was brought to the attention of galleria Milano, which in 1965 included some of his work in a pioneering exhibition of Art Déco. The most prominent event in this sequence was was Erté inclusion in the important exhibition Les Années 25 held at Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, in 1966, which put an historical and artistic seal on Art Déco and the diverse artistic activities of the 'twenties.

It is fair to say, however, that complete international reappraisal only came about after Grosvenor gallery in London became his world agents. Jacques Damase had suggested an exhibition of Erté's work to this London gallery, to which, at that time, I was acting as an art consultant. As a result we were able to prepare his first ever London exhibition in 1967. The remarkable success it achieved was presaged by a smaller exhibition in New York a few months earlier. It had planned to follow the London show with a similar collection in new York, based on work b ~ Charles Spencer

If your life's work can be accomplished in your lifetime, you're not thinking big enough. ~ Wes Jackson

Not a bad life's work. ~ Catherine Ryan Hyde

But painting can be too lonely ... I like being with people too much to have ever made that my life's work. ~ Marie Windsor

All the American women had purple noses and gray lips and their faces were chalk white from terrible powder. I recognized that the United States could be my life's work. ~ Helena Rubinstein

Believe your life has value and you are here for a purpose. What that purpose is, is your life's work. ~ Art Hochberg

The American people are not just being taxed to death; they're being taxed after death. But, no one should have to sell the life's work of a parent or a loved one just to pay the federal government. ~ J. D. Hayworth

The automobile engine will come, and then I will consider my life's work complete. ~ Rudolf Diesel

To have all your life's work and to have them along the wall, it's like walking in with no clothes on. It's terrible. ~ Andrew Wyeth

People who have accomplished work worthwhile have had a very high sense of the way to do things. They have not been content with mediocrity. They have not confined themselves to the beaten tracks; they have never been satisfied to do things just as others so them, but always a little better. They always pushed things that came to their hands a little higher up, this little farther on, that counts in the quality of life's work. It is constant effort to be first-class in everything one attempts that conquers the heights of excellence. ~ Orison Swett Marden

It's a life's work to see yourself for what you really are and even then you might be wrong. And that is something I don't want to be wrong about. ~ Cormac McCarthy

If there is any irreverence in my own work, I hope it is the irreverence I bear in mistrusting my own sincere self, which then sincerely mistrusts the irreverent me. If there is a bottom to this, I think it is a life's work. ~ Mary Ruefle

Take the time to write. You can do your life's work in half an hour a day. ~ Robert Hass

I was a professor of penis, a connoisseur of cock, a devotee of dick, an epicure of erections. I had made it my life's work to worship the male member. And what a member this one was. ~ Michael Murphy

If others are judgmental and do not appreciate your life's work, don't be dejected. Try to see the incapability of others who are unable to understand the things you understand, and appreciate the capability of seeing something which is not visible to others. ~ Ashish Mandlik

Take hold of kettle, broom, and pan, then you'll surely get a man! Shop and office leave alone, Your true life's work lies at home. - COMMON GERMAN RHYME OF THE 1930S ~ David R. Gillham

In death, Franz at last belonged to his wife. He belonged to her as he had never belonged to her before. Marie-Claude took care of everything: she saw to the funeral, sent out announcements, bought the wreaths, and had a black dress made - a wedding dress, in reality. Yes, a husband's funeral is a wife's true wedding! The climax of her life's work! The reward of her sufferings! ~ Milan Kundera

Bree arched, trying to stretch out her muscles and Alessandro gave her a dirty look as if she was displaying herself to him on purpose. Well, maybe she was a little. Even though he blocked her from the hotel attendant's gaze with his body in the doorway, Bree was sure to cover herself with the blanket. Alessandro turned around, pulling in the tray with him and his eyes flared hungrily as he looked down at her. "You look like a beautiful debauched angel," he said, his voice rough with desire. "And you're what, the demon that's corrupted me?" Bree asked raising an eyebrow and letting the blanket fall down to her waist, baring her to him. "It's my life's work, you know?" Alessandro grinned, going down on to his knees and leaning over her. Bree placed a hand on his chest, halting him. "Is that coffee, I smell?" she asked. "The debauched angel is kind of hungry." She bit her lip and smiled up at his frustrated face. ~ E. Jamie

As we step into our life's work, we discover that we have been preparing for this our whole lives, even though in that very moment we feel insufficient. ~ Jeff Goins

Keep a record of every picture you paint, have them photographed and write down where they went. Some day, when one reaches a great age, there will be calls for a Retrospective Exhibition of a life's work. ~ Keith Shackleton

In life's work, bliss and sacrifice are two sides of the same coin, complementary opposites. ~ Laurence Boldt

You punk asshole. What was this? A game for you? This is my life's work you just annihilated and for what? Shits and giggles? Or was this nothing more than a fraternity prank? Please tell me that you didn't just ruin my integrity to get some kind of drinking points. This is something I've been working for since before you were born. How dare you make a mockery of me. I hope to God that one day someone degrades you like this so that you'll know, just once in your spoiled pompous life, what humiliation feels like! (Tory) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Twitter has been my life's work in many senses. It started with a fascination with cities and how they work, and what's going on in them right now. ~ Jack Dorsey

At first the music almost repelled me, it was so intense, and this man made no attempt to sugarcoat what he was trying to say, or play. It was hard-core, more than anything I had ever heard. After a few listenings I realized that, on some level, I had found the master, and that following this man's example would be my life's work. ~ Eric Clapton

This really is my life's work, to go where there is suffering, ~ Kayla Mueller

What empowerment is all about [is] finding something which infuses you with a sense of mission, with a passion for your life's work. I don't believe there is one path for women or one nature to fulfill. Real fulfillment, real empowerment is often different than we imagine and better than we plan. ~ Elizabeth Dole

A job is something you do for money. Your life's work is done for a bigger purpose, to fulfill a calling or a dream. ~ Chip Gaines

You really think broken children care about justice?" "Wouldn't you?" "Never really did, no. Justice is a faulty thing at the best of times, and it doesn't actually fix anything." "Would you say that if you'd gotten justice as a child?" That not-quite-smile, bitter and gone too fast. "And what would I have needed justice for?" "My life's work, and you think I won't recognize a broken child when she sits in front of me? ~ Dot Hutchison

When I got into college, I found what ultimately became my life's work. I couldn't sleep at night, I was so excited about it. So I'm attracted to people who play at that level. They actually want to play in their professional life. ~ Jack Dangermond

Very few institutions thrive when they are left solely to "professionals," people who have made it their life's work to master a given domain of culture. ~ Andy Crouch

This is now our life's work: we will create the Egypt they died for. ~ Ahdaf Soueif

I can always see ways to improve what I've done. At the same time, knowing it's all an ongoing life's work allows me to be less precious about blind alleys, failed experiments, and misfires. ~ Grant Morrison

The missing links in my life's work, no less! ~ Robert Wyatt

This is the third night you've kept me up crying. Thought I'd give your mother a rest. Right now you haven't mastered English yet so I thought I'd put this on film for you. I want to show you something. Tony, see that? I built that for you and someday you're going to realize that it represents a lot more than just people's inventions. It represents my life's work. Someday you'll figure it out, and when you do, you'll do even bigger things with your life. I just know it. You're the future. I've created so much in y life, but you know what is the thing I'm proudest of? You. My son. The secret to the future is here! ~ Alex Irvine

That Ms. Farahani found Mr. Mohassess and persuaded him to share his story is a terrific coup, even if a great deal of his life's work remains elusive. ~ Manohla Dargis

Try and benefit others, animals, the whole of the earth, as much as you can. And in that space, challenge yourself to find what it is you can bring about through your life's work. ~ Stephanie Ellis

We have known for a long time that the pantheon of science is decorated with failure. Failures are the moving force in science: they seal off one possibility in order to expose another; they force us to look at the problem in a new light. We owe a huge debt, therefore, to the researchers whose life's work leads to a cal-de-sac. They are indirectly showing us the correct path. ~ Joseph Jebelli

You imagine that I look back on my life's work with calm satisfaction. But from nearby it looks quite different. There is not a single concept of which I am convinced that it will stand firm, and I feel uncertain whether I am in general on the right track. ~ Albert Einstein

So, it's nice to know that you've inspired someone to do their life's work. ~ Wanda Jackson

If you choose your life's work well, something bewitching can happen through your labors. Each hour you log can be a source of joy. ~ Laura Vanderkam

If I had had a daughter, I always knew what I would tell her. First of all, I would try to counter all outdated stereotypical claptrap that girls are commonly told about their sex--that women are valued far more for their sexual characteristics than their character and brains--and encourage her to be a truly independent person. Only knowing who she is herself will she be able to find find her own life's work and make good decisions in choosing a partner and having children. ~ Doris Anderson

It has always been my custom to treat words with respect. I can recall the time ... when I knew words would be my life's work ~ Margaret Edson

Finding and creating your life's work, even if it is entirely different from what you have done most of your life, will bring you more happiness and health than any other action you can take. If your primary responsibility in life is being true to yourself, that can only be accomplished by carrying out what you are called to do - your unique and special vocation ... Your life's work involves doing what you love and loving what you do. ~ Dennis Kimbro

This is my life's work. It is a user's manual to the human being, a parenting book ... and how to be the best you can be. ~ Faye Snyder

Ibsen is at heart an optimist. He could not close his life's work with a note of negation. When We Dead Awaken is a clear, ringing call to the future. ~ Jeanette Lee

I should say in general the advantage of education is to better fit a man for life's work. I would advise young men to take a college course, as a rule, but think some are just as well off with a thorough business training. ~ John D. Rockefeller

Funny but, for me, the Bible was a hobby before it was a serious study. It was the thing I'd sneak off and do on the side, feeling rather guilty because I wasn't doing my real school homework or whatever ... and never thinking I would make it a life's work. ~ N. T. Wright

How terrible, Jack thought, to be old and know that your life has been wasted. ~ Ken Follett

No one is satisfied with their life's work. ~ Marjory Stoneman Douglas

I should have been thinking more about my family, how I raised my children, how I maintained life's work, so to speak. ~ Joe Namath

Choose a field that will supply sufficient remuneration to provide adequately for your companion and your children. I bear testimony that these criteria are very important in choosing your life's work. ~ Thomas S. Monson

I do not believe in widening the income gap between rich and poor, and my life's work in the inner city of Detroit demonstrates that far more than any sound bite. ~ Clark Durant

What is the tactful, the effective way of announcing that your life's work has been wasted? ~ Francis Spufford

Life is short. Clarifying your purpose may be the biggest time-saver in your life's work. ~ Jon Mertz

It was as if his life's work had slipped away unfinished before he had even been born. All he could find, at best, were a few remnants of a lost world. ~ Richard Preston

Well ... yes, and here we go again. But before we get to The Work, as it were, I want to make sure I know how to cope with this elegant typewriter - (and, yes, it appears that I do) - so why not make this quick list of my life's work and then get the hell out of town on the 11:05 to Denver? Indeed. Why not? But for just a moment I'd like to say, for the permanent record, that it is a very strange feeling to be a 40-year-old American writer in this century and sitting alone in this huge building on Fifth Avenue in New York at one o'clock in the morning on the night before Christmas Eve, 2000 miles from home, and compiling a table of contents for a book of my own Collected Works in an office with a tall glass door that leads out to a big terrace looking down on The Plaza Fountain. Very strange. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

The god abandons Antony

When at the hour of midnight
an invisible choir is suddenly heard passing
with exquisite music, with voices ―
Do not lament your fortune that at last subsides,
your life's work that has failed, your schemes that have proved illusions.
But like a man prepared, like a brave man,
bid farewell to her, to Alexandria who is departing.
Above all, do not delude yourself, do not say that it is a dream,
that your ear was mistaken.
Do not condescend to such empty hopes.
Like a man for long prepared, like a brave man,
like the man who was worthy of such a city,
go to the window firmly,
and listen with emotion
but not with the prayers and complaints of the coward
(Ah! supreme rapture!)
listen to the notes, to the exquisite instruments of the mystic choir,
and bid farewell to her, to Alexandria whom you are losing. ~ Constantinos P. Cavafy

Not everyone has a Life's Work. Some people simply have a Life. ~ Garrison Keillor

Whether you've found your calling, or if you're still searching, passion should be the fire that drives your life's work. ~ Michael Dell

I see one single suitable role for my life's work: for it to be a gift to others. ~ Wojciech Kurtyka

Our amended Constitution is the lodestar for our aspirations. Like every text worth reading, it is not crystalline. The phrasing is broad and the limitations of its provisions are not clearly marked. Its majestic generalities and ennobling pronouncements are both luminous and obscure. This ambiguity of course calls forth interpretation, the interaction of reader and text. The encounter with the Constitutional text has been, in many senses, my life's work. ~ William J. Brennan

If there's one thing I know, it's men. I ought to. It's been my life's work. ~ Marie Dressler

Avoiding maturity is, for many men, not just a cute hobby, but a life's work - often handsomely rewarded in the infantile popular culture of the West. ~ Michael Leunig

turn our unsaid things into our life's work. ~ Caitlin Moran

But one cannot avenge a death, not really. One can only try to honor the memory of the dead by furthering their life's work to the best of one's ability. ~ Delphine Dryden

What's wrong?" he said. "I'll tell you what's wrong: you're killing us."
"But I thought that's what you wanted?"
"We did," my mother wept, "but not this way."
It hadn't occurred to me until that moment, but I seemed to have come full circle. What started as a dodge had inadvertently become my life's work, an irony I never could have appreciated had my extraordinary parents not put me through Princeton. ~ David Sedaris

When the words pour out of you just right, you understand that these sentences are all part of a river flowing out of your own distant, hidden ranges, and all words become the dissolving snow that feeds your mountain streams forever. The language locks itself in the icy slopes of our own high passes, and it is up to us, the writers, to melt the glaciers within us. When these glaciers break off, we get to call them novels, the changelings of our burning spirits, our life's work. ~ Pat Conroy

The first person I learned I could make happy with laughter was my mother, whom I idolize. It was a powerful thing to realize. I knew I had found my life's work. ~ Ellen DeGeneres

From My Life's Work by Cardinal Newman
God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next ... I shall do good. I shall do His work if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.
Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am. I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain. ~ John Henry Newman

I've made my life's work spotting assholes. And you know, I think it's harder now than ever before because there's so many socially acceptable ways to exhibit a pathological lack of empathy. ~ Merrill Markoe

London meant a new beginning, a hell-hole, a wonderland; too big, too foul; a safety blanket, point of pride, unfortunate problem, temporary mattress location, salvation, life's work. A place to stack empty tins of lager. Stage, Mecca, my water, my oxygen. London as cell, jail and favour. ~ Craig Taylor

People support me because they know me. They know my life's work. They have worked with me and many have also worked with Senator [Bernie] Sanders. And at the end of the day they endorse me because they know I can get things done. ~ Hillary Clinton

She likes to quote the opening words of the Constitution: "We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union." Beautiful, yes, but as she always points out, "we the people" originally left out a lot of people. "It would not include me," RBG said, or enslaved people, or Native Americans. Over the course of the centuries, people left out of the Constitution fought to have their humanity recognized by it. RBG sees that struggle as her life's work. ~ Irin Carmon

The men who began their life's work on [the cathedrals], they never lived to see the completion of their work. ~ Raymond Carver

Years ago I decided that the greatest need in our Country was Art ... We were a very young country and had very few opportunities of seeing beautiful things, works of art ... So, I determined to make it my life's work if I could. ~ Isabella Stewart Gardner

Problem solving, and I don't mean algebra, seems to be my life's work. Maybe it's everyone's life's work. ~ Beverly Cleary

LIFE'S work is to wake up, to let the things that enter into your life wake you up rather than put you to sleep. The only way to do this is to open, be curious, and develop some sense of sympathy for everything that comes along, to get to know its nature and let it teach you what it will. ~ Pema Chodron

With his last breath, her son had said, "Oh, Mom, it's so simple." I believe we make our paths far more difficult than they need to be. Our struggle with and resistance to what is entangles us in constant chaos and frustration - when it's all so simple. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And remember Newton's third law of motion: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The energy you create and release into the world will be reciprocated on all levels. Our main job in life is to align with the energy that is the source of all energies, and to keep our frequency tuned to the energy of love. This I know for sure. When that is your life's work, mystery solved - or at least, the mystery no longer mystifies you. It only heightens the rapture, reverence, and grace. ~ Oprah Winfrey

My ambition has always been to reduce a building's support to a minimum. The more we diminish supporting structures, the more audacious and important the architecture is. That has been my life's work. ~ Oscar Niemeyer

Whatever your life's work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Whatever was in that document had caused the death of the leader of the Catholic Church. Who'd be next? Calvi shuddered. His life's work was safe-guarding this document. Whatever its purpose or mystery, it was his solemn and sole mission to protect it. Even if it meant giving up his life for it. ~ Peter J. Tanous

Mama had an appreciation of the language. She taught me a love of words, of how they should be used and how they can fill a creative soul with a passion and lead to a life's work. ~ Lewis Grizzard

We both are a pejorative - liberals. Spartak, I believe an active and powerful government is the only counterbalance against rapacious business interests, unprincipled individuals and groups often all too willing to deceive, poison, and ruin in the name of their own liberty. Without us, the powerful face no limits, no scrutiny, pay no price and never face justice. My life's work is to return integrity and influence to the public sphere. I wear barronial scorn with pride." He shook his head. "Of course most people think I'm a fool."

U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Washington
Speaking to his niece and then Spartak Jones in a restaurant named after author Ayn Rand, San Francisco, in the year 2115
The Chronicles of Spartak - Rising Son, a novel ~ Steven A. Coulter

The idea that I could push the envelope using dedication and research and endless curiosity has propelled me in my life's work. ~ Randy Schekman

Try and understand his problem," insisted Ford. "Here he is, poor lad, his entire life's work is stamping around, throwing people off spaceships ... " "And shouting," added the guard. ~ Douglas Adams

There's a legal term for a problem in public space: something that might draw people to an area-say, across train tracks-where they might be caused harm. It's called a 'public nuisance.' I wouldn't mind being called that for my life's work. ~ Vito Acconci

It's my purgatory, really, inner drinks, whatever. I'm never really all that interested, but I find myself telling her how beautiful she is anyway. 'Cause it's true, all women are, in one way or another. You know, there's always something about every damn one of you, it's a smile, a curve, a secret. You ladies really are the most amazing creatures, my life's work. But then there's the morning after, a hangover, and the realization that I'm not quite as available as I thought I was the night before. And then she's gone, and I'm haunted by yet another road not taken. ~ Gina Fattore

The reaction to 'Aftermath' has been far worse than to 'A Life's Work,' yet I find I'm perhaps a little less touched by it. In both cases, I've coped artistically by believing the criticisms weren't right. They upset me, but they didn't challenge my understanding of how to write, nor of how morality functions in literature. ~ Rachel Cusk

I counseled many returning missionaries. I interviewed 1,700 missionaries all over the world. My advice to them is that you should study and prepare for your life's work in a field that you enjoy. ~ Thomas S. Monson

I have always felt like a pawn ... My skin color's been a curse, my missionary parents made me sober and intense, my school days brought me up against political crimes against Animals, my love life imploded and my lover died, and if I had any life's work of my own, I haven't found it yet, except in animal husbandry, if you could call it that. ~ Gregory Maguire