“There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour.”
Ecclesiastes, 1611 · Hebrew wisdom literature, King James Version
Chapter 3
On Purpose
“Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion.”
Ecclesiastes, 1611 · Hebrew wisdom literature, King James Version
“And live in action! Labour! Make thine acts thy piety, casting all self aside.”
Bhagavad Gita, c. 200 BC · Krishna instructing Arjuna, Sanskrit epic
“Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness. He has a work, a life-purpose; he has found it, and will follow it.”
Thomas Carlyle, 1843 · Scottish essayist writing during Britain's industrial upheaval
“Work is love made visible.”
Kahlil Gibran, 1923 · Lebanese American poet and painter
“If you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.”
Kahlil Gibran, 1923 · Lebanese American poet and painter
“It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?”
Henry David Thoreau, 1857 · American naturalist, in a letter to his friend H. G. O. Blake
“Humanity needs dreamers, for whom the unselfish following of a purpose is so imperative that it becomes impossible for them to devote much attention to their own material benefit.”
Marie Curie, 1923 · Polish French physicist and chemist, twice a Nobel laureate
Tracking a national sample for fourteen years, researchers found that people who reported a clear sense of purpose outlived those who did not, at every age and whether or not they were still working.
Patrick L. Hill and Nicholas A. Turiano, 2014 · psychologists analysing the Midlife in the United States longitudinal sample
Looking back on their working lives, the oldest Americans interviewed said the same thing in different words: do what you love, and do not wait for the salary to make it worth doing.
Cornell Legacy Project cohort, 2011 · more than 1,500 Americans in their seventies and beyond, interviewed on work and career
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