To play it safe is not to play.
—Robert Altman
23
A ship in harbor is safe – but that is not what ships are built for.
—John Augustus Shedd, 1928
24
To love what you do and feel that it matters – how could anything be more fun?
—Katharine Graham, 1994
Real joy comes not from ease or riches or from the praise of men, but from doing something
worthwhile.
—Wilfred Grenfell
25
The only thing that may bring joy is work.
—Louis Pasteur, 1940
Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
—Theodore Roosevelt, 1903
Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.
—Anonymous
26
I never did a day’s work in my life. It was all fun.
—Thomas Edison
27
The test of a vocation is the love of the drudgery it involves.
—Logan Pearsall Smith, 1931
***
Too much rest is rust.
—Walter Scott, 1825
28
Rest’s for a clam in a shell.
—Dorothy Parker, 1944
The prospect of a long day at the beach makes me panic.
—Phillip Lopate, 1994
A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.
—George Bernard Shaw, 1910
23
As quoted, without a date, in several generally reliable collections, starting not later than 1978.
24
Sometimes misattributed to William Greenough Thayler Shedd (1820-1894).
25
As quoted, without a date, in several reputable sources, starting not later than 1967.
26
Frequently misattributed to Confucius.
27
As quoted, without a date, in a 2003 collection published by Edison and Ford Winter Estates.
28
Actually, Scott represented that maxim as a line from an “old song”.
On Work and Leisure
21