Fran Lebowitz Quotes

Are you doing work worth doing, or are you just doing your job?

I believe that dignified work is a value in itself.

A plea for the spinning wheel is a plea for recognizing the dignity of labour.

The dignity is in the worker, not in the job.

The problem - at least in the United States - is not that people can't find jobs. The problem is that they're no longer finding jobs that provide them with dignity and decent social status.

It is not true that there is dignity in all work. Some jobs are definitely better than others.... People who have good jobs are happy, rich, and well dressed. People who have bad jobs are unhappy, poor and use meat extenders. Those who seek dignity in the type of work that compels them to help hamburgers are certain to be disappointed.

It starts this way: The worth of a job is not defined by what it allows you to do when you're not working.

Scrubbing floors and emptying bedpans has as much dignity as the Presidency.

There is no job a man can do that is undignified - if he does it well.

Although everyone does benefit from lower-priced goods and services, people also care greatly about the chance to be productively employed and the quality of their work. Declining employment opportunities feel real and immediate; the rise in real incomes brought by lower prices does not.

We continue to fight for good jobs that pay well and jobs that last. Helping to get folks back to work is about helping them to regain their dignity and pride. That's what families care about.

It is right and necessary that all men should have work to do which shall he worth doing, and be of itself pleasant to do … Nothing should be made by man's labor which is not worth making; or which must be made by labor degrading to the makers

People want the dignity of work.

A teacher works a lot harder than I do and her work is far more important, but she will never make the money that I do.

All work is noble; the only ignoble thing is to live without working. There is need to realize the value of work in all its forms whether manual or intellectual, to be called 'mate,' to have sympathetic understanding of all forms of activity.

I think all of us want to work and get paid what we are worth.

I don't want to work with a person just to have someone there.

Depending on where you're at or the ownership you're working for, some of the college jobs may be better than some in the NFL.

We have to make sure everyone in California has a great job. A fantastic job!

Nobody goes to work to do a bad job.

Intelligence is the effort to do the best you can at your particular job; the quality that gives dignity to that job, whether it happens to be scrubbing a floor or running a corporation.

The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get "a good job," but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.

There is no easy formula for determining right and wrong livelihood, but it is essential to keep the question alive. To return the sense of dignity and honor to manhood, we have to stop pretending that we can make a living at something that is trivial or destructive and still have sense of legitimate self-worth. A society in which vocation and job are separated for most people gradually creates an economy that is often devoid of spirit, one that frequently fills our pocketbooks at the cost of emptying our souls.

Show respect for everyone who works for a living, regardless of how trivial their job.

Most people work at keeping their job, rather than doing a good job. If you're the former, you're leading a meaningless life. If you're the latter, keep up the good work.