Lucy Larcom Quotes

I won't do something just for the sake of working.

Whether you're an obstetrician or a third-grade teacher or a real estate agent, you know when you're doing good work. You're passionate about it.

And the reason I came to IBM was I think - I always say at a really early age, I learned you've got to be passionate about what you do. No matter what it is, you put too much, your heart and soul in it, you have to be passionate about it. You make too many sacrifices.

I only want to do better work. That's the focus of my life.

I love what I do. I love to learn.

Every job I do, I feel like it is an amazing opportunity. I try to throw myself into every role with everything I have.

I love what I do; that is the foundation of whatever I do.

At my ashram, people work long hours joyfully because they are inspired. When people are involved and joyfully doing something, they usually turn out ten times more and do more than what they would normally do as a duty.

I have always tried to put content in my work. It is a consistent challenge.

Find something you're passionate about, and focus on it.

I only do things that I'm passionate about.

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.

Make the work interesting and the discipline will take care of itself.

All work, even cotton-spinning, is noble; work is alone noble.

The only way to escape the corruptible effect of praise is to go on working.

One of the things that may get in the way of people ... is that they're not in touch with their passion. If you're passionate about what it is you do, then you're going to be looking for everything you can to get better at it.

What it really is and what I now have experienced is that, people who take enormous pride in what they're doing - not in their person - that their work ethos is as high as nowhere else.That they love their jobs, they love to do their jobs properly as best they can. And coupled with the financial umph, you know, you get decent results.

We don't consider manual work as a curse, or a bitter necessity, not even as a means of making a living. We consider it as a high human function, as the basis of human life, the most dignified thing in the life of the human being, and which ought to be free, creative. Men ought to be proud of it.

Motivation gets you going, but discipline keeps you growing.

Labor humanizes, exalts.

Every man is proud of what he does well; and no man is proud of what he does not do well. With the former, his heart is in his work; and he will do twice as much of it with less fatigue. The latter performs a little imperfectly, looks at it in disgust, turns from it, and imagines himself exceedingly tired. The little he has done, comes to nothing, for want of finishing.

We almost have to force or drive ourselves to work hard if we are to reach our potential. If we don't enjoy what we do, we won't be able to push as hard as we need to push for as long as we need to push to achieve our best. However, if we enjoy what we do and if we're enthusiastic about it, we'll do it better and come closer to becoming the best we can be.

If you want to be Mark Spitz then go for it. If you want to be Michael Phelps then you'll have to work for it. Nobody should wake up to a lower expectation of themselves.

The workman still is greater than his work.

I'm so grateful to my parents for my upbringing and for all of the opportunities that I was provided with, but I also learned at a young age that success is not given, it is earned and that has always been something that motivates me.