Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.
Carlyle, Past and Present
Work & craft
Passages for the ordinary virtue of doing the thing in front of you, and doing it as well as it can be done, whether or not anyone is counting.
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.
Ecclesiastes 9:10
The plainest instruction in the whole book, and the hardest to keep on a Tuesday.
In the morning, when you rise unwillingly, let this thought be present: I am rising to the work of a human being.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, V
To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.
R. L. Stevenson, El Dorado
I distrust this on ambitious days and believe it entirely on tired ones.
Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.
Samuel Johnson, Rasselas
When we build, let us think that we build for ever. Let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone.
Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture
Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.
William Morris, The Beauty of Life, 1880
A good rule for a house. A better one, quietly, for a life's worth of work.
The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.
Longfellow, The Ladder of St. Augustine