| Quotations - General |
[Quote No.50294] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] To become an able and successful man in any profession, three things are necessary, nature [talent and passion], study and practice.
" - Henry Ward Beecher
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[Quote No.50303] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] What a man really wants is creative challenge with sufficient skills to bring him within the reach of success so that he may have the expanding joy [and satisfaction] of achievement." - Fay B. Nash
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[Quote No.50401] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career: individualism]
The key to a happy and fulfilling future is knowing [and being] yourself. This self-knowledge is the most important component of finding the right career...
Many people take career tests with the hope that someone can definitely tell them who they are and what they should do. No test can do that. I recommend that people use the results of their career interest tests to stimulate their own ideas about possible occupations...
Tests have one great mission and purpose: To give you ideas you hadn't thought of and suggestions worth following up, ... But if you ask them to do more than that, you're asking too much." - Richard Nelson Bolles
From his best-selling book, 'What Color Is Your Parachute?'
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[Quote No.50402] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] Always define WHAT you want to do with your life and WHAT you have to offer to the world, in terms of your favorite talents/gifts/skills - not in terms of a job-title." - Richard Nelson Bolles
From his best-selling book, 'What Color Is Your Parachute? 2007: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers.'
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[Quote No.50403] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career: look for a career where you can contribute and achieve:] I like the late Bernard Haldane's definition of an achievement. He says it is: something you yourself feel you have done well, that you also enjoyed doing and felt proud of. In other words you are looking for an accomplishment that gave you two pleasures: enjoyment while doing it, and satisfaction from the outcome. That doesn't mean you may not have sweated as you did it, or hated some parts of the process, but it does mean that basically you enjoyed most of the process. The pleasure was not simply in the outcome, but along the way as well." - Richard Nelson Bolles
From his best-selling book, 'What Color Is Your Parachute? 2007: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers'
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[Quote No.50404] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career: find a job you find stimulating and enjoyable:] There is a vast world of work out there in this country [USA], where at least 111 million people are employed in this country alone - many of whom are bored out of their minds. All day long. Not for nothing is their motto TGIF - 'Thank God It's Friday.' They live for the weekends, when they can go do what they really want to do." - Richard Nelson Bolles
From his best-selling book, 'What Color Is Your Parachute?'
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[Quote No.50411] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] Success is liking yourself, liking what you do and liking how you do it." - Maya Angelou
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[Quote No.50415] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] The whole secret of personal success is to find out what your calling is, and then do it." - Brian Tracy
Business consultant
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[Quote No.50424] Need Area: Work > General
"[Keep your life, with all the needs of yourself and those you love, in balance:] Don't get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life." - Dolly Parton
Singer
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[Quote No.50431] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career: pursue your bliss and mission:] People can be really smart or have skills that are directly applicable, but if they don’t really believe in it, then they are not going to really work hard. " - Mark Zuckerberg
Founder of Facebook. Quote from October 2005.
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[Quote No.50500] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] Work is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying." - Studs Terkel
Author. He documented stories from World War II and the Great Depression as well as Americans' feelings about work.
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[Quote No.50562] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] Don’t be addicted to money. Work to learn. Don’t work for money. Work for knowledge." - Robert Kiyosaki
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[Quote No.50771] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] The difference between a job and a career is the difference between forty and sixty hours a week." - Robert Frost
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[Quote No.50817] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] One thing I’ve learned ...is that creative people work much harder than the average person - and usually that’s because they love their work." - Nancy Andreasen
A psychiatrist and neuroscientist who studies creativity. [http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/06/secrets-of-the-creative-brain/372299/?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email ]
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[Quote No.50944] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] I don't think there's any thrill in the world like doing work you're good at." - Elaine Stritch
comedian and actress
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[Quote No.50986] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you figure out why." - Mark Twain
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[Quote No.51030] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] The thought once occurred to me that if one wanted to crush and destroy a man entirely, to mete out to him the most terrible punishment, one at which the most fearsome murderer would tremble, shrinking from it in advance, all one would have to do would be to make him do work that was completely and utterly devoid of usefulness and meaning." - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
From his book, 'The House of the Dead (Notes from the Dead House) (Life in a Siberian prison camp!)'.
(Author)
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[Quote No.51043] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] You must find your dream, then the way becomes easy.
" - Herman Hesse
Nobel Prize winner in Literature. Quote from his novel 'Demian' (1919).
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[Quote No.51055] Need Area: Work > General
"God gives every bird his worm, but He does not throw it into the nest." - P. D. James
Novelist
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[Quote No.51071] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] And what hurts is the steadily diminishing humanity of those fighting to hold jobs they don't want but fear the alternative worse. People simply empty out. They are bodies with fearful and obedient minds. The color leaves the eye. The voice becomes ugly. And the body. The hair. The fingernails. The shoes. Everything does." - Charles Bukowski
writer. Quote from the book of his collected letters, 'Reach for the Sun: Selected Letters 1978–1994'.
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[Quote No.51080] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] I find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success." - Thomas A. Edison
inventor
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[Quote No.51082] Need Area: Work > General
"[Passion, vocation and work:] I never did a day's work in my life. It was all fun." - Thomas A. Edison
Inventor
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[Quote No.51092] Need Area: Work > General
"[Passion, vocation and career:]
A wonderful realization will be the day you realize that you are unique in all the world.
There is nothing that is an accident.
You are a special combination for a purpose-and don't let them tell you otherwise, even if they tell you that purpose is an illusion. (Live an illusion if you have to).
You are that combination so that you can do what is essential for you to do.
Don't ever believe that you have nothing to contribute.
The world is an incredible unfulfilled tapestry.
And only you can fulfill that tiny space that is yours." - Leo Buscaglia
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[Quote No.51095] Need Area: Work > General
"Man's biggest mistake is to believe that he's working for someone else." - Nashua Cavalier
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[Quote No.51121] Need Area: Work > General
"[Passion, vocation and career:] I don't want people who want to dance, I want people who 'have' to dance." - George Balanchine
One of the 20th century's most prolific choreographers.
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[Quote No.51154] Need Area: Work > General
"[Passion, vocation and career:] One recognizes one's course by discovering the paths that stray from it!
" - Albert Camus
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[Quote No.51267] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] When natural inclination develops into a passionate desire, one advances towards his goal in seven-league boots." - Nikola Tesla
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[Quote No.51383] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] If you love what you do, there are no difficult tasks, only interesting ones." - Vadim Kotelnikov
Inventor and Founder of Business e-Coaching (1000ventures.com).
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[Quote No.51393] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:]
Love what you do or don't do it." - Mark Cuban
American businessman, investor, and owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, Landmark Theatres, and Magnolia Pictures, and the chairman of the HDTV cable network AXS TV.
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[Quote No.51407] Need Area: Work > General
"[Passion, vocation and career:] The best work never was and never will be done for money." - John Ruskin
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[Quote No.51434] Need Area: Work > General
"If you would live your life with ease; do what you ought, not what you please." - Anonymous
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[Quote No.51463] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] Work at something you enjoy and that's worthy of your time and talent." - H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
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[Quote No.51466] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] Experience shows that success is due less to ability than to zeal. The winner is he who gives himself to his work, body and soul." - Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton
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[Quote No.51470] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful." - Herman Cain
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[Quote No.51475] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing." - Dale Carnegie
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[Quote No.51486] Need Area: Work > General
"What is the recipe for successful achievement? To my mind there are just four essential ingredients: Choose a [vocation] career you love . . . Give it the best there is in you . . . Seize your opportunities. And be a member of the team." - Benjamin Fairless
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[Quote No.51504] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] The first requisite of success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem without growing weary." - Thomas Edison
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[Quote No.51523] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career: What qualities does incredibly successful businessman and investor Warren Buffett looks for in employees?] The biggest thing I look for is if they have a passion for whatever they are going to do.
" - Warren Buffett
successful businessman and investor
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[Quote No.51555] Need Area: Work > General
"A story - with a message: every obstacle in our path is an opportunity for service, either one-off or full-time as a vocation or career.] The rock in the road - In ancient times, a king had a boulder placed on a roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock. Some of the king's wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the king for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the big stone out of the way to make the way easier for all to travel. Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables. On approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road to make the road free of obstacles for everyone. After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. As the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the king indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway. The peasant learned what many others never understand:- every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve one's own condition and help others." - Unknown
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[Quote No.51566] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] Try to find and increase the amount of work you can do that has three qualities: --1 you are good at it; --2 you enjoy doing it and; --3 you value what it achieves." - Seymour@imagi-natives.com
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[Quote No.51621] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] Our truest life is when we are in our dreams awake." - Henry David Thoreau
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[Quote No.51703] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:]
All I know is that if you want to get anywhere with it, or with anything else, you have got to adopt an entirely different attitude from the one you have had toward getting an education. In plain words, you've got to make up your mind to study whatever you undertake, and concentrate your mind on it, and really work at it. This isn't wisdom. Any damned fool in the world knows it's true, whether it's a question of raising horses or writing plays. You simply have to face the prospect of starting at the bottom and spending years learning how to do it.
...The best I can do is to try to encourage you to work hard at something you really want to do and have the ability to do. Because any fool knows that to work hard at something you want to accomplish is the only way to be happy. But beyond that it is entirely up to you. You've got to do for yourself all the seeking and finding concerned with what you want to do. Anyone but yourself is useless to you there.
...What I am trying to get firmly planted in your mind is this: In the really important decisions of life, others cannot help you. No matter how much they would like to. You must rely on yourself. That is the fate of each one of us. It can't be changed. It just is like that. And you are old enough to understand this now.
And that's all of that. It isn't much help in a practical advice way, but in another way it might be. At least, I hope so." - Eugene O'Neill
Playwright who by fifty had just about every imaginable cultural accolade under his belt, including three Pulitzers and a Nobel Prize. Quoted in a letter to his 19 year old son, published in the book, 'Posterity: Letters of Great Americans to Their Children'.
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[Quote No.51725] Need Area: Work > General
"Men [and women] for the sake of getting a living forget to [take the time away from work to] live." - Margaret Fuller
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[Quote No.51799] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece." - John Ruskin
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[Quote No.51813] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] To find a career to which you are adapted by nature, and then to work hard at it, is about as near to a formula for success and happiness as the world provides. One of the fortunate aspects of this formula is that, granted the right career has been found, the hard work takes care of itself. Then hard work is not hard work at all." - Mark Sullivan
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[Quote No.51821] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it." - Pearl Buck
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[Quote No.51822] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career:] To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lonely labor, to be given the chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy. As everyone else, I love to dunk my crust in it [the gravy of money]. But alone, it is not a diet designed to keep body and soul together." - Bette Davis
Actress
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[Quote No.51885] Need Area: Work > General
"Don't simply retire from something; have something to retire to." - Harry Emerson Fosdick
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[Quote No.51970] Need Area: Work > General
"[Vocation and career: If you have a deeply-felt perspective on a problem or a need, perhaps because you or someone you care about has experienced it, you may wish to address that problem in the world. In that way you take the lemons life gave you and make lemonade for others and yourself or, in other words, you could...] Turn your scars into stars!" - Robert H. Schuller
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[Quote No.51979] Need Area: Work > General
"[A true story - with a message about considering turning your unique life experiences, problems and desires into a vocation or career. In that way you turn 'lemons into lemonade' and 'scars into stars'.] - A Slave to His Destiny -
One morning a sixteen-year-old boy was kidnapped from his house by a band of knife-wielding thugs and taken to another country, there to be sold as a slave. The year was 401 AD.
He was made a shepherd. Slaves were not allowed to wear clothes, so he was often dangerously cold and frequently on the verge of starvation. He spent months at a time without seeing another human being -- a severe psychological torture.
But this greatest of difficulties was transformed into the greatest of blessings because it gave him an opportunity not many get in a lifetime. Long lengths of solitude have been used by people all through history to meditate, to learn to control the mind and to explore the depths of feeling and thought to a degree impossible in the hubbub of normal life.
He wasn't looking for such an 'opportunity'" but he got it anyway. He had never been a religious person, but to hold himself together and take his mind off the pain, he began to pray, so much that '...in one day,' he wrote later, 'I would say as many as a hundred prayers and after dark nearly as many again...I would wake and pray before daybreak -- through snow, frost, and rain....'
This young man, at the onset of his manhood, got a 'raw deal.' But therein lies the lesson. Nobody gets a perfect life. The question is not 'What could I have done if I'd gotten a better life?' but rather 'What can I do with the life I've got?'
How can you take your personality, your circumstances, your upbringing, the time and place you live in, and make something extraordinary out of it? What can you do with what you've got?
The young slave prayed. He didn't have much else available to do, so he did what he could with all his might. And after six years of praying, he heard a voice in his sleep say that his prayers would be answered: He was going home. He sat bolt upright and the voice said, 'Look, your ship is ready.'
He was a long way from the ocean, but he started walking. After two hundred miles, he came to the ocean and there was a ship, preparing to leave for Britain, his homeland. Somehow he got aboard the ship and went home to reunite with his family.
But he had changed. The sixteen-year-old boy had become a holy man. He had visions. He heard the voices of the people from the island he had left -- Ireland -- calling him back. The voices were persistent, and he eventually left his family to become ordained as a priest and a bishop with the intention of returning to Ireland and converting the Irish to Christianity.
At the time, the Irish were fierce, illiterate, Iron-Age people. For over eleven hundred years, the Roman Empire had been spreading its civilizing influence from Africa to Britain, but Rome never conquered Ireland.
The people of Ireland warred constantly. They made human sacrifices of prisoners of war and sacrificed newborns to the gods of the harvest. They hung the skulls of their enemies on their belts as ornaments.
Our slave-boy-turned-bishop decided to make these people literate and peaceful. Braving dangers and obstacles of tremendous magnitude, he actually succeeded! By the end of his life, Ireland was Christian. Slavery had ceased entirely. Wars were much less frequent, and literacy was spreading.
How did he do it? He began by teaching people to read -- starting with the Bible. Students eventually became teachers and went to other parts of the island to create new places of learning, and wherever they went, they brought the know-how to turn sheepskin into paper and paper into books.
Copying books became the major religious activity of that country. The Irish had a long-standing love of words, and it expressed itself to the full when they became literate. Monks spent their lives copying books: the Bible, the lives of saints, and the works accumulated by the Roman culture -- Latin, Greek, and Hebrew books, grammars, the works of Plato, Aristotle, Virgil, Homer, Greek philosophy, math, geometry, astronomy.
In fact, because so many books were being copied, they were saved, because as Ireland was being civilized, the Roman Empire was falling apart. Libraries disappeared in Europe. Books were no longer copied (except in the city of Rome itself), and children were no longer taught to read. The civilization that had been built up over eleven centuries disintegrated. This was the beginning of the Dark Ages.
Because our slave-boy-turned-bishop transformed his suffering into a mission, civilization itself, in the form of literature and the accumulated knowledge contained in that literature, was saved and not lost during that time of darkness. He was named a saint, the famous Saint Patrick. You can read the full and fascinating story if you like in the excellent book 'How the Irish Saved Civilization' by Thomas Cahill.
'Very interesting,' you might say, 'but what does that have to do with me?'
Well...you are also in some circumstances or other, and it's not all peaches and cream, is it? There's some stuff you don't like -- maybe something about your circumstances, perhaps, or maybe some events that occurred in your childhood.
But here you are, with that past, with these circumstances, with the things you consider less than ideal. What are you going to do with them? If those circumstances have made you uniquely qualified for some contribution, what would it be?
You may not know the answer to that question right now, but keep in mind that the circumstances you think only spell misery may contain the seeds of something profoundly Good. Assume that's true, and the assumption will begin to gather evidence until your misery is transformed, as Saint Patrick's suffering was, from a raw deal to the perfect preparation for something better.
Ask yourself and keep asking, 'Given my upbringing and circumstances, what GOOD am I especially qualified to do?' " - Adam Khan
'Self-Help Stuff That Works'
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