Work and Profession

Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.

Die Tat ist alles, nichts der Ruhm.

When constabulary duty’s to be done,

It is, it is a glorious thing

Stick close to your desks and never go to sea,

Work is love made visible.

All that matters is love and work.

Man is a tool-making animal.

Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black.

If a man write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mouse-trap than his neighbour, tho’ he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.

If I would be a young man again and had to decide how to make my living, I would not try to become a scientist or scholar or teacher. I would rather choose to be a plumber or a peddler in the hope to find that modest degree of independence still available under present circumstances.

If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z . Work is x ; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.

Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration.

For most of my life I refused to work at any problem unless its solution seemed to be capable of being put to commercial use.

It is the unofficial force—the Baker Street irregulars.

Increased means and increased leisure are the two civilizers of man.

The Continent will [not] suffer England to be the workshop of the world.

Here’s the rule for bargains: ‘Do other men, for they would do you.’

Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving— HOW NOT TO DO IT.

The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself.

When asked what was first in oratory, [he] replied to his questioner, ‘action,’ what second, ‘action,’ and again third, ‘action’.

Say not the struggle naught availeth,

Cum dignitate otium.

Nowher so bisy a man as he ther nas,