Work-related quotes

I am a quote-a-holic. I love quotes because they distill deep wisdom into bite-sized pieces! Here are some of my favorites that relate to the world of work:

"Since the dawn of time, companies have hired people whose entire job is to tell you everything is all right and you can completely trust them and the company is as stable as a rock, and to do so until they, themselves are fired because the company is out of business."
-Jason Scott

"The traditional interviewing process is two people pleasantly lying to one another for an hour or two and then making a really big decision that they will live with for years to come."
(unknown)

"If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind."
-Kurt Vonnegut

Regrettably, my first job was on a six year project to write a COBOL compiler. I lasted about three days. I didn't want to end up like my colleagues at HP, bored shitless and sitting around talking about their lawn sprinkling systems, as they toughed out another coffee break on the road to oblivion.
-Eugene Jarvis

"Money can be made later, but time is lost forever."
-Eugene Jarvis (programmer of the game "defender") on working at Atari

"It is easier to do a job right than to explain why you didn’t."
-Martin Van Buren

"Things may come to those who wait... but only the things left by those who hustle."
Abraham Lincoln

"The only man who makes no mistakes is the man who never does anything."
Theodore Roosevelt

"Drink Coffee. Do stupid things faster, with more energy."
-On coffee mug

If it is not useful or necessary, free yourself from imagining that you need to make it. If it is useful and necessary, free yourself from imagining that you need to enhance it by adding what is not an integral part of its usefulness or necessity.
And finally: If it is both useful and necessary and you can recognize and eliminate what is not essential, then go ahead and make it as beautifully as you can.
-from "the rule of thumb for Shaker creations", from ShakerBuilt by Paul Rochleau & June Sprigg

"Work should always be fun....
We all only have one life.
A third of life is work.
Without happiness and fun, work becomes hell."
-IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad,

"No one ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I had spent more time alone with my computer.'"
-Danielle Bunten Berry