We should always look upon ourselves as God's servants, placed in God's world, to do his work; and accordingly labour faithfully for him; not with a design to grow rich and great, but to glorify God, and do all the good we possibly can.

Learning is not just a labour market or economic growth issue. It is an integral part of human development. We learn from birth to death.

I joined the SDP as a founder member a few days after my 18th birthday in 1981. I was a councillor, activist and parliamentary candidate for the SDP and its successor party, the Liberal Democrats, for 14 years before joining Labour when Tony Blair became leader and abolished Labour's old clause IV - committing to general nationalisation - in 1995.

The Labour party has, from the beginning, been made up of diverse factions; that's its beauty - asking it to become cohesive is like trying to find one shampoo that will care for the hair of everybody in Angelina Jolie's house.

In individual industries where female labour pays an important role, any movement advocating better wages, shorter working hours, etc., would not be doomed from the start because of the attitude of those women workers who are not organized.

If I am doing a speech at a Labour party meeting - I think I have done every constituency - I'll look for a happy face, and talk to that face. In the Commons, with all the anger, I'll fix on a blank panel above their heads.

A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.

The most sublime labour of poetry is to give sense and passion to insensate things; and it is characteristic of children to take inanimate things in their hands and talk to them in play as if they were living persons... This philological-philosophical axiom proves to us that in the world's childhood men were by nature sublime poets...

When my friends suggested that we approach a rich man for patronage, explaining, "Today we need him, later when we are established you can change the pattern. We need publicity, credibility and money. Where else will it come from?" I rejected the advice outright, saying what I have never stopped repeating since, "I will not join the social welfare club. I need no false support, no whitewash and no publicity. I'll build credibility, I'll earn money, I'll labour. I'll live the real thing. For that I need the people, those who need my help. Nothing is for free, everything has a price. I will pay them, they will pay me. The people will create their own welfare service, I will help them create it. From here we go alone. There shall be no pillar to lean on. We shall build supports from within. No compromise shall dilute and plague my work. We will begin from the street, from the beginning, not the top, not the middle, but the very bottom.

The portraits, of more historical than artistic interest, had gone; and tapestry, full of the blue and bronze of peacocks, fell over the doors, and shut out all history and activity untouched with beauty and peace; and now when I looked at my Crevelli and pondered on the rose in the hand of the Virgin, wherein the form was so delicate and precise that it seemed more like a thought than a flower, or at the grey dawn and rapturous faces of my Francesca, I knew all a Christian's ecstasy without his slavery to rule and custom; when I pondered over the antique bronze Gods and Goddesses, which I had mortgaged my house to buy, I had all a pagan's delight in various beauty and without his terror at sleepless destiny and his labour with many sacrifices; and I had only to go to my bookshelf, where every book was bound in leather, stamped with intricate ornament, and of a carefully chosen colour: Shakespeare in the orange of the glory of the world, Dante in the dull red of his anger, Milton in the blue grey of his formal calm; and I could experience what I would of human passions without their bitterness and without satiety. I had gathered about me all Gods because I believed in none, and experienced every pleasure because I gave myself to none, but held myself apart, individual, indissoluble, a mirror of polished steel: I looked in the triumph of this imagination at the birds of Hera, glowing in the firelight as though they were wrought of jewels; and to my mind, for which symbolism was a necessity, they seemed the doorkeepers of my world, shutting out all that was not of as affluent a beauty as their own; and for a moment I thought as I had thought in so many other moments, that it was possible to rob life of every bitterness except the bitterness of death; and then a thought which had followed this thought, time after time, filled me with a passionate sorrow.

the postmodern trajectory itself is a rather humorous joke on the human race which laboured for millennia to reduce working hours in order to produce leisure so we could enjoy this very leisure that then turns in a kind of vengeful act against us absorbing our leisure time, which was to be our living time, into time now spent in the service of what can only be called this inhuman spectacle

Is it better to work out consciously and critically one's own conception of the world and thus, in connection with the labours of one's own brain, choose one's sphere of activity, take an active part in the creation of the history of the world, be one's own guide, refusing to accept passively and supinely from outside the moulding of one' own personality?

But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but i laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

The people come to understand that wealth is not the fruit of labour but the result of organised, protected robbery. Rich people are no longer respectable people; they are nothing more than flesh eating animals, jackals and vultures which wallow in the people's blood.

But there is in everything a reasonable division of labour. I have written the book, and nothing on earth would induce me to read it.

...[G]reat progress was evident in the last Congress of the American 'Labour Union' in that among other things, it treated working women with complete equality. While in this respect the English, and still more the gallant French, are burdened with a spirit of narrow-mindedness. Anybody who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without the feminine ferment. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex (the ugly ones included).

There are times when solitude is better than society, and silence is wiser than speech. We should be better Christians if we were more alone, waiting upon God, and gathering through meditation on His Word spiritual strength for labour in his service. We ought to muse upon the things of God, because we thus get the real nutriment out of them. . . . Why is it that some Christians, although they hear many sermons, make but slow advances in the divine life? Because they neglect their closets, and do not thoughtfully meditate on God's Word. They love the wheat, but they do not grind it; they would have the corn, but they will not go forth into the fields to gather it; the fruit hangs upon the tree, but they will not pluck it; the water flows at their feet, but they will not stoop to drink it. From such folly deliver us, O Lord. . . .

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly, and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story. Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love ? for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you from misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

Wisdom alone is true ambition's aim wisdom the source of virtue and of fame obtained with labour for mankind employed and then when most you share it best enjoyed.

The most important lesson of New Labour is this: Every time we made progress we did it by challenging the conventional wisdom.

Capitalist production therefore develops technology and the combining together of various processes into a social whole only by sapping the original sources of all wealth - the soil and the labourer.

Permanent success cannot be achieved except by incessant intellectual labour always inspired by the ideal.

If a man loves the labour of his trade apart from any question of success or fame the gods have called him.

And if we must educate our poets and artists in science we must educate our masters labour and capital in art.