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"Everyone should get dirt on his hands each day. Doctors, intellectuals. Politicians, most of all. How can we presume to uplift the life of the working man, if we don't respect his work?"
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"Jobs are a part of life. Maybe you've heard of the concept. It's called work? See, what happens is that you suffer through doing annoying and humiliating things until you get paid not enough money. Like those Japanese game shows, only without all the glory."
"Thanks to his salary, an employee is free to eat whatever, wherever. However, because of his job, he is not free to eat whenever."
"Employment is the exploitation of the employer's courage, and, the employed's fear of failure."
"There is no substitute under the heavens for productive labor. It is the process by which dreams become realities. It is the process by which idle visions become dynamic achievements."
"To say that "the worker has an interest in the rapid growth of capital", means only this: that the more speedily the worker augments the wealth of the capitalist, the larger will be the crumbs which fall to him, the greater will be the number of workers than can be called into existence, the more can the mass of slaves dependent upon capital be increased."
"By buying the power of the workman, the capitalist has, therefore, acquired the right to use of make that labouring power during the whole day or week."
"When you think of the amount of turnover and profit made by most companies in this country - and especially the big chains, it's a shame that they pay their employees minimum wage and no more than that. What that really says is: 'We're paying you minimum wage, because we're not allowed to pay you any less."
"Every man is dishonest who lives upon the labor of others, no matter if he occupies a throne."
Explore more quotes by Barbara Kingsolver
"If chained is where you have been, your ams will always bear marks of the shackles. What you have to lose is your story, your own slant. You'll look at the scars on your arms and see mere ugliness, or you'll take great care to look away from them and see nothing. Either way, you have no words for the story of where you came from."
"A journalist's job is to collect information," Ovid said to Pete. "Nope," Pete said. "That's what we do. It's not what they do." Dellarobia was unready to be pushed out of the conversation just like that. "Then what do you think the news people drive their Jeeps all the way out here for?" "To shore up the prevailing view of their audience and sponsors." "Pete takes a dim view of his fellow humans," Ovid said. "He prefers insects. Dellarobia turned her chair halfway around to face Pete, scraping noisily against the cement floor. "You're saying people only tune in to news they know they're going to agree with?" "Bingo," said Pete."
"How does an artist learn enough about life to fill a thimble?""Soli, I'm going to tell you. He needs to go rub his soul against life. ..."
"And here is the shocking plot twist: as farmers produced those extra calories, the food industry figured out how to get them into the bodies of people who didn't really want to eat 700 more calories a day."
"When something extraordinary shows up in your life in the middle of the night, you give it a name and make it the best home you can."
"In Bobby Ogle's version of heaven everyone would wind up in one place, criminals and Muslims included."
"There was a roaring in my ears and I lost track of what they were saying. I believe it was the physical manifestation of unbearable grief."
"I wonder that religion can live or die on the strength of a faint, stirring breeze. The scent trail shifts, causing the predator to miss the pounce. One god draws in the breath of life and rises; another god expires."
"Our holiday food splurge was a small crate of tangerines, which we found ridiculously thrilling after an eight-month abstinence from citrus.... Lily hugged each one to her chest before undressing it as gently as a doll. Watching her do that as she sat cross-legged on the floor one morning in pink pajamas, with bliss lighting her cheeks, I thought: Lucky is the world, to receive this grateful child. Value is not made of money, but a tender balance of expectation and longing."
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