Employment

The goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play. That’s why we have to destroy the present politico-economic system. ~ Arthur C. Clarke

Employment is a relationship between two parties, usually based on a contract, one being the employer and the other being the employee.

Quotes

What are we doin' working here? ~ Kevin Smith

• One of the best maxims in determining our course in life is, to select, at the outset, that in which virtue and principle will be least likely to be put to a test, and in which, from the nature of the calling, a man may bring around him such associations and influences as will be an auxiliary in keeping him in the path of virtue.
  • Albert Barnes, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 437.

• ... If I had a one-line employment form, I'd almost say, "Are you passionate about what you do?"
  • Warren Buffett, (September 18, 2014)"Warren Buffett speaks in Detroit 9/18/2014". Crain's Detroit Business, YouTube. (quote at 4:03 of 56:25)

• The goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play. That’s why we have to destroy the present politico-economic system.
  • Arthur C. Clarke, interview with Los Angeles Free Press, pp. 42–43, 47 (25 April 1969)

• In 1970 Clarke addressed a conference based on the futuristic theme of life in the year 2000, and he envisioned a society of full unemployment: The world is heading toward “full unemployment,” Clarke said, as 99 per cent of the current human activity will be eliminated through machines, the “slaves of tomorrow.”
  • 2001 Author Tells 2000 Conferees: ‘The Future Isn’t What It Used To Be’ by Janos Gereben, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, (6 August 1970)

• I heard my mother remark occasionally: 'A man who accepts a job under anyone is a slave.' That impression became so indelibly fixed that even after my marriage I refused all positions. I met expenses by investing my family endowment in land. Moral: Good and positive suggestions should instruct the sensitive ears of children. Their early ideas long remain sharply etched.
  • Yukteswar Giri Autobiography of a Yogi (1946)

• In the interests of the ideal of maximum output, [our society] judges men by their fitness for jobs, not jobs by their fitness for men.
  • John Passmore, The Perfectibility of Man, p. 280

• Randal Graves: 'I'm not even supposed to be here today.' You sound like an asshole! Jesus, nobody twisted your arm to be here. You're here of your own volition. You like to think the weight of the world rests on your shoulders, like this place would fall apart if Dante wasn't here. Jesus, you over-compensate for havin' what's basically a monkey's job. You push fuckin' buttons! Anybody could waltz in here and do our jobs. You, you're so obsessed with making it seem so much more epic, so much more important than it really is. Christ, you work in a convenience store, Dante, and badly, I might add. I work in a shitty video store, badly as well. You know, that guy Jay's got it right, man, he has no delusions about what he does, what he is. Us? We like to make ourselves seem so much more important than the people that come in here to buy a paper or God forbid, cigarettes. We look down on them as if we're so advanced. Well, if we're so fuckin' advanced, what are we doin' working here?
  • Randal Graves as interpreted by Jeff Anderson in Clerks, (1994); written by Kevin Smith

• There is no intermediate state between ice and water but there is one between life and death: employment.
  • Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010) Preludes, p.8.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 565-66.

• I hold every man a debtor to his profession; from the which as men of course do seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavor themselves, by way of amends, to be a help and ornament thereunto.
  • Bacon, Maxims of the Law, Preface.

• Quam quisque novit artem, in hac se exerceat.
  • Translation: Let a man practise the profession which he best knows.
  • Cicero, Tusculanarum Disputationum, I. 18.

• The ugliest of trades have their moments of pleasure. Now, if I were a grave-digger, or even a hangman, there are some people I could work for with a great deal of enjoyment.
  • Douglas Jerrold, Jerrold's Wit, "Ugly Trades".

• And sure the Eternal Master found
  The single talent well employ'd.
  • Samuel Johnson, On the Death of Robert Levet, Stanza 7.

• The hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act V, Scene 1, line 77.

• Thus Nero went up and down Greece and challenged the fiddlers at their trade. Æropus, a Macedonian king, made lanterns; Harcatius, the king of Parthia, was a mole-catcher; and Biantes, the Lydian, filed needles.
  • Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living, Chapter I, Secion I, "Rides far Employing Our Time".

See also

• Job security
• Layoff
• Unemployment
• Work

References

• Klopsch, Louis, 1852-1910 (1896). Many Thoughts of Many Minds.