Bruce Nauman Quotes

My great-grandfather Melvin had been a carpenter - so was my father - and they taught me the value of tools: saws, hammers, chisels, files and rulers. It all dealt with conciseness and precision. It eliminated guesswork. One has to know his tools, so he doesn't work against himself.

I can't abide to see men throw away their tools i' that way, the minute the clock begins to strike, as if they took no pleasure i' their work, and was afraid o' doing a stroke too much.... I hate to see a man's arms drop down as if he was shot, before the clock's fairly struck, just as if he'd never a bit o' pride and delight in's work. The very grindstone 'ull go on turning a bit after you loose it.

My father was a better bricklayer than I am a theologian. I am still in too much of a hurry. But if the work I have done in theology is of any use, it is because of what I learned on the job, that is, you can lay only one brick at a time.

If a person sweeps streets for a living, he should sweep them as Michelangelo painted, as Beethoven composed, as Shakespear wrote.

My dad is a workaholic so I take after him in this respect.

Drive a nail home and clinch it so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with satisfaction - a work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the muse.

My friends ... they usually rib me about how I just sleep in and watch Oprah and that I don't really have a proper job. I've given up arguing now, so I just agree with them, even though half the time I realise I've started work before they have. Still, it's best to keep the romantic idea alive. If they call around midday and ask if they woke me, I always say yes.

I love being around people who work with their hands, who do the hard things to keep our country going. They're just my kind of people.

Good workmen are seldom rich.

Men play harder than they work; women work harder than they play.

So long as one is happy one can endure any discipline: it was unhappiness that broke down the habits of work.

Writing or making anything-a poem, a bird feeder, a chocolate cake-has self-respect in it. You're working. You're trying. You're not lying down on the ground, having given up.

Get punctual, bring energy and creativity to your work, and stay with a project until it's completed (and then double-check the results). These habits will make you indispensable.

My hands were too soft.. I had to find some special occupation, some kind of work that would not force me to turn away from the sky and the stars, that would allow me to discover the meaning of life.

Care and Quality are internal and external aspects of the same thing. A person who sees Quality and feels it as he works is a person who cares. A person who cares about what he sees and does is a person who’s bound to have some characteristic of quality.

The way to learn to do things is to do things. The way to learn a trade is to work at it. Success teaches how to succeed. Begin with the determination to succeed, and the work is half done already.

My father announced early on that he didn't want his sons to be "country club bums." And for a number of reasons, I bore the brunt of that - I have an older brother and two younger brothers. So he had me work in all my spare time. I started out picking dandelions, shoveling stalls, milking cows, building a fence - whatever dirty job was out there. That's a big deal, because you learn things working that you don't learn in school.

Everyone should learn a manual trade: It's never too late to become an honest person.

My belief of book writing is much the same as my belief as to shoemaking. The man who will work the hardest at it, and will work with the most honest purpose, will work the best.

I remember a very important lesson that my father gave me when I was twelve or thirteen. He said, "You know, today I welded a perfect seam and I signed my name to it." And I said, "But, Daddy, no one's going to see it!" And he said, "Yeah, but I know it's there." So when I was working in kitchens, I did good work.

I think one of the areas of favor and grace that God has allowed us to see is internally he's just given us a strong sense of work ethic and craftsmanship. We really do work hard to make GOOD quality music.

I always outworked everybody. Work never bothered me as it bothers some people.

If "ifs" and "ands" were pots and pans, there'd be no work for tinkers' hands

The workman still is greater than his work.