Book of Sirach Quotes

My main recollection is of the work I had to do in order to eat.

I grew up in a craftsman's home, where things were done with our own hands. I did cabinetmaking for four years and I hated it.

I would like Americans to make things with their hands. Thomas Jefferson and I feel that makes for a much stronger nation.

I like working with my hands. It feels good to build something yourself.

I was one who liked to work with my hands as well as my brain.

I can cook because my life depended on it when I lived in Thailand. Either I learnt cooking, or I learnt how it felt to starve. I chose cooking.

I'm a DIY kinda guy.

I'm a really good cook. I left home to start my career at 15 - so my choices were to either learn to cook or eat Ramen noodles for the rest of my life.

They went into stores to get food to stay alive. Looting isn't the right word. I call it survival.

To a man with an empty stomach food is God.

While we have land to labor, let us never wish to see our citizens occupied at a workbench or twirling a distaff. Carpenters, masons, smiths, are wanting in husbandry; but for the general operations of manufacture, let our workshops remain in Europe.

The social lines that were once sharply drawn between those who labored with the hand and those who did not are disappearing. Those who formerly sought to escape labor, now when they see that brains and skill rob labor of the toil and drudgery once associated with it, instead of trying to avoid it are willing to pay to be taught how to engage in it. The South is beginning to see labor raised up, dignified and beautified, and in this sees its salvation.

It was the greatest contribution towards the whole of human race, made by China, is to prevent its 1.3 billion people from hunger

I worked as a truck driver, carpenter's assistant, doing whatever it took to keep bread on the table for the family.

I have no interest in a guy who doesn't know the right end of a screwdriver.

I'd rather be a guy that can build a house or fix a car than be able to walk like a ballet dancer.

When you grow up starving, you cannot point with pride to a book you've just spent six hours reading. Picking cotton, sewing flour bags into clothes - those were the skills my father grew up appreciating.

I take a great deal of value in things that are done by hand or executed by hand.

Let me not forget the use of my own hands, that of a craftsman with eyes... that reflect the technology around me.

I call myself a labourer because I take pride in calling myself a spinner, weaver, farmer and scavenger.

I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises.

He that hath a trade hath an estate; and he that hath a calling hath a place of profit and honor. A ploughman on his legs is higher than a gentleman on his knees.

There are many skillful apprentices, but few master workmen.

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.

You should see me work my magic in leather" Ranger