Craftsmen Quotes

The industrial revolution caused unspeakable misery both in England and in America … In the Lancashire cotton mills (from which Marx and Engels derived their livelihood), children worked from 12 to 16 hours a day; they often began working at the age of six or seven. Children had to be beaten to keep them from falling asleep while at work; in spite of this, many failed to keep awake and were mutilated or killed. Parents had to submit to the infliction of these atrocities upon their children, because they themselves were in a desperate plight. Craftsmen had been thrown out of work by the machines; rural labourers were compelled to migrate to the towns by the Enclosure Acts, which used Parliament to make landowners richer by making peasants destitute; trade unions were illegal until 1824; the government employed agents provocateurs to try to get revolutionary sentiments out of wage-earners, who were then deported or hanged. Such was the first effect of machinery in England.

When the ruler abusively increases taxes, it discourages the crafts from applying their skills to the creation of new wealth

Everywhere I go, I always look for creative entrepreneurs, whether it's artisans and craftsmen, small farmers and gardeners, or restaurateurs who use fresh, locally sourced ingredients.

Few of them were to be trusted within reach of a trowel and a pile of bricks.

Gunsmiths and other artisans shall [henceforth] be compelled to worke at theire trades and [are] not suffered to plant tobacco or corne or doe any other worke in the ground.

Ninety percent of my best friends back home are plumbers, electricians, builders, or landscapers. Most of our dads worked in trades.

To be independent for the comforts of life, we must fabricate them ourselves

Sultan Mehmet had good relations with the Medici family and other powerful Italian clans, especially in Venice and Florence, and at his request, they sent him artists and craftsmen by the dozen.

I have known people who are working class or craftsmen, who happen to be more intellectual than professors.

Thus in the Old World also the production of wealth must be increased, but this enterprise is far more difficult in Europe than in America. The population of Europe is much more dense than in the New World: a portion of its lands is exhausted: the great number of political subdivisions, and the multiplicity of tongues, increase enormously the difficulties in the way of business on a great scale. Traditions handed down from the time when men toiled to produce slowly and in small quantities things shaped toward a far distant ideal of perfection are still strong among its people.

If our web be framed with rotten handles, when our loom is well nigh done, our work is new to begin. God send the weaver true prentices again, and let them be denizens.

Where are the leaders?' Sapphique asked. 'In the fortresses,' the swan replied. 'And the poets?' 'Lost in dreams of other worlds.' 'And the craftsmen?' 'Forging machines to challenge the darkness.' 'And the Wise, who made the world?' The swan lowered its black neck sadly. 'Dwindled to crones and sorcerers in towers.

They [the press] consume a considerable quantity of our paper manufacture, employ our artisans in printing, and find business for great numbers of indigent persons.

Thinkers, makers and traders are the DNA of the world class company

One of the many possible divisions of human beings is into those who make and those who use.

All militia officers shall have the authority to impress any smith...or other artificer, whatsoever, which shall be thought useful for the fixing of arms

Be not a shoemaker nor yet a shaft maker save for thyself alone: let the shoe be misshapen, or crooked the shaft, and a curse on thy head will be called.

The word 'art' interests me very much. If it comes from Sanskrit, as I've heard, it signifies 'making.' Now everyone makes something, and those who make things on a canvas with a frame, they're called artists. Formerly, they were called craftsmen, a term I prefer. We're all craftsmen, in civilian or military or artistic life.

If America could be, once again, a nation of self-reliant farmers, craftsmen, hunters, ranchers, and artists, then the rich would have little power to dominate others. Neither to serve nor to rule: That was the American dream.

Some go on to trade schools or get further training for jobs they are interested in. Some go into the arts, some are craftsmen, some take a little time out to travel, and some start their own businesses. But our graduates find and work at what they want to do.

Of course, in fairness, I must remind you of this: that we writers are the most lily-livered of all craftsmen. We expect more, for the most peewee efforts, than any other people.

An assembly of tailors and blacksmiths....