In preparation for our company today, I compiled a variety of quotes related to Labor Day. For the activity I put together, the author’s names and works were omitted, but I thought I would go ahead and include them here. 🙂 Hope you’re inspired, as I was, by some of these great thoughts!

“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” ~Paul; I Corinthians 15:58

“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.” ~Solomon; Psalm 127:1

“You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day.” ~Moses; Deuteronomy 8:18

“What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God…We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and the work flow.” ~Martin Luther

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” ~Theodore Roosevelt; The Man in the Arena

“In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” ~Jesus; Matthew 5:16

“The work of a Beethoven, and the work of a charwoman, become spiritual on precisely the same condition, that of being offered to God, of being done humbly ‘as to the Lord.’” ~C.S. Lewis; Weight of Glory

“We know that men were created for the express purpose of being employed in labor of various kinds, and that no sacrifice is more pleasing to God than when every man applies diligently to his own calling.” ~John Calvin; Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol. 32

“Wherever the fear of God rules in the heart, it will appear both in works of charity and piety, and neither will excuse us from the other.” ~Matthew Henry; Commentary on Acts 10:1

“The whole life of a Christian should be nothing but praises and thanks to God; we should neither eat nor sleep, but eat to God and sleep to God and work to God and talk to God, do all to His glory and praise.” ~Richard Sibbes

“There is no work better than another to please God; to pour water, to wash dishes, to be a cobbler, or an apostle, all are one; to wash dishes and to preach are all one, as touching the deed, to please God.” ~William Tyndale, A Parable of the Wicked Mammon

“Are then Christianity and culture in a conflict that is to be settled only by the destruction of one or the other of the contending forces?  A third solution fortunately, is possible–namely, consecration.  Instead of destroying the arts and sciences or being indifferent to them, let us cultivate them with all the enthusiasm of the veriest humanist, but at the same time consecrate them to the service of our God.  Instead of stifling the pleasures afforded by the acquisition of knowledge or by the appreciation of what is beautiful, let us accept these pleasures as the gifts of a heavenly Father.  Instead of obliterating the distinction between the Kingdom and the world, or on the other hand withdrawing from the world into a sort of modernized intellectual monasticism, let us go forth joyfully, enthusiastically to make the world subject to God.” ~J. Gresham Machen; Christianity and Culture

“Man by the Fall fell at the same time from his state of innocence and from his dominion over nature. Both of these losses, however, can even in this life be in some part repaired; the former by religion and faith, the latter by the arts and sciences.” ~Francis Bacon; Novum Organum Scientiarum