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Here is my work, here or nowhere.
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“Here is my work, here or nowhere.”

Thomas Carlyle

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Source
Latter-Day Pamphlets
Date
1850
Meaning

Meaning of “Here is my work, here or nowhere.”

Carlyle’s imagined capable leader locates responsibility in the actual sphere available to him rather than waiting for a more convenient setting in which to act.

Source context

Where does it come from?

Latter-Day Pamphlets, No. IV “The New Downing Street”; Project Gutenberg #1140. The sentence occurs inside Carlyle’s controversial political argument about leadership; this collection uses it for work/responsibility while retaining that historical context.

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Themes

Ideas connected with this quotation

DecisionDiscipline Quotes About Habits, Practice & ConsistencyEffortInspirational Quotes About Hope, Courage & PossibilityLeadershipMotivational Quotes for Action, Effort & PersistenceProductivityPurpose Quotes About Direction, Duty & Meaningful WorkResponsibilitySelf-Control Quotes About Restraint & JudgmentShortSuccessActionMotivation For WorkWork Ethic
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Drive thy business, or it will drive thee.
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“Drive thy business, or it will drive thee.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack · 1740s
Meaning & context

Work becomes harder to control when it is left unmanaged; the maxim favors deliberate direction, priorities, and active stewardship over reactive pressure.

Source details

Poor Richard’s Almanack; a compact maxim about managing work before accumulated demands begin managing you.

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Do the Duty which lies nearest thee
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“Do the Duty which lies nearest thee”

Thomas Carlyle · Sartor Resartus · 1836
Voice: Fictional narrator · Diogenes Teufelsdröckh (framed voice)
Meaning & context

The advice narrows attention from an overwhelming field of possibilities to the responsibility that is already clear enough to act on, with later duties expected to become clearer through action.

Source details

Sartor Resartus, Book II, Chapter IX, “The Everlasting Yea,” printed page 156 / Wikisource scan leaf 188 in The Works of Thomas Carlyle, Centenary Edition, Vol. I (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1896). “Do the Duty which lies nearest thee” follows the doubt/action sentence and is explicitly described as a precept that was of invaluable service to Teufelsdröckh. It remains fictional-philosophical and religious conduct-of-life rhetoric rather than a context-free productivity command.

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It is the open sesame to every portal
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“It is the open sesame to every portal”

William Osler · The Master-Word in Medicine · 1903
Meaning & context

The metaphor presents work as a means of opening opportunities that remain inaccessible to intention alone, within Osler’s larger argument for disciplined professional effort.

Source details

The Master-Word in Medicine, 1903. “It” refers to the master-word Work in the immediately preceding passage; the source page preserves that antecedent so the excerpt is not detached from its meaning.

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work is only done well when it is done with a will
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“work is only done well when it is done with a will”

John Ruskin · The Crown of Wild Olive · 1866
Meaning & context

Ruskin links quality with willing engagement: merely being compelled to perform a task is not, in his argument, enough to produce work done with judgment and commitment.

Source details

The Crown of Wild Olive, lecture on Work; Project Gutenberg #26716. The sentence occurs in a discussion of how hard work should be organized and chosen; its period labor assumptions remain contextualized.

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