It is impossible to forget the sense of dignity which marks the hour when one becomes a wage-earner... I felt that I had suddenly acquired value to myself, to my family, and to the world.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I was a manual labourer. I figured out really early on that the value of my life could be determined by my hourly rate as a manual labourer digging holes.
I understand the dignity that comes from work and caring for one's family.
Career is too pompous a word. It was a job, and I have always felt privileged to be paid for what I love doing.
Work is at the core of human dignity.
I worked my way through the education system and was treated as though I had value.
I'm always conscious of the fact that I am part of a profession that is 80% permanently unemployed. So, to be working in any sense is to be privileged.
It was a matter of not living lavishly but enjoying what you had, growing things with your hands, working hard, but not being tied to a nine-to-five job, and generally feeling that there's more to life than money.
To feel valued, to know, even if only once in a while, that you can do a job well is an absolutely marvelous feeling.
To sum it all up, the objective of my life has been to give work a moral and economic dignity.
When I was younger, my whole sense of self-worth was based on whether or not I was working, which was awful. And I had a baby at 20 years old, so it wasn't just about me. At around the age of 30 there was a stretch where I wasn't working - certainly not on anything I liked, anyway - and I started to do other things.
No opposing quotes found.