"Labour of love" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... disciples. For the present it is enough to note how these three loving souls confess their hopelessness by their errand. Did they not know, too, that Joseph and Nicodemus had been beforehand with them in their labour of love? Apparently not. It might easily happen, in the confusion and dispersion, that no knowledge of this had reached them; or perhaps sorrow and agitation had driven it out of their memories; or perhaps they felt that, whether others had done the same before or no, they must do it too, not ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... highly gifted man, who has long filled a distinguished place in the service of his sovereign and the eyes of the world, in whose hands the task of regenerating Sardinia, herculean as it may appear, would be not only a labour of love, but facile comparatively with any others on which it may devolve. I speak of General the Count Alberto di Marmora, known to all Europe by his Topographical Survey, and his able work, the Voyage en Sardaigne, of which two additional ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... day began. Hilda accompanied me part of the way on her bicycle. She was going to the other young farm, some eight miles off, across the red-brown plateau, where she gave lessons daily to the ten-year old daughter of an English settler. It was a labour of love; for settlers in Rhodesia cannot afford to pay for what are beautifully described as "finishing governesses"; but Hilda was of the sort who cannot eat the bread of idleness. She had to justify herself to her kind by finding some work to do ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... insisted all I knew. But she said it was a labour of love for her friend, and seemed so hurt at the idea of money being brought into the question, that I was ashamed to press her beyond a certain point. She let me pay for the nurse's board, and that was all. The baby didn't eat anything, you see, and they were comfortably off, with lots ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... industries, such as straw-hat plaiting, lace and needle-work. Articles thus made are disposed of for the benefit of the institution, which provides a home for sixty children. Very great was the need of such a place in the valleys, and deeply encouraging have been the fruits of this work of faith and labour of love. Not to extend my little book too far beyond its original design, viz., that of a "handy-book on the valleys brought down to date," I can only add that it seems to me that the chief wants of the church in her ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour," especially when he seems to require no other thing, and imposes no more grievous command upon us for recompence of all his labour of love. John xiii. 34, 35. "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another, as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." If all that was in me did not alienate his love ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... I will perform them as a labour of love. Without the sum to be paid for the child's maintenance, I would have been ready to take her in and let her share our home. She is now in the special guardianship of the Father of the fatherless, and he ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... have great reason to be thankful that the Lord aided me with his Spirit, helping my infirmities in the hour of necessity, when I stood in need of his assistance, standing up to exalt the great Redeemer who died for all nations, that the Lord would bless my little labour of love among this people whom I have ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... of preparing a small surprise against his master's return, he was by no means pleased when a sharp whirring sound of a telephone bell shrilled out from the adjoining room and called him from his labour of love. ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... the strength of documentary evidence, that the Laura of the sonnets, born de Noves, was the wife of his ancestor, Hugo de Sade, and the mother of a large family. "Gibbon," says Hobhouse (note viii.), "called the abbe's memoirs a 'labour of love' (see Decline and Fall, chap. lxx. note 1), and followed him with confidence and delight;" but the poet James Beattie (in a letter to the Duchess of Gordon, August 17, 1782) disregarded them as a "romance," and, more recently, "an ingenious Scotchman" [Alexander Fraser Tytler (Lord Woodhouselee)], ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... and recording of this social history of the smoking-habit, touching as it does so many interesting points and details of domestic manners and customs, has been a task of peculiar pleasure. To me it has been a labour of love; but no one can be more conscious of the many imperfections of these ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... Bennett's resolve to give Ferriss the conspicuous and prominent place in his book, the account of the expedition. The more Bennett dwelt upon Ferriss's heroism, intelligence, and ability the more his task became a labour of love, and the more the idea of self dropped away from his thought and imagination. Then—and perhaps this was not the least important factor in Bennett's transformation—sickness had befallen; the strong and self-reliant man had been ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... to enlarge it for a more glorious mansion, put a stop to his acting his part on the stage of mortality; heaven, like earthly princes when it threatens war, being always so kind as to call home its ambassadors before it be denounced; and even the last act or undertaking of his was a labour of love and charity; for it so falling out, that a young gentleman, a neighbour of Mr. Bunyan, happening into the displeasure of his father, and being much troubled in mind upon that account, as also for that he had heard his father ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Mrs. Daly, whose presence there was pretty nearly a labour of love, and who was therefore independent. "It'd be a sin an' a shame to spile Christian vittels in them times, an' I won't do it." And then there was some hard work that day; and though Mr. Townsend kept his temper with his visitor, seeing that he had much to get and nothing to give, he did not ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... the fact that the numbers of permanent workers in the office and out of it increase all the time, we have work here from morning to night, often including holidays. But we do it gladly, for it is a labour of love. At present our chief work lies in taking home French children from the occupied territory of France. In Belgium this work is now nearly discharged, and a lady has only to go there once more, this month, to fetch the last batch of children. The French children are not fetched by our delegates; ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... exhibits itself in his amusements. One must have a high respect for the character of John Robertson, who looks at the manner in which he spends his spare time. His astronomical work is altogether a labour of love. It is his hobby; and the working man may have his hobby as well as the rich. In his case he is never less idle than when idle. Some may think that he is casting his bread upon the waters, and that ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... purpose in his mind, which was to follow in the path of the destroyer, performing for the sufferers wherever he went the same offices of piety and mercy that he had been wont to undertake all these past days; and the Brothers, who had finished their labour of love within the walls of their home, and had grown fearless before the pestilence with that fearlessness which gradually comes to those who look long and steadily upon death, were not wanting in resolve to face it even in its most ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Englishman, as does the physique of the Southern races from that of the hardier children of the North; and lastly, he was exulting in a new-born sense of creative power which no doubt made the composition of the earlier volumes of Tristram a veritable labour of love. ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... ground their arms at Jesus' feet; some who will give themselves to the living of the new life, who will accept the invitation to climb the hills of God. In every one of these the preacher will have ample reward for all his "work of faith and labour of love"; for he who "converteth a sinner from the error of his ways saveth a soul from death and hideth a multitude of sins." To know that he has done these things for one brother man will be better than the breath of popularity. Sweeter than all the compliments of men will ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... this little "labour of love" of mine is now done. I most heartily wish that I could charm you now not to see me, not to think of me, not to hear me—I most heartily wish that I could make you see in my stead the multitude of innocent and bereaved children who are looking ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... now gone beyond recall." Good deeds performed on Gospel motives, though unknown and unvalued by the world, will not go unrecompensed or unowned by Him who values the cup of cold water given in His name. "God is not unmindful to forget our work of faith and our labour of love." The Lamb's Book of Life registers every such deed of lowly piety; and on the Great Day of account "it shall be produced to our eternal honour, and rewarded with a reward of grace; though not ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his Name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... as they were becoming large enough for use—commend me to your half-starved pig to find out in a moment where the juiciest and finest esculent lies buried—and the chattering little opossums stripped the peach-trees of their wealth, in which labour of love they were eagerly assisted by the flying-foxes during the night, whilst any that had escaped these nocturnal depredators became the spoil of two or three idle boys, who loafed about all day, seeking mischief, and, as always happens, succeeding in finding it, even in this sequestered ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... prosperous. In reading the short account of your labours we feel something of that spirit spoken of in the prophet, 'Thine heart shall fear and be enlarged.' We cordially thank you for your assiduity in learning the languages, in translating, and in every labour of love in which you have engaged. Under God we cheerfully confide in your wisdom, fidelity, and prudence, with relation to the seat of your labours or the means to carry them into effect. If there be one place, however, which strikes us as of more ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... books were left behind at Venice, but he could occupy his enforced leisure by "writing something on the subject of Dante" (ibid., p. 402). A heightened interest born of fuller knowledge, in Italian literature and Italian politics, lent zest to this labour of love, and, time and place conspiring, he composed "the best thing he ever wrote" (Letter to Murray, March 23, 1820, Letters, 1900, iv. 422), his Vision (or Prophecy) ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... never was an hour's interruption of perfect mutual trust and sympathy. No son could have a stronger filial love for an honoured father than had Dr. Hodgins for his late venerated Chief. It was his privilege to minister to the latest hours of his revered friend, and it is to him a labour of love to prepare for the press the posthumous story ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... Scrope. Pallets were easily provided by the officers of health, and the place was speedily filled with little children, who were tenderly cared for by Gertrude, Janet, and Rebecca (who had joined her sister in this labour of love), all three having given themselves up to this work, and finding their hands too full to desire ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... expression. But ... his play was also more than a slight thing in his life. It meant a good deal to him; he had worked hard and put the best that was in him into its making; and hard as the work had been, it had been a labour of love. He wasn't a man to overestimate his ability; he possessed a singularly sane and clear appreciation of the true value of his work, harbouring no illusions as to his real status either as dramatist or novelist. But ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance |
