The secret of joy in work is contained in one word – excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.

Meaning of the quote

The secret to feeling happy and satisfied with your work is to strive for excellence. When you learn how to do something really well, you will start to enjoy the work itself. Excellence is the key to finding joy in your tasks and activities.

About Pearl S. Buck

Pearl S. Buck was an acclaimed American writer who won the Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize in Literature for her powerful novels and memoirs depicting life in China. Born in West Virginia, she spent most of her life in China as the daughter and wife of missionaries before returning to the US and becoming a prominent advocate for women’s rights and racial equality.

More about the author

More quotes from Pearl S. Buck

None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

You cannot make yourself feel something you do not feel, but you can make yourself do right in spite of your feelings.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

To eat bread without hope is still slowly to starve to death.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that is where I renew my springs that never dry up.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

The bitterest creature under heaven is the wife who discovers that her husband’s bravery is only bravado, that his strength is only a uniform, that his power is but a gun in the hands of a fool.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

Some are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same, and most mothers kiss and scold together.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

Love alone could waken love.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

I am mentally bifocal.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book. I am a writer and I take up my pen to write.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in the kindness of human beings. I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and angels.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

Truth is always exciting. Speak it, then; life is dull without it.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

To serve is beautiful, but only if it is done with joy and a whole heart and a free mind.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible – and achieve it, generation after generation.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

The truth is always exciting. Speak it, then. Life is dull without it.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

Praise out of season, or tactlessly bestowed, can freeze the heart as much as blame.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

Hunger makes a thief of any man.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

If our American way of life fails the child, it fails us all.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

I don’t wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God’s truth is attacked and yet would remain silent.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

Nothing and no one can destroy the Chinese people. They are relentless survivors.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

A good marriage is one which allows for change and growth in the individuals and in the way they express their love.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

Like Confucius of old, I am so absorbed in the wonder of the earth and the life upon it, that I cannot think of heaven and the angels.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

When men destroy their old gods they will find new ones to take their place.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

All things are possible until they are proved impossible – and even the impossible may only be so, as of now.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

Let woman out of the home, let man into it, should be the aim of education. The home needs man, and the world outside needs woman.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

Race prejudice is not only a shadow over the colored it is a shadow over all of us, and the shadow is darkest over those who feel it least and allow its evil effects to go on.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

Self-expression must pass into communication for its fulfillment.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

Men would rather be starving and free than fed in bonds.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

The basic discovery about any people is the discovery of the relationship between men and women.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

One faces the future with one’s past.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

Growth itself contains the germ of happiness.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

We should so provide for old age that it may have no urgent wants of this world to absorb it from meditation on the next. It is awful to see the lean hands of dotage making a coffer of the grave.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

It may be that religion is dead, and if it is, we had better know it and set ourselves to try to discover other sources of moral strength before it is too late.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

Order is the shape upon which beauty depends.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

Nothing in life is as good as the marriage of true minds between man and woman. As good? It is life itself.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

Love dies only when growth stops.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

Our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

To find joy in work is to discover the fountain of youth.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

We send missionaries to China so the Chinese can get to heaven, but we won’t let them into our country.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

The secret of joy in work is contained in one word – excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

Chinese are wise in comprehending without many words what is inevitable and inescapable and therefore only to be borne.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

Men and women should own the world as a mutual possession.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

What is a neglected child? He is a child not planned for, not wanted. Neglect begins, therefore, before he is born.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

A man is educated and turned out to work. But a woman is educated and turned out to grass.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

Life without idealism is empty indeed. We just hope or starve to death.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

When good people in any country cease their vigilance and struggle, then evil men prevail.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)

The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.

Pearl S. Buck

American writer (1892-1973)