David McCullough? Mark Twain? Apocryphal?
Question for Quote Investigator: Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough has received credit for an insightful expression about career choice:
Real success is finding your lifework in the work that you love.
I am having difficulty finding a citation. Would you please help?
Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1996 David McCullough delivered a commencement address at Hamilton College in New York. The Associated Press news service reported his remarks which included the following. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
“Never, ever, lose your energy and never, ever lose your idealism,” said McCullough, who won the Pulitzer for his biography “Truman.”
“Real success is finding your life work in the work that you love. That’s it. Don’t worry about making a living, don’t worry about popularity or fame. Make what you do and what you make count more than what you own. Find work that you love.”
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
In 1905 “The New York Times” published a thematically related comment that Mark Twain made during an interview when he was asked about working:2
“No, Sir, not a day’s work in all my life. What I have done I have done, because it has been play. If it had been work I shouldn’t have done it.
“Who was it who said, ‘Blessed is the man who has found his work?’ Whoever it was he had the same idea in his mind.
A separate Quote Investigator article about the quotation immediately above is available here.
In 1982 another thematically related statement appeared in “Princeton Alumni Weekly”. The remark was credited to an anonymous sage:3
An old-timer I knew used to tell his students: ‘Find something you love to do and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.’
A separate Quote Investigator article about the quotation immediately above is available here.
In 1996 the quotation under examination was employed by David McCullough during an address to new graduates of Hamilton College as mentioned at the beginning of this article.
In 2002 the following appeared as “The Quote of the Day” in the “Bennington Banner” of Vermont:4
Real success is finding your lifework in the work that you love.
David McCullough
In 2010 the quotation with an ascription to McCullough appeared as the “Thought For Today” in the “Sidney Daily News” of Ohio.5
In 2013 the collection “Reader’s Digest Quotable Quotes: All New Wit & Wisdom From the Greatest Minds of Our Time” contained the following item:6
Real success is finding your lifework in the work that you love.
—DAVID MCCULLOUGH
In conclusion, David McCullough deserves credit for this quotation. He employed it during a commencement address in 1996. Thematically related comments have a long history.
Image Notes: Avatars representing professions from OpenClips on Pixabay. The images have been rearranged, clipped, and resized.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Scott Monty whose inquiry led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration.
- 1996 May 20, The Post-Standard, Section: Oswego, Speaker Credits Aid of Others (Associated Press news service), Quote Page B1, Column 6, Syracuse, New York. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1905 November 26, The New York Times, Section: Magazine, Mark Twain: A Humorist’s Confession, Quote Page 1, Column 1, New York. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1982 October 6, Princeton Alumni Weekly, Article Title: Toshiko Takaezu, Article Author: Ann Woolfolk, Start Page 31, Quote Page 32, Column 1, Published by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. (Google Books Preview) ↩︎
- 2002 November 21, Bennington Banner, Quote of the Day, Quote Page 18, Column 1, Bennington, Vermont. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 2010 March 11, Sidney Daily News, Thought For Today, Quote Page 1, Column 1, Sidney, Ohio. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 2013 Copyright, Reader’s Digest Quotable Quotes: All New Wit & Wisdom From the Greatest Minds of Our Time, Chapter: Making It, Quote Page 26, New York : Reader’s Digest Association, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎