"No person who is enthusiastic about his work has anything to fear from life"
About this Quote
The subtext is more hard-edged than it sounds. If you’re “enthusiastic,” you become useful, and usefulness is a kind of social armor. You’re less likely to be discarded, less likely to be paralyzed by uncertainty, more likely to manufacture momentum. It’s also an elegant moral sorting mechanism: if you’re afraid, maybe you didn’t love the work enough. That’s the quiet cruelty embedded in the optimism, a producer’s way of turning structural risk into personal attitude.
Context matters: Goldwyn comes out of immigrant ambition and the studio system’s relentless appetite. The quote flatters the American myth that work can tame chaos, while conveniently ignoring how often the chaos wins anyway. That tension - between genuine motivational force and managerial ideology - is why it still lands. Enthusiasm becomes both comfort and command.
Quote Details
| Topic | Work Ethic |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Goldwyn, Samuel. (2026, January 16). No person who is enthusiastic about his work has anything to fear from life. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/no-person-who-is-enthusiastic-about-his-work-has-98733/
Chicago Style
Goldwyn, Samuel. "No person who is enthusiastic about his work has anything to fear from life." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/no-person-who-is-enthusiastic-about-his-work-has-98733/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"No person who is enthusiastic about his work has anything to fear from life." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/no-person-who-is-enthusiastic-about-his-work-has-98733/. Accessed 21 Feb. 2026.












