Motivational Quotes

Work

You don't become great by trying to be great. You become great by wanting to do something, and then doing it so hard that you become great in the process.

- Randall Munroe, xkcd

Best Quotes about Work

I suspect that American workers have come to lack a work ethic. They do not live by the sweat of their brow.

Miyazawa, Kiichi

Going to work for a large company is like getting on a train. Are you going sixty miles an hour or is the train going sixty miles an hour and you're just sitting still?

Getty, J. Paul

The highest reward that God gives us for good work is the ability to do better work.

Hubbard, Elbert

If you don't want to work, you have to work to earn enough money so that you won't have to work.

Nash, Ogden

I've had smarter people around me all my life, but I haven't run into one yet that can outwork me. And if they can't outwork you, then smarts aren't going to do them much good. That's just the way it is. And if you believe that and live by it, you'd be surprised at how much fun you can have.

Hayes, Woody

Real success is finding your lifework in the work that you love.

David McCullough

The work praises the man.

Proverb, Irish

It's easy to get the players; it's getting them to play together that's the tough part

Stengel, Casey

Never continue in a job you don't enjoy. If you're happy in what you're doing, you'll like yourself, you'll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined.

Johnny Carson

10.

It is an article of faith in my creed to pick the man who does not take himself seriously, but does take his work seriously.

Cahill, Michael C.

11.

Better to burn out than rust out.

Young, Neil

12.

A man ought to work. That's what he's here for. That's how he contributes to the welfare of the community.

W. Somerset Maugham

13.

In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: They must be fit for it: they must not do too much of it: and they must have a sense of success in it --not a doubtful sense, such as needs some testimony of others for its confirmation, but a sure sense, or rather knowledge, that so much work has been done well, and fruitfully done, whatever the world may say or think about it.

Auden, W. H.

14.

Whenever it is in any way possible, every boy and girl should choose as his life work some occupation which he should like to do anyhow, even if he did not need the money.

William Lyon Phelps

15.

Plaster thick, some will stick.

Proverb

16.

The secret of greatness is simple: do better work than any other man in your field - and keep on doing it.

Wilfred A. Peterson

17.

People forget how fast you did a job - but they remember how well you did it.

Howard Newton

18.

Everything must degenerate into work if anything is to happen.

Drucker, Peter F.

19.

Poor workers! First they're cuckolded, and, as if that weren't enough, then they're beaten! Work's a curse, Saturno. I say to hell with the work you have to do to earn a living! That kind of work does us no honor; all it does is fill up the bellies of the pigs who exploit us. But the work you do because you like to do it, because you've heard the call, you've got a vocation --that's ennobling! We should all be able to work like that. Look at me, Saturno --I don't work. And I don't care if they hang me, I won't work! Yet I'm alive! I may live badly, but at least I don't have to work to do it!

Bunuel, Luis

20.

My father taught me to work, but he did not teach me to love it.

Lincoln, Abraham

21.

You can't rest on your laurels. Your own body of work is yet to come.

Barack Obama

22.

You put together the best team that you can with the players you've got, and replace those who aren't good enough.

Crandall, Robert

23.

When he took time to help the man up the mountain, lo, he scaled it himself.

24.

No one has ever drowned in sweat.

Holtz, Lou

25.

I don't have anything against work. I just figure, why deprive somebody who really loves it.

Gillis, Dobie

26.

My father always told me, Find a job you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life.

Fox, Jim

27.

Work is the open sesame of every portal, the great equalizer in the world, the true philosopher's stone which transmutes all the base metal of humanity into gold.

Osler, Sir William

28.

A man at work, making something which he feels will exist because he is working at it and wills it, is exercising the energies of his mind and soul as well as of his body. Memory and imagination help him as he works. Not only his own thoughts, but the thoughts of the men of past ages guide his hands; and, as part of the human race, he creates. If we work thus we shall be men, and our days will be happy and eventful.

Morris, William

29.

The secret of life is not to do what you like, but to like what you do.

Proverb, American

30.

We will try to create conditions where persons could come together in a spirit of teamwork, and exercise to their heart's desire their technological capacity.

Morita, Akio

31.

Work is the province of cattle.

Parker, Dorothy

32.

In every one of those little stucco boxes there's some poor bastard who's never free except when he's fast asleep and dreaming that he's got the boss down the bottom of a well and is bunging lumps of coal at him.

Orwell, George

33.

I must work the work of him that sent me while it is day; for the night comet when no man can work.

Bible

34.

The work will stand, no matter what.

Streep, Meryl

35.

Deprived of meaningful work, men and women lose their reason for existence; they go stark, raving mad.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

36.

Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

Twain, Mark

37.

I am his mistress. His work is his wife.

Javits, Marion

38.

We take eagles and teach them to fly in formation.

Calloway, Wayne

39.

The nice thing about teamwork is that you always have others on your side.

Carty, Margaret

40.

He worked like hell in the country so he could live in the city, where he worked like hell so he could live in the country.

Marquis, Don

41.

No bees, no honey; no work, no money.

Proverb

42.

Whatever your life's work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.

King Jr. Martin Luther

43.

When you're doing the work you're meant to do, it feels right and every day is a bonus, regardless of what you're getting paid.

Oprah Winfrey

44.

To work -- to work! It is such infinite delight to know that we still have the best things to do.

Mansfield, Katherine

45.

Being a part of success is more important than being personally indispensable.

Riley, Pat

46.

A new breed of Americans born out of the social movements of the 60s and grown into a majority in the 70s holds a set of values so markedly different from the traditional outlook that they promise to transform the character of work in America in the 80s.

Yankelovitch, Daniel

47.

As American productivity, once the exuberant engine of national wealth, has dipped to an embarrassingly uncompetitive low, Americans have shaken their heads: the country's old work ethic is dead.

Morrow, Lance

48.

I am afraid that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.

Austen, Jane

49.

When a team outgrows individual performance and learns team confidence, excellence becomes a reality.

Paterno, Joe

50.

Inspiration comes of working every day.

Baudelaire, Charles