Motivational Quotes for Work

Encouraging Quotes for Work

1. Well done is better than well said.

   Copy

2. The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.

   Copy

3. I long to accomplish a great and noble task; but it is my chief duty and joy to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble.

   Copy

4. Things done well,
   And with a care, exempt themselves from fear.

   Copy

5. No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such.

   Copy

6. Efficiency is concerned with doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things.

   Copy

7. I was determined from the first to make my work as janitor so valuable that my services would be indispensable.

   Copy

Teamwork Quotes

Good for the start of a meeting or the end of a thank-you note.

1. Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much.

   Copy

2. For we are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth.

   Copy

3. That which is not good for the swarm, neither is it good for the bee.

   Copy

4. A man may do an immense deal of good, if he does not care who gets the credit for it.

   Copy

5. You must live for your neighbour, if you would live for yourself.

   Copy

6. What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?

   Copy

Monday Motivation Quotes

1. The beginning is the most important part of any work.

   Copy

2. Let us, then, be up and doing,
   With a heart for any fate;
   Still achieving, still pursuing,
   Learn to labor and to wait.

   Copy

3. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

   Copy

4. Hide not your Talents, they for Use were made.
   What's a Sun-Dial in the Shade!

   Copy

Hard Work Quotes

1. Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration.

   Copy

2. In this life we get nothing save by effort.

   Copy

3. Work is no disgrace: it is idleness which is a disgrace.

   Copy

4. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.

   Copy

5. Desire to have things done quickly prevents their being done thoroughly.

   Copy

6. The mechanic, who wishes to do his work well, must first sharpen his tools.

   Copy

7. For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.

   Copy

Quotes About Work You Love

1. Work is love made visible.

   Copy

2. When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.

   Copy

3. The labour we delight in physics pain.

   Copy

4. Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.

   Copy

5. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.

   Copy

6. It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?

   Copy

Funny Quotes About Work

Wry lines from writers who had deadlines too.

1. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.

   Copy

2. It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.

   Copy

3. I have made this one longer only because I did not have the leisure to make it shorter.

   Copy

4. Extreme busyness, whether at school or college, kirk or market, is a symptom of deficient vitality; and a faculty for idleness implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal identity.

   Copy

Friday Quotes for the End of the Week

For Friday afternoon, when the week has earned its rest.

1. Each morning sees some task begin,
   Each evening sees it close;
   Something attempted, something done,
   Has earned a night's repose.

   Copy

2. A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book.

   Copy

3. Rest belongs to the work as the eyelids to the eyes.

   Copy

4. 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.

   Copy

Famous Misquotes, and Who Really Said Them

Office walls are full of these. Here is what the record shows.

• "It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit."

  Not by Harry S. Truman. There's no real support for Truman. The idea goes back to a Jesuit, Father Strickland, recorded in 1863. His version is in the teamwork quotes above. Source: Quote Investigator.

• "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

  Not by Abraham Lincoln. The earliest version is a 1944 speech by a minister quoting an anonymous lumberjack. Lincoln's name first appears on it in a 1960 advertisement.

• "Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life."

  Not by Confucius. There's no support for Confucius. The earliest strong match is an anonymous saying in the Princeton Alumni Weekly in 1982.

• "I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it."

  Not by Thomas Jefferson. Monticello says it has never been found in Jefferson's writings. Quote Investigator traces it to Coleman Cox's 1922 book Listen to This.

• "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."

  Not by Thomas Edison. It appears with no name in a 1921 Indiana newspaper. Edison was first credited in 1962, decades after his death.

• "The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary."

  Not by Vince Lombardi. Also pinned on Mark Twain and Vidal Sassoon. The earliest strong match is an unsigned filler item in the Oklahoma City Star in 1934, and nobody knows who wrote it.

• "It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?"

  Not quite Henry David Thoreau's words. Thoreau's 1857 letter to H. G. O. Blake says "industrious", not "busy". The real wording is in the quotes about work you love, above.

• "I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble."

  Not quite Helen Keller's words. Her 1903 essay Optimism says it is her "chief duty and joy to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble." The full line is in the first list on this page.

• "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."

  Not by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. There's no close match in his works. It seems loosely based on a passage in Citadelle (1948), and this English wording first appears online in 1999.

FAQs

Is there a work quote of the day?

Yes, at the top of this page. It changes at midnight where you are, and no quote comes round again until all 38 have had a turn.

Which quote suits a team meeting?

Helen Keller's "Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much." is short and easy to say out loud. The other teamwork quotes work well too.

Why are there quotes about rest on a work page?

Because rest is part of good work. In 1851 John Ruskin wrote that for people to be happy in their work, "They must not do too much of it."