115+ Motivational Quotes for Work Success

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An inspirational quote is the perfect motivational tool to reframe a negative mindset and push through the rest of the workday. We all get the workweek blues and while finding the inspiration to move past them is tough, it’s important for our health and wellbeing to keep up our motivation and optimism. Use these inspirational quotes for work as a personal motivational speaker to maintain a positive attitude during those harder weeks.

Ways to Use an Inspiring Quote at Work

For an Employee:

Find a Mantra

Discover a favorite motivational quote or two, write them down, and post them throughout the office for consistent encouragement. Another option is to buy a poster or art decal of the favorite quote and have it framed.

Daily Quote Calendar

Find a quote calendar to place on a desk or at home to increase motivation and inspiration each day.

For an Employer:

Presentations

Start weekly meeting presentations by stating or listing a motivational quote. Beginning a professional gathering with a positive quote can lead to increased employee motivation and a happier company culture.

Emails

In weekly emails or even as your email signature, list an inspiring quote for your employees to notice. Encouraging your employees to do the same may help increase employee engagement and general positivity throughout the office.

Decorations

Depending on where you work, using a great quote or two as an art piece or decal on office walls can be a great way to inspire employees or customers daily while also sprucing up your place of business.

Hard Work Quotes to Inspire Motivation

“Change begins at the end of your comfort zone.”

-Roy T. Bennett

“Every day of our lives, we are on the verge of making those changes that would make all the difference.”

-Mignon McLaughlin

“Wanderer, there is no path; the path is made by walking.”

-Antonio Machado

“To look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or the last time: Thus is your time on earth filled with glory.”

-Betty Smith

“The Sun himself is weak when he first rises and gathers strength and courage as the day gets on.”

-Charles Dickens

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”

-Anne Frank

“Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.”

-Samuel Johnson

“With ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable.”

-Thomas Foxwell Burton

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”

-George Eliot

“Your task is not to foresee the future, but to enable it.”

-Antoine de Saint-Exupèry

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”

Mark Twain

“What’s meant to be doesn’t happen on its own. Sometimes you have to fight like hell for it.”

-Sean Colarossi

“Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve.”

-Mary Kay Ash

“The best way out is always through.”

-Robert Frost

“Each small task of everyday life is part of the total harmony of the universe.”

-Saint Thérèse de Lisieux

“When you stumble and fall, there you discover the gold.”

-Joseph Campbell

“The question isn’t who’s going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me?”

-Ayn Rand

“Work begins when the fear of doing nothing at all finally trumps the terror of doing it badly.”

-Alain de Botton

“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.”

-Michael Jordan

“Fall seven times; stand up eight.”

-Japanese Proverb

“Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson after.”

-Vernon Law

“Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.”

-Auguste Rodin

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

-Neil Gaiman

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”

Helen Keller

“Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions.”

Dalai Lama XIV

“The only way to achieve the impossible is to believe it is possible.”

-Charles Kingsleigh

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

-Anaïs Nin

“I dwell in possibility.”

-Emily Dickinson

“Impossible is just an opinion.”

-Paulo Coelho

“Without labor, nothing prospers.”

-Sophocles

“It’s not about money or connections – it’s the willingness to outwork and outlearn everyone.”

-Mark Cuban

“Hard work betrays none.”

-Hachiman Hikigaya

“The highest reward for a man’s toil is not what he gets by it but what he becomes by it.”

-John Ruskin

“The successful person makes a habit of what the failing person doesn’t like to do.”

-Thomas A. Edison

“Everything you lose becomes something you are profoundly grateful for. With time, you see that it was not the path. It was what was standing in your way.”

Brianna Wiest

“The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today.”

-Elbert Hubbard

“All roads that lead to success have to pass through hard work boulevard at some point.”

-Eric Thomas

“The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work.”

-Harry Golden

“I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.”

Thomas Jefferson

“You need lofty goals. Then cement it with a great work ethic.”

-Jerry West

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”

Steve Jobs

“Work hard in silence; let your success be the noise.”

-Frank Ocean

“Nothing will work unless you do.”

Maya Angelou

Work Quotes that Promote Positive Thinking & Inspiration

“People who wonder if the glass is half empty or full miss the point. The glass is refillable.”

-Unknown

“All really great things are happening in slow and inconspicuous ways.”

-Leo Tolstoy

“You are allowed to take your time to grow in your own beautiful way.”

-Dhiman

“You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences.”

-W. Somerset Maugham

“There are short cuts to happiness, and dancing is one of them.”

-Vicki Baum

“Although the world is very full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.”

Helen Keller

“If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.”

-Andrew Carnegie

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.”

Albert Einstein

“That is one good thing about this world…there are always sure to be more springs.”

-L.M. Montgomery

“Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today.”

-James Dean

“When it comes to luck, you make your own.”

-Bruce Springsteen

“There is nothing to find, only to realize. There is nothing to become, only to be. There is nothing to fear, only to love.”

-Marianne Williamson

“Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.”

-Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

“One day or day one. You decide.”

-Unknown

“Accept what is, let go of what was, and have faith in what will be.”

-Sonia Ricotti

“Courage is not having the strength to go on; it’s going on when you don’t have the strength.”

-Theodore Roosevelt

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”

Dr. Seuss

“Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.”

-Michael Jordan

“The real opportunity for success lies within the person and not in the job.”

-Zig Ziglar

“If you are positive, you’ll see opportunities instead of obstacles.”

-Confucious

“A bad attitude is like a flat tire. If you never change it, you’ll never go anywhere.”

-Unknown

“The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.”

Winston Churchill

“If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.”

-Jen Sincero

“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.”

-Milton Berle

“You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction.”

-George Lorimer

“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.”

-Colin Powell

“The only difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.”

-Jimmy Johnson

“If you want light to come into your life, you need to stand where it is shining.”

-Guy Finley

“Don’t limit your challenges. Challenge your limits.”

-Unknown

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”

-Arthur Ashe

“Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.”

-Walt Whitman

“Today is your opportunity to build the tomorrow you want.”

-Ken Poirot

“You can’t live the life you owe yourself without living it loudly, boldly, and without apology.”

-Natalia Vela

“Sunshine all the time makes a desert.”

-Arab Proverb

Funny Quotes About Work to Brighten the Day

“If at first, you don’t succeed, then skydiving definitely isn’t for you.”

-Steven Wright

“I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.”

-Jerome K. Jerome

“The only thing that ever sat its way to success was a hen.”

-Sarah Brown

“Work until your bank account looks like a phone number.”

-Unknown

“The difference between genius and stupidity: genius has its limits.”

-Albert Einstein

“If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in the dark with a mosquito.”

-Betty Reese

“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.”

-Mark Twain

“My keyboard must be broken, I keep hitting the escape key, but I’m still at work.”

-Unknown

“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day!”

-Unknown

“No man goes before his time unless the boss leaves early.”

-Groucho Marx

“Sometimes I spend the whole meeting wondering how they got the big meeting table through the door.”

-Unknown

“The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one.”

-Oscar Wilde

“Oh, you hate your job? Why didn’t you say so? There’s a support group for that. It’s called everybody, and they meet at the bar.”

-Drew Carey

“The reward for good work is more work.”

-Francesca Elisia

“Coworkers are like Christmas lights. They hang together, half of them don’t work, and the other half aren’t so bright.”

-Unknown

“The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.”

-Vince Lombardi

“I work for myself, which is fun. Except when I call in sick, I know I’m lying.”

-Rita Rudner

“My son is now an ‘entrepreneur.’ That’s what you’re called when you don’t have a job.”

-Ted Turner

“Work is the greatest thing in the world, so we should always save some of it for tomorrow.”

-Don Herold

“Why do people say they wish every day was Friday? If it was always Friday, we’d be here every freakin’ day.”

-Ed Bernard

“After Monday and Tuesday, even the calendar says WTF.”

-Unknown

“The closest to perfection a person ever comes is when he fills out a job application form.”

-Stanley J. Randall

“Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?”

-Edgar Bergen

“Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there.”

Will Rogers

“If you had to identify in one word the reason why the human race has not achieved and never will achieve its full potential, that word would be ‘meetings.’”

-Dave Barry

“I always arrive late at the office, but I make up for it by leaving early.”

-Charles Lamb

“Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he’s supposed to be doing at that moment.”

-Robert Benchley