199+ Work Quotes To Increase Your Productivity

“Work” can have several meanings depending on the context. Here are a few of its primary definitions:

Employment: Work often refers to the activity of performing tasks or duties in exchange for payment or some form of compensation. This is the most common meaning when talking about careers and jobs. For example, “I go to work at the office every weekday.”

Effort or Activity: Work can also describe any physical or mental effort or activity that requires energy and is usually purposeful. This can include tasks you do at home, such as cooking or cleaning, or any other productive endeavor. For example, “I need to do some work around the house.”

Mechanical or Physical Force: In the context of physics, work is the measure of energy transfer that occurs when an object is moved or a force is applied over a distance. It is calculated as the force applied multiplied by the distance over which it’s applied. This concept is fundamental in understanding how machines, engines, and many natural processes function.

Artistic Creation: Work can also refer to a piece of art, literature, or any creative output, such as a painting, book, or song. For example, “This novel is the author’s greatest work.”

Computer-Related: In the context of computing and technology, “work” can refer to the tasks or processes that a computer or software application is currently performing, such as running a program or processing data. For example, “My computer is doing some heavy work right now, so it might be slow.”

The specific meaning of “work” in a given context is determined by the surrounding words and the overall situation in which it is used.

Work Quotes

1. “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
— Confucius

2. “Nothing will work unless you do.”
— Maya Angelou

3. “The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today.”
— Elbert Hubbard

4. “The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.”
— Vince Lombardi

5. “Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction.”
— Anne Frank

6. “Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don’t turn up at all.”
— Sam Ewing

7. “Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”
— Theodore Roosevelt

8. “It’s like Forrest Gump said, ‘Life is like a box of chocolates.’ Your career is like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re going to get. But everything you get is going to teach you something along the way and make you the person you are today. That’s the exciting part – it’s an adventure in itself.”
— Nick Carter

9. “All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”
— Martin Luther King, Jr.

10. “Working hard and working smart sometimes can be two different things.”
— Byron Dorgan

11. “Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.”
— Booker T. Washington

12. “There is no substitute for hard work.”
— Thomas A. Edison

13. “Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.”
— Rumi

14. “I”t is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.”
— Benjamin Franklin

15. “I’ve learned from experience that if you work harder at it, and apply more energy and time to it, and more consistency, you get a better result. It comes from the work.”
— Louis C. K.

16. “The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work.”
— Harry Golden

17. “Once you start a working on something, don’t be afraid of failure and don’t abandon it. People who work sincerely are the happiest.”
— Chanakya

18. “Every man’s work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.”
— Samuel Butler

19. “And where I excel is ridiculous, sickening, work ethic. You know, while the other guy’s sleeping? I’m working.”
— Will Smith

20. “To find joy in work is to discover the fountain of youth.”
— Pearl S. Buck

21. “Big jobs usually go to those who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.”
— Theodore Roosevelt

22. “Let us realize that: the privilege to work is a gift, the power to work is a blessing, the love of work is a success!”
— David O. McKay

23. “There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.”
— Henry Ford

24. “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”
— Samuel Goldwyn

25. “To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lonely labor, to be given a chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy.”
— Bette Davis

26. “It is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction.”
— Pablo Picasso

27. “Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work.”
— Horace

28. “Be open to the amazing changes which are occurring in the field that interests you.”
— Leigh Steinberg

29. “You’re blessed if you have the strength to work.”
— Mahalia Jackson

30. “The only way to enjoy anything in this life is to earn it first.”
— Ginger Rogers

31. “I can’t imagine anything more worthwhile than doing what I most love. And they pay me for it.”
— Edgar Winter

32. “Find a job you like and you add five days to every week.”
— H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

33. “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?”
— J. Paul Getty

34. “Give yourself something to work toward – constantly.”
— Mary Kay Ash

35. “The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.”
— Richard Bach

36. “Concentrate on your job and you will forget your other troubles.”
— William Feather

37. “If you put all your strength and faith and vigor into a job and try to do the best you can, the money will come.”
— Lawrence Welk

38. “Big pay and little responsibility are circumstances seldom found together.”
— Napoleon Hill

39. “No one can arrive from being talented alone, work transforms talent into genius.”
— Anna Pavlova

40. “It is only when I am doing my work that I feel truly alive.”
— Federico Fellini

41. “Work is not man’s punishment. It is his reward and his strength and his pleasure.”
— George Sand

42. “The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.”
— Vince Lombardi

43. “Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe.”
— Gail Devers

44. “Work hard for what you want because it won’t come to you without a fight. You have to be strong and courageous and know that you can do anything you put your mind to. If somebody puts you down or criticizes you ,just keep on believing in yourself and turn it in to something positive.”
— Leah LaBelle

45. “Formula for success: rise early, work hard, strike oil.”
— J. Paul Getty

46. “If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.”
— Bruce Lee

47. “Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. Don’t wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future. Think how really precious is the time you have to spend, whether it’s at work or with your family. Every minute should be enjoyed and savored.”
— Earl Nightingale

48. “The road to success is not easy to navigate, but with hard work, drive and passion, it’s possible to achieve the American dream.”
— Tommy Hilfiger

49. “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. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”
— Steve Jobs

50. “Focused, hard work is the real key to success. Keep your eyes on the goal, and just keep taking the next step towards completing it. If you aren’t sure which way to do something, do it both ways and see which works better.”
— John Carmack

51. “Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.”
— Pele

52. “Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.”
— Newt Gingrich

53. “Don’t give up. The beginning is always the hardest. Life rewards those who work hard at it.”
— Unknown

54. “You see, God helps only people who work hard. That principle is very clear.”
— A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

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

56. “Do your work with your whole heart, and you will succeed – there’s so little competition.”
— Elbert Hubbard

57. “Greatness is sifted through the grind, therefore don’t despise the hard work now for surely it will be worth it in the end.”
— Sanjo Jendayi

58. “All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.”
— Calvin Coolidge

59. “If you can’t stop thinking about it, don’t stop working on it.”
— Michael Jordan

60. “If you don’t burn out at the end of each day, you’re a bum.”
— George Lois

61. “Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

62. “Work without love is slavery.”
— Mother Teresa

63. “If you care about what you do and work hard at it, there isn’t anything you can’t do if you want to.”
— Jim Henson

64. “Even though your time on the job is temporary, if you do a good enough job, your work there will last forever.”
— Idowu Koyenikan

65. “Make your work to be in keeping with your purpose.”
— Leonardo da Vinci

66. “‘Go and get your things,’ he said. ‘Dreams mean work.’”
— Paulo Coelho

67. “Any damn fool can beg up some kind of job; it takes a wise man to make it without working.”
— Charles Bukowski

68. “That’s when I first learned that it wasn’t enough to just do your job, you had to have an interest in it, even a passion for it.”
— Charles Bukowski

69. “When given an opportunity, deliver excellence and never quit.”
— Robert Rodriguez

70. “Be a worthy worker and work will come.”
— Amit Kalantri

71. “Either you run the day or the day runs you.”
— Jim Rohn

72. “Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.”
— Alexander Graham Bell

73. “When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”
— Paulo Coelho

74. “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
— Thomas Edison

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

76. “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”
— Robert Louis Stevenson

77. “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.”
— Henry Ford

78. “Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.”
— Dale Carnegie

79. “Do more than is required. What is the distance between someone who achieves their goals consistently and those who spend their lives and careers merely following? The extra mile.”
— Gary Ryan Blair

80. “The future depends on what you do today.”
— Mahatma Gandhi

81. “The best way out is always through.”
— Robert Frost

82. “Your talent determines what you can do. Your motivation determines how much you’re willing to do. Your attitude determines how well you do it.”
— Lou Holtz

83. “The individual who says it is not possible should move out of the way of those doing it.”
— Tricia Cunningham

84. “I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”
— Henry David Thoreau

85. “Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.”
— Earl Nightingale

86. “Without hard work, nothing grows but weeds.”
— Gordon B. Hinckley

87. “Work and you’ll get what you need; work harder and you’ll get what you want.”
— Prabakaran Thirumalai

88. “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”
— Will Rogers

89. “Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal. Nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong attitude.”
— Thomas Jefferson

90. “Hard work compounds like interest, and the earlier you do it, the more time you have for the benefits to pay off.”
— Sam Altman

91. “If you work just for money, you’ll never make it, but if you love what you’re doing and you always put the customer first, success will be yours.”
— Ray Kroc

92. “Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.”
— Rumi

93. “Once you have commitment, you need the discipline and hard work to get you there.”
— Haile Gebrselassie

94. “Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work.”
— Bette Davis

95. “People have been known to achieve more as a result of working with others than against them.”
— Allan Fromme

96. “A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes a lot of hard work.”
— Ozwald Boateng

97. “Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.”
— Aristotle

98. “Nobody’s a natural. You work hard to get good and then work to get better. It’s hard to stay on top.”
— Paul Coffey

99. “I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.”
— Thomas Jefferson

100. “The secret of joy in work is contained in one word – excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.”
— Pearl S. Buck

101. “When you are inspired in your work, everything seems to fall into place.”
— Wayne Dyer

102. “I think everyone should experience defeat at least once during their career. You learn a lot from it.”
— Lou Holtz

103. “Briefly but regularly reviewing how you work will help you to promote clearer thinking in the work itself.”
— Graham Allcot

104. “When you organize activities, you can weed out unimportant stuff and work more efficiently.”
— Nick Bell

105. “Laughter in the workplace leads to employees who are genuinely happy to go to work every day.”
— Jeffrey Briar

106. “You should never ever put yourself down. You are a work in progress; you will make mistakes.”
— Robert Washington

107. “Work brings man to life, sets him in motion. Work is man in action doing things. Nothing happens until people go to work. Work creates the world we live in.”
— Wilfred Peterson

108. “If you realized you work too many hours, make a commitment to leave work half an hour earlier this week.”
— Tsang Lindsay

109. “It is difficult to maintain a relationship with someone who cannot put down their phone or leave their work commitments at the office.”
— Jamaal Watson

110. “The focus is to find a blueprint you are unhappy with and work out how to change it.”
— Kylie Dunn

111. “Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.”
— Coco Chanel

112. “Do or do not. There is no try.”
— Yoda

113. “People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.”
— George Bernard Shaw

114. “If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful after all.”
— Michelangelo

115. “Whatever we believe about ourselves and our ability comes true for us.”
— Susan L. Taylor

116. “Don’t work for recognition but do work worthy of recognition.”
— H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

117. “The only thing standing between you and outrageous success is continuous progress.”
— Dan Waldschmidt

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

119. “Impossible is just an opinion.”
— Paulo Coelho

120. “It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.”
— Confucius

121. “It’s not enough these days to just turn up at work. You’re expected to be a contributor also.”
— Norah Deay

122. “If you want to improve your focus now, you should choose the places where you work or study. Avoid places that have a lot of tempting distractions.”
— John Morgan

123. “Most people who crave recognition for their work do not understand their urge to create and explore without the need for recognition.”
— Eric Christian

124. “If you must work hard, work hard to find a smart solution.”
— Alexander Woo

125. “I was never really great in anything I did, but because I worked hard I was able to achieve success in almost everything I tried my hand in.”
— Marc Trestman

126. “Self-discipline in the cornerstone of success. It can help you do better at school, work, sports, fishing, chess, and any other activity or goal that you have.”
— Brad Ryan

127. “Keep improving your skills, and educational qualifications and you will greatly improve your odds of success either in your current work environment or in a new endeavor.”
— Catherine Pulsifer

128. “Effective communication will help you to strengthen your relationships with others. It will improve your ability to work with a team, make decisions and solve problems.”
— Eric Davenport

129. “Being confident at a young age can also help you gain upward mobility at work. When you are confident, you have a greater chance of being promoted.”
— Gabor Cadman

130. “To be able to work at home successfully takes all of the following: motivation, perseverance, work, good habits, no excuses, balance, accountability, and action.”
— Byron Pulsifer

131. “A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.”
— Colin Powell

132. “A professional is someone who can do his best work when he doesn’t feel like it.”
— Alistair Cooke

133. “Surround yourself with people who take their work seriously, but not themselves, those who work hard and play hard.”
— Colin Powell

134. “Work joyfully and peacefully, knowing that right thoughts and right efforts inevitably bring about right results.”
— James Allen

135. “Dream big, stay positive, work hard, and enjoy the journey.”
— Urijah Faber

136. “Today is the child of yesterday and the parent of tomorrow. The work you produce today will create your future.”
— Bruce Mau

137. “Whatever you do, if you do it hard enough you’ll enjoy it. The important thing is to work and work hard.”
— David Rockefeller

138. “The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

139. “The secret to success is… is no secret. It’s called work your Ass off and find a way to add more value to peoples lives than anyone else does!”
— Tony Robbins

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

141. “For the last third of life there remains only work. It alone is always stimulating, rejuvenating, exciting and satisfying.”
— Doris Lessing

142. “Do what you love. When you love your work, you become the best worker in the world.”
— Uri Geller

143. “A man succeeds in completing a work only when his qualities transcend that work.”
— Cesare Pavese

144. “I look on that man as happy, who, when there is question of success, looks into his work for a reply.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

146. “I hope the millions of people I’ve touched have the optimism and desire to share their goals and hard work and persevere with a positive attitude.”
— Michael Jordan

147. “Work while you have the light. You are responsible for the talent that has been entrusted to you.”
— Henri Frederic Amiel

148. “A lot of us are working harder than we want, at things we don’t like to do. Why? It figures! In order to afford the sort of existence we don’t care to live.”
— Bradford Angier

149. “If you want work well done, select a busy man – the other kind has no time.”
— Elbert Hubbard

150. “Working hard is great, being lazy sometimes is great, but failed potential is the worst.”
— Campbell Scott

151. ‘Developing a good work ethics is key. Apply yourself at whatever you do, whether you’re a janitor or taking your first summer job because that work ethics will be reflected in everything you do in life.”
— Tyler Perry

152. “The only limit to our growth is the amount of work we are willing to put in.”
— Eric Thomas

153. “Work hard, stay positive, and get up early. It’s the best part of the day.”
— George Allen Sr.

154. “The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams.”
— Oprah Winfrey

155. “Plenty of men can do good work for a spurt and with immediate promotion in mind, but for promotion you want a man in whom good work has become a habit.”
— Henry L. Doherty

156. “Your ability to discipline yourself to set clear goals, and then to work toward them every day, will do more to guarantee your success than any other single factor.”
— Brian Tracy

157. “The best way to predict your future is to create it.”
— Abraham Lincoln

158. “Happiness is the real sense of fulfillment that comes from hard work.”
— Joseph Barbara

159. “The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that’s changing quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.”
— Mark Zuckerberg

160. “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

161. “And, most importantly as you work to achieve your goals, enjoy life!”
— Catherine Pulsifer

162. “Positive thinking is like fuel to the car. It will keep you energized throughout your work.”
— Abder-Rahman Ali

163. “When I rest, I rest and when I work, I work hard and sometimes for long hours. I always try to be rested when I work.”
— Simmie Knox

164. “Work can only be universal if it is rooted in a part of its creator which is most privately and particularly himself.”
— Tyrone Guthrie

165. “My work is the only ground I’ve ever had to stand on.”
— Marilyn Monroe

166. “The highest compliment that you can pay me is to say that I work hard every day, that I never dog it.”
— Wayne Gretzky

167. “Measure not the work until the day’s out and the labor done.”
— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

168. “Work, look for peace and calm in work: you will find it nowhere else.”
— Dmitri Mendeleev

169. “We work to become, not to acquire.”
— Elbert Hubbard

170. “If you love something, the work will be just fine.”
— Herbert Matter

171. “Without work all life goes rotten.”
— Albert Camus

172. “Working hard is very important. You’re not going to get anywhere without working extremely hard.”
— George Lucas

173. “Work is the inevitable condition of human life, the true source of human welfare.”
— Leo Tolstoy

174. “A moment of anger can destroy a lifetime of work, whereas a moment of love can break barriers that took a lifetime to build.”
— Leon Brown

175. “Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”
— Gustave Flaubert

176. “The work under our labour grows, Luxurious by restraint.”
— John Milton

177. “Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it. Establish your priorities and go to work.”
— H. L. Hunt

178. “My experience has been that work is almost the best way to pull oneself out of the depths.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt

179. “There is much good work to be done by every one of us and we must begin to do it.”
— Wendell Berry

180. “Spend a lifetime in hard work with a humble mind.”
— Charles Webster Hawthorne

181. “Work hard in silence, let your success be your noise.”
— Frank Ocean

182. “Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress. Working hard for something we love is called passion.”
— Simon Sinek

183. “The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”
— Arthur C. Clarke

184. “When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.”
— Henry Ford

185. “Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.”
— Vince Lombardi

186. “Get a good idea and stay with it. Dog it, and work at it until it’s done right.”
— Walt Disney

187. “You can have results or excuses. Not both.”
— Arnold Schwarzenegger

188. “Always deliver more than expected.”
— Larry Page

189. “Eighty percent of success is showing up.”
— Woody Allen

190. “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
— Maya Angelou

191. “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”
— Arthur Ashe

192. “Hard work always pays off, whatever you do.”
— Dustin Lynch

193. “A lot of hard work is hidden behind nice things.”
— Ralph Lauren

194. “The harder you work, the more people will notice.”
— Sydney Sweeney

195. “Preparation for tomorrow is hard work today.”
— Bruce Lee

196. “I’ve learned that anything in life worth having comes from patience and hard work.”
— Greg Behrendt

197. “Chop your own wood and it will warm you twice.”
— Henry Ford

198. “Great things come from hard work and perseverance. No excuses.”
— Kobe Bryant

199. “If you do the work you get rewarded. There are no shortcuts in life.”
— Michael Jordan

200. “Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.”
— Lance Armstrong