Top 100 Work Quotes of All Time

A short, finished list rather than an endless feed: 100 of the best work quotes ever written, picked out of the full work archive on QuoteForever. You will find Dorothy L. Sayers, Orison Swett Marden, Bertrand Russell and Jimmy Buffett among them.

Read the list top to bottom, or use it as a starting point - every author name links to everything else they said, and every quote has its own page you can share or turn into an image.

1

The pictures were painted directly through me, without preliminary drawings and with great power. I had no idea what the pictures would depict and still I worked quickly and surely without changing a single brush-stroke.

2

It has always seemed to me that broken things, just like broken people, get used more; it's probably because God has more pieces to work with.

3

In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.

4

In fact, there is perhaps only one human being in a thousand who is passionately interested in his job for the job's sake. The difference is that if that one person in a thousand is a man, we say, simply, that he is passionately keen on his job; if she is a woman, we say she is a freak.

5

The only place opportunity cannot be found is in a closed-minded person.

6

I don't have a lot of respect for talent. Talent is genetic. It's what you do with it that counts.

7

Four things for success: work and pray, think and believe.

8

The major work of the world is not done by geniuses. It is done by ordinary people, with balance in their lives, who have learned to work in an extraordinary manner.

9

Work ... has always been my favorite form of recreation.

10

We often think of great faith as something that happens spontaneously so that we can be used for a miracle or healing. However, the greatest faith of all, and the most effective, is to live day by day trusting Him. It is trusting Him so much that we look at every problem as an opportunity to see His work in our life.

In the sales profession, the real work begins after the sale is made. - Brian Tracy 11

In the sales profession, the real work begins after the sale is made.

12

One gets into a state of creativity by conscious work.

13

Work restores humankind and all its attributes to the savage animal condition that was its original intended state.

14

All civilized people see the day beginning at dawn or a little after or a long time after or whatever time their work begins; this they lengthen according to their work, during what they call 'all day long'; and end it when they close their eyes. It is they who say the days are long. On the contrary, the days are round.

15

Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot. Take thou what course thou wilt.

16

Ya gots to work with what you gots to work with.

17

Begin where you are; work where you are; the hour which you are now wasting, dreaming of some far off success may be crowded with grand possibilities.

18

The mode by which the inevitable comes to pass is effort.

19

The morality of work is the morality of slaves, and the modern world has no need of slavery.

20

If you don't make mistakes, you're not working on hard enough problems. And that's a big mistake.

21

If you do something for fun and create the best possible product, then the profit will come.

22

Love labor: for if thou dost not want it for food, thou mayest for physic. It is wholesome for thy body and good for thy mind.

Every one who has labored honestly in the past has aided to place ... - Orison Swett Marden 23

Every one who has labored honestly in the past has aided to place knowledge and comfort within the reach of a constantly increasing number.

Moving to Montana soon, gonna be a dental floss tycoon. - Frank Zappa 24

Moving to Montana soon, gonna be a dental floss tycoon.

25

If one defines the term 'dropout' to mean a person who has given up serious effort to meet his responsibilities, then every business office, government agency, golf club and university faculty would yield its quota.

26

Most inputs are useless and time is wasted in proportion to the amount that is available.

27

I can't fax you my love, I can't email my heart.

28

I'm a working man in my prime cleaning windows.

We made it nearly 20 centuries, a bunch of monkeys with PH Ds. - Jimmy Buffett 29

We made it nearly 20 centuries, a bunch of monkeys with PH Ds.

30

We work our jobs, collect our pay, believe were gliding down the highway, when in fact we're slip sliding away.

31

Work my hands in the soil, what's the pay for all the toil? Dust for blood, dust for blood, dust for blood.

32

I have always been a firm believer in working hard for what is right and for making your own breaks if you want things to change.

33

Formerly when a man worked ten hours a day, it was called economic slavery; nowadays it is called moonlighting.

34

The women who do the most work get the least money, and the women who have the most money do the least work.

35

I have lost faith in universal panaceas - work is the one thing in which I really believe.

36

To me, working is a form of sustenance, like food or water, and nearly as essential.

37

If we don't act at all (express our imaginings either in work or a changing personality, so that we can learn and think again something better) we certainly rot.

38

Not everyone in an organization is in a position to accumulate power through competent performance because most people are just carrying out the ordinary and the expected - even if they do it very well. The extent to which a job is routinized fails to give an advantage to anyone doing it because 'success' is seen as inherent in the very establishment of the position and the organization surrounding it. Neither persons nor organizations get 'credit' for doing the mandatory or the expected.

39

I had thought, in my blindness, that the great things were the easiest to do, but now I see that drudgery is an inseparable part of everything worth while, and the more worth while it is, the more drudgery is involved.

40

No one can be profoundly original who does not avoid eccentricity.

41

Appealing workplaces are to be avoided. One wants a room with no view, so imagination can meet memory in the dark.

42

Meton (astronomer in 5th century BC): With the straight ruler I set to work To make the circle four-cornered .

43

If men are given food, but no chastisement nor any work, they become insolent.

44

Receiving far less attention are the working class heroes, who go about their solitary work routines with quiet dignity, come home from another grueling day, yet still find time to interact with their children.

45

He was distinguished for ignorance; for he had only one idea, and that was wrong.

46

I have always thought that one man of tolerable abilities may work great changes, and accomplish great affairs among mankind, if he first forms a good plan, and, cutting off all amusements or other employments that would divert his attention, make the execution of that same plan his sole study and business.

47

Skilled work, of no matter what kind, is only done well by those who take a certain pleasure in it, quite apart from its utility, either to themselves in earning a living, or to the world through its outcome.

48

My height can be a problem. A lot of directors and photographers are sometimes not happy because I'm pretty tall and especially if I work with short actors the difference can be pretty massive.

49

It is not whether you win or lose, but who gets the blame.

50

Ever since I stopped worrying about finances, I've made more money than I ever thought I'd make in my life.

51

Inspiration comes of working every day.

52

Life is like art. You have to work hard to keep it simple and still have meaning.

53

I believe in work, hard work, and long hours of work. Men do not breakdown from overwork, but from worry and dissipation.

54

My heart is like a singing bird Whose nest is in a water'd shoot; My heart is like an apple-tree Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon sea; My heart is gladder than all these, Because my love is come to me. Raise me a daïs of silk and down; Hang it with vair and purple dyes; Carve it in doves and pomegranates, And peacocks with a hundred eyes; Work it in gold and silver grapes, In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys; Because the birthday of my life Is come, my love is come to me.

55

I think when you begin to think of yourself as having achieved something, then there's nothing left for you to work towards. I want to believe that there is a mountain so high that I will spend my entire life striving to reach the top of it.

56

I may sometimes be willing to teach for nothing, but if paid at all, I shall never do a man's work for less than a man's pay.

57

This was work (music industry) but it was the awakening to what was to become a life's passion.

58

He whose first emotion, on the view of an excellent work, is to undervalue or depreciate it, will never have one of his own to show.

59

Manager' is a title, not a function. It's better to be one than not. Since you spend all day doing the job of the person above you, the higher up you are, the less you have to do.

60

And this is the final meaning of work: the extension of human consciousness. The lesser meaning of work is the achieving of self-preservation.

61

I find that the more I do the more ability the Almighty gives me.

62

I work 338 days a year, 16 hours a day.

63

You can walk as carefully as you want through a mine field; it is still a mine field. But it's also true that if you step up to the plate worrying that you're going to strike out, the odds are that you're going to strike out. Not doing a large ambitious work because you're convinced that Danger Lurks Around Every Corner, the old 'I might be dead this time next year,' is a waste of the Inner Radiance that found you. It's like life insurance. It's betting against yourself. It's blowing out your own flame before someone beats you to it.

64

Many older wealthy families have learned to instill a sense of public service in their offspring. But newly affluent middle-classparents have not acquired this skill. We are using our children as symbols of leisure-class standing without building in safeguards against an overweening sense of entitlement--a sense of entitlement that may incline some young people more toward the good life than toward the hard work that, for most of us, makes the good life possible.

65

So much of what happened to me is good fortune. But I would say: Try to get a job that gives you some time; get your sleep and a little bit of food; and work as much as you can. There's so much enjoyment in doing what you love. Maybe this will open doors, and you'll find a way to do what you love.

66

Keep the circus going inside you, keep it going, don't take anything too seriously, it'll all work out in the end.

67

Silence is like a cradle holding our endeavors and our will; a silent spaciousness sustains us in our work and at the same time connects us to larger worlds that, in the busyness of our daily struggle to achieve, we have not yet investigated. Silence is the soul's break for freedom.

68

The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out.

69

Joblessness is a weapon of mass destruction. Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction. Hunger is a weapon of mass destruction. Poor health care is a weapon of mass destruction. Poor education is a weapon of mass destruction. Discrimination is a weapon of mass destruction. Let us abolish such weapons of mass destruction here at home.

70

There may be people who have more talent than you, but there's no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do - and I believe that.

71

I am very proud of my mom and consider her the most courageous woman I know. With perseverance, sacrifice and hard work, she raised a family of Olympic athletes and gave us the tools and the spirit to succeed. That is something that my brothers and I will always be thankful for.

72

Women have the feeling that since they didn't make the rules, the rules have nothing to do with them.

73

I was raised not to be rude, but I also try to get the best work out of people.

74

Punctuality is one of the cardinal business virtues: always insist on it in your subordinates.

75

I always have a quotation for everything - it saves original thinking.

76

Even the worse of jobs has their pleasures, if I were a grave digger or a hangmen, there are some people I could work for with a great deal of enjoyment.

77

He who seeks rest finds boredom. He who seeks work finds rest.

78

Be prepared, work hard, and hope for a little luck. Recognize that the harder you work and the better prepared you are, the more luck you might have.

79

I can't imagine anything more worthwhile than doing what I most love. And they pay me for it.

80

I think it all comes down to motivation. If you really want to do something, you will work hard for it.

81

The poor and ignorant will continue to lie and steal as long as the rich and educated show them how.

82

Existence was given us for action, rather than indolent and aimless contemplation; our worth is determined by the good deeds we do, rather than by the fine emotions we feel. They greatly mistake who suppose that God cares for no other pursuit than devotion.

83

To spell out the obvious is often to call it in question.

84

The difficult and risky task of meeting and mastering the new . . . is not undertaken by the vanguard of society but by its rear. It is the misfits, failures, fugitives, outcasts and their like who are among the first to grapple with the new.

85

Retirement is the ugliest word in the language.

86

The great composer does not set to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working. Beethoven, Wagner, Bach and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand with as much regularity as an accountant settles down each day to his figures. They didn't waste time waiting for inspiration.

87

Do all the work you can; that is the whole philosophy of the good way of life.

88

Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.

89

'Tis not need we know our every thought Or see the work shop where each mask is wrought Wherefrom we view the world of box and pit, Careless of wear, just so the mask shall fit And serve our jape's turn for a night or two.

90

You must not allow yourselves to become discouraged. Missionary work brings joy, optimism, and happiness. Don't give Satan an opportunity to discourage you. Here again, work is the answer. The Lord has given us a key by which we can overcome discouragement: "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

91

Learn young about hard work and manners - and you'll be through the whole dirty mess and nicely dead again before you know it.

92

A different language is a different vision of life.

93

It is only when I am doing my work that I feel truly alive.

94

I hate, simply, to work. I just hate to work, period. I am profoundly slothful. Practically inert.

95

A new gadget that lasts only five minutes is worth more than an immortal work that bores everyone.

96

If you don't appear at all one day they think you're lazy or dead.

97

A committee is a group of the unprepared, appointed by the unwilling to do the unnecessary.

98

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

99

To crush, to annihilate a man utterly, to inflict on him the most terrible of punishments so that the most ferocious murderer would shudder at it and dread it beforehand, one need only give him work of an absolutely, completely useless and irrational character.

100

Grantland Rice can go to hell as far as I'm concerned.

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