Motivational Quotes

Work

It does not seem to be true that work necessarily needs to be unpleasant. It may always have to be hard, or at least harder than doing nothing at all. But there is ample evidence that work can be enjoyable, and that indeed, it is often the most enjoyable part of life.

- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Best Quotes about Work

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

I have never liked working. To me a job is an invasion of privacy.

Mcgoorty, Danny

Even a mosquito doesn't get a pat on the back until he's well into his work.

Work while you have the light. You are responsible for the talent that has been entrusted to you.

Henri-FrÚdÚric Amiel

Work to survive, survive by consuming, survive to consume: the hellish cycle is complete.

Vaneigem, Raoul

Work either expands or contracts in order to fill the time available.

Parkinson's Law

I never worked a day in my life. It's not work when you love what you're doing.

Shakarian, David

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

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

10.

The honest work of yesterday has lost its social status, its social esteem.

Drucker, Peter F.

11.

The works of women are symbolical. We sew, sew, prick our fingers, dull our sight, producing what? A pair of slippers, sir, to put on when you're weary -- or a stool. To stumble over and vex you... curse that stool! Or else at best, a cushion, where you lean and sleep, and dream of something we are not, but would be for your sake. Alas, alas! This hurts most, this... that, after all, we are paid the worth of our work, perhaps.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

12.

There isn't any luck that enters into anything, unless it's poker or shooting dice, maybe. There is no luck to merchandising. There is no luck in going out and working from early in the morning to long after dinner. That is not luck, it's work.

Fitch, Fred W.

13.

When I was a young man I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. I didn't want to be a failure, so I did ten times more work.

Shaw, George Bernard

14.

A team is a team is a team. Shakespeare said that many times.

Devine, Dan

15.

Work is not a curse, but drudgery is!

Beecher, Henry Ward

16.

The question is not whether the system works, but whether we like the way it works. Just because something works doesn't mean it is desirable. Concentration camps work, if your purpose is to enslave people. Stealing works, if all you care about is money. Lying works, if you don't give a damn about your personal integrity. Literally anything, no matter how monstrously immoral will work, depending on your desires and how you define the term work,

Leon, Sy

17.

A tremendous number of people in America work very hard at something that bores them. Even a rich man thinks he has to go down to the office everyday. Not because he likes it but because he can't think of anything else to do.

Auden, W. H.

18.

Labor is the fabled magician's wand, the philosophers stone, and the cap of good fortune.

Johnson, James Weldon

19.

The work will stand, no matter what.

Streep, Meryl

20.

Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.

Henry David Thoreau

21.

In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.

Marx, Karl

22.

Feeding the hungry is a greater work than raising the dead.

Chrysosatom, St. John

23.

Teamwork is so important that it is virtually impossible for you to reach the heights of your capabilities or make the money that you want without becoming very good at it.

Tracy, Brian

24.

I do not know anyone who has gotten to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but it will get you pretty near.

Thatcher, Margaret

25.

Work your way up or rust your way out.

Holton

26.

Clearly no group can as an entity create ideas.Only individuals can do this.A group of individuals may, however, stimulate one another in the creation of ideas.

Green, Estill I.

27.

Inspiration comes of working every day.

Baudelaire, Charles

28.

One of the saddest things is that the only thing that a man can do for eight hours a day, day after day, is work. You can't eat eight hours a day nor drink for eight hours a day nor make love for eight hours --all you can do for eight hours is work. Which is the reason why man makes himself and everybody else so miserable and unhappy.

Faulkner, William

29.

The effectiveness of work increases according to geometric progression if there are no interruptions.

Maurois, Andre

30.

No man or woman is an island. To exist just for yourself is meaningless. You can achieve the most satisfaction when you feel related to some greater purpose in life, something greater than yourself.

Waitley, Denis

31.

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

Theodore Roosevelt

32.

A man must drive his energy, not be driven by it.

Book, William Frederick

33.

Build for your team a feeling of oneness, of dependence on one another and of strength to be derived by unity.

Lombardi, Vince

34.

Don't be condescending to unskilled labor. Try it for a half a day first.

Atkinson, Brooks

35.

Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another.

Anatole France

36.

Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work.

Horace

37.

The really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure.

Thoreau, Henry David

38.

Industry is fortunes right hand, and frugality its left.

Ray, John

39.

The labor of women in the house, certainly, enables men to produce more wealth than they otherwise could; and in this way women are economic factors in society. But so are horses.

Gillman, Charlotte P.

40.

People have been known to achieve more as a result of working with others than against them.

Fromme, Dr. Allan

41.

When I think of work, it's mostly about having control over your destiny, as opposed to being at the mercy of what's out there.

Sinise, Gary

42.

The contemporary form of true greatness lies in a civilization founded on the spirituality of work.

Weil, Simone

43.

The best work never was and never will be done for money.

Ruskin, John

44.

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

45.

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

Proverb, American

46.

Everything must degenerate into work if anything is to happen.

Drucker, Peter F.

47.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

48.

In case of doubt, do a little more than you have to.

Mitchell, Warren