We sometimes yearn for the feeling of being productive and getting things done. Whether you’ve got a mountain of tasks to complete at work or you’re trying to give your business the extra push it needs, motivation isn’t always easy.
Although the feeling of completion feels good, getting started is hard.
We’ve compiled the ultimate list of work quotes that is sure to get you motivated and give you the little extra kick you need to be productive.
If we were only productive on the days we felt like it, we wouldn’t get very far. If you feel that a friend or a family member needs this, share along!
101 Inspirational Work Quotes – That Will Motivate You to Be Productive
Table of Contents
1. “Focus on being productive instead of busy.”
— Timothy Ferriss
2. “I’m astounded whenever I finish something. Astounded and distressed. My perfectionist instinct should inhibit me from finishing: it should inhibit me from even beginning. But I get distracted and start doing something. What I achieve is not the product of an act of my will but of my will’s surrender. I begin because I don’t have the strength to think; I finish because I don’t have the courage to quit. This book is my cowardice.”
— Fernando Pessoa
3. “If you work really hard, and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”
— Conan O’Brien
4. “It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.”
— Babe Ruth
5. “Genius is 1% talent and 99% percent hard work…”
— Albert Einstein
6. “There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.”
— Beverly Sills
7. “Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”
— Stephen King
8. “Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done, if we are always doing.”
— Thomas Jefferson
9. “Many who are self-taught far excel the doctors, masters, and bachelors of the most renowned universities.”
— Ludwig von Mises
10. “The dictionary is the only place that success comes before work. work is the key to success, and hard work can help you accomplish anything.”
— Vince Lombardi Jr.
11. “Everybody has talent, but ability takes hard work.”
— Michael Jordan
12. “People talk about confidence without ever bringing up hard work. That’s a mistake. I know I sound like some dour older spinster on Downton Abbey who has never felt a man’s touch and whose heart has turned to stone, but I don’t understand how you could have self-confidence if you don’t do the work… I have never, ever, ever, met a high confident person and successful person who is not what a movie would call a ‘workaholic.’ Because confidence is like respect; you have to earn it.”
— Mindy Kaling
13. “No one ever drowned in sweat.”
— U.S. Marine Corps
14. “Ordinary people think merely of spending time, great people think of using it.”
— Arthur Schopenhauer
15. “Without labor nothing prospers.”
—Sophocles
16. “Do not whine… Do not complain. Work harder. Spend more time alone.”
— Joan Didion
17. “It’s not about money or connections – it’s the willingness to outwork and outlearn everyone.”
— Mark Cuban
18. “Without hustle, talent will only carry you so far.”
— Gary Vaynerchuk
19. “To achieve what 1% of the world’s population has, you must be willing to do what only 1% dares to do.”
— Manoj Arora
20. “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.”
— Colin Powell
21. “You just have to put in 80 to 100 hour weeks every week.”
— Elon Musk
22. “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.”
— Theodore Roosevelt
23. “I never viewed myself as particularly talented. Where I excel is ridiculous, sickening, work ethic. You know, while the other guy’s sleeping, I’m working.”
— Will Smith
24. “There’s no talent here, this is hard work. This is an obsession.”
— Conor McGregor
25. “To succeed, work hard, never give up and above all, cherish a magnificent obsession.”
— Walt Disney
26. “Work hard in silence; let success make the noise.”
— Frank Ocean
27. “Luck is great, but most of life is hard work.”
— Iain Duncan Smith
28. “The cynics may be the loudest voices – but I promise you, they will accomplish the least.”
— Barack Obama
29. “I don’t like work – no man does – but I like what is in the work – the chance to find yourself. Your own reality – for yourself not for others – what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means.”
— Joseph Conrad
30. “The successful among us delay gratification. The successful among us bargain with the future.”
— Jordan Peterson
31. “Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goals, if he is able to think, if he is able to wait, if he is able to fast.”
— Hermann Hesse
32. “Do what you hate to do, but do it like you love it.”
— Mike Tyson
34. “Discipline is the ability to get yourself to do what you don’t want to do. When used occasionally, it keeps you from getting soft. When used frequently, it’s a sign of strategic misalignment.”
— Johnny Uzan
35. “An idiot with a plan can beat a genius without a plan.”
— Warren Buffett
36. “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.”
— Robert Collier
37. “Concentrate on a single goal, a single task, and beat it into submission.”
— Robert Greene
38. “The disciplined man will ultimately win.”
— Unknown
39. “Learn to convert the discomfort of discipline into the satisfaction of personal growth.”
— Tony Robbins
30. “You can’t win the war against the world if you can’t win the war against your own mind.”
— Will Smith
31. “Discipline is your relationship with the time you have left.”
— Barbara McNally
32. “To forget one’s purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche
33. “Success demands singleness of purpose.”
— Vince Lombardi
34. “The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.”
— Bruce Lee
35. “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”
— Buddha
36. “The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.”
— Warren Buffett
37. “If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.“
— Albert Einstein
38. “Self-actualizing people – highly functioning people who live at extraordinary levels of awareness – train their minds to focus on what they intend to create and what they intend to manifest, and they won’t let anybody change their mind.”
— Wayne Dyer
39. “Develop the habit of letting small bad things happen. If you don’t, you’ll never find time for the life-changing big things.”
— Tim Ferriss
40. “Always remember, your focus determines your reality.”
— George Lucas
41. “I don’t focus on what I’m up against. I focus on my goals and I try to ignore the rest.”
— Venus Williams
42. “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.”
— Steve Jobs
43. “Without labor nothing prospers.”
— Sophocles
44. “Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.”
— Henry David Thoreau
45. “The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.”
— Barack Obama
46. “A sign of a hard worker is one who works without complaint.”
— Sarah Price
47. “I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”
— Thomas Jefferson
48. “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life — and that is why I succeed.”
— Michael Jordan
49. “If people knew how hard I worked to achieve my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful after all.”
— Michelangelo
50. “Hard work does pay off.”
— Michael Phelps
Conclusion
Working hard, being persistent and ardent can pay off and help you achieve your goals. I hope these quotes were inspiring and gave you the little extra push you were looking for to commit yourself to achieve your goals!
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