Motivational quotes
Positive quotes for work, for the task in front of you
Positive quotes for work from real people, every source verified. Lines on craft, effort and doing the job well, for the desk or the shop floor.
Positive quotes for work are the ones I get asked for most, and the ones I trust least when I find them online. Half of them are pinned to a general who never said them. So this collection is small and checked: every line was written or said by the person under it, and every one is about the work itself, not the reward.
What is in it: Franklin on well done beating well said, Edison on perspiration, Stephen King on amateurs waiting for inspiration, Marcus Aurelius on the obstacle becoming the way. Positive job quotes, if you want to call them that, though most of these people would have said craft.
I wrap my hands before every session sitting against the same brick wall, and it takes four minutes I could spend on something else. I have never once skipped it. That is my whole philosophy of work: the boring preparation is the job. Positive workplace quotes that skip the preparation are selling something.
Attribution matters here more than anywhere, because work quotes get pinned to famous names to sound authoritative, and the real authors were often more interesting. For positive quotes for work motivation on a long project, the discipline collection is the next step, and the guide on staying motivated covers the middle of the project, which is where projects die. If you only want short positive quotes for work, the short collection is that cut.
40 quotes, every one checked against its source. No misattributed internet favourites.
- 1
I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.
Albert Einstein - 2
Whatever you are, try to be a good one.
William Makepeace Thackeray - 3
The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.
Marcus Aurelius - 4
It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.
Seneca - 5
First say to yourself, what you would be; and then do, what you have to do.
Epictetus - 6
For it is impossible for anyone to begin to learn what he thinks that he already knows.
Epictetus - 7
It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe.
Muhammad Ali - 8
Perfection isn't attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.
Vince Lombardi - 9
It's not the will to win that matters - everyone has that. It's the will to prepare to win that matters.
Paul "Bear" Bryant - 10
I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
Michael Jordan - 11
You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don't take.
Wayne Gretzky - 12
Everything negative - pressure, challenges - is all an opportunity for me to rise.
Kobe Bryant - 13
To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.
Steve Prefontaine - 14
Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
John Wooden - 15
Pressure is a privilege.
Billie Jean King - 16
It always seems impossible until it is done.
Nelson Mandela - 17
The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.
Amelia Earhart - 18
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.
Theodore Roosevelt - 19
Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.
Theodore Roosevelt - 20
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
Thomas Edison - 21
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not.
Calvin Coolidge - 22
I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.
Booker T. Washington - 23
The law of nature is, Do the thing, and you shall have the power.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - 24
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Will Durant - 25
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
William Hutchison Murray - 26
The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.
Vidal Sassoon - 27
Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are.
Squire Bill Widener - 28
Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking and using our potential.
Liane Cordes - 29
Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.
Epictetus - 30
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it.
Marcus Aurelius - 31
Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - 32
Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
Thomas Edison - 33
The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.
Walt Disney - 34
Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.
Stephen King - 35
Well done is better than well said.
Benjamin Franklin - 36
Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.
Henry David Thoreau - 37
The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it.
Henry David Thoreau - 38
I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying.
Michael Jordan - 39
Grace under pressure.
Ernest Hemingway - 40
Nothing will work unless you do.
Maya Angelou
I send one of these every day, working day or not, with a photo from my day and never the same quote twice. If you want to tell me what the day's task was and whether it got done, I will ask.
All the collections are at the quotes page.
