Work. We all do it, some days love it, some days… not so much. Whether you’re grinding toward a big career goal, hustling through deadlines, or just trying to survive Monday, the right words can give you a little boost when you need it most.
In this post, I have collected the best work quotes that are inspirational, funny, sarcastic and more. These quotes can motivate, make you smile, or even help you rethink how you approach your job and career! Let’s go!
Motivational Work Quotes
1. “You are never too old to set another goal or dream a new dream.” — C.S. Lewis
2. “Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out.” — Robert Collier
3. “Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” — William James
4. “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” — Arthur Ashe
5. “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” — Theodore Roosevelt
6. “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” — Theodore Roosevelt
7. “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” — Henry Ford
8. “What you do today can improve all your tomorrows.” — Ralph Marston
9. “Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.” — Mother Teresa
10. “Energy and persistence conquer all things.” — Benjamin Franklin
11. “The best way out is always through.” — Robert Frost
12. “Well done is better than well said.” — Benjamin Franklin
13. “Action is the foundational key to all success.” — Pablo Picasso
Inspirational Work Quotes
1. “The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.” — Jimmy Johnson
2. “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” — Peter Drucker
3. “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” — Thomas Edison
4. “Well done is better than well said.” — Benjamin Franklin
5. “The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” — Confucius
6. “Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” — Albert Einstein
7. “Light tomorrow with today.” — Elizabeth Barrett Browning
8. “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” — Confucius
9. “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” — Albert Einstein
10. “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.” — Vince Lombardi
11. “Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions.” — Dalai Lama
12. “Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.” — Maya Angelou
13. “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” — Mahatma Gandhi
14. “The only limit to our realization of tomorrow is our doubts of today.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
15. “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Positive Work Quotes
1. “We don’t have to be perfect to make a difference.” — Nick Vujicic
2. “Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.” — Karl Barth
3. “The sun himself is weak when he first rises, and gathers strength and courage as the day gets on.” — Charles Dickens
4. “A gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile can work wonders.” — William Hazlitt
5. “The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.” — Bertrand Russell
6. “A good day is a good day. A bad day is a good story.” — Glennon Doyle
7. “Happiness is not by chance, but by choice.” — Jim Rohn
8. “Wherever you go, go with all your heart.” — Confucius
9. “Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” — Mark Twain
10. “Sometimes the smallest step in the right direction ends up being the biggest step of your life.” — Naeem Callaway
11. “A positive mindset makes even tough work feel worthwhile.”
Happy Work Quotes
1. “A smile is happiness you’ll find right under your nose.” — Tom Wilson
2. “Happiness is a direction, not a place.” — Sydney J. Harris
3. “The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.” — Oprah Winfrey
4. “The most wasted of days is one without laughter.” — E.E. Cummings
5. “Laughter is an instant vacation.” — Milton Berle
6. “Where there is love and inspiration, there cannot be anything wrong.” — Ella Fitzgerald
7. “Take time to enjoy the little things — one day you’ll look back and realize they were the big things.” — Robert Brault
8. “Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” — Marcel Proust
9. “Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” — Kurt Vonnegut
10. “A cheerful heart is good medicine.” — Proverbs 17:22
Hard Work Quotes
1. “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” — Tim Notke
2. “Work hard in silence; let success be the noise.” — Frank Ocean
3. “Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.” — Henry Ford
4. “The only way to achieve the impossible is to believe it is possible.” — Charles Kingsleigh
5. “I’m a greater belieer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.” — Thomas Jefferson
6. “Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice…” — Pelé
7. “Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out.” — Robert Collier
8. “Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work.” — Ann Landers
9. “If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful.” — Michelangelo
10. “The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” — Thomas Paine
11. “Hard things are put in our way, not to stop us, but to call out our courage and strength.” — Seneca
12. “What you do today can improve all your tomorrows.” — Ralph Marston
13. “The future depends on what you do today.” — Mahatma Gandhi
Short Work Quotes
1. “Nothing will work unless you do.” — Maya Angelou
2. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
3. “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” — Nelson Mandela
4. “Start each day with intention, and the work will feel lighter.”
5. “A small effort done consistently becomes something powerful.”
6. “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” — Albert Einstein
7. “When you focus on the process, progress comes naturally.”
8. “Every day won’t be perfect, but each day can move you forward.”
9. “Work becomes better when you care about what you’re creating.”
10. “Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.” — Theodore Roosevelt
11. “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” — Peter Drucker
12. “A calm mind gets more done than a rushed one.”
13. “The work you do today shapes the opportunities of tomorrow.”
14. “Show up with purpose, even if you don’t have all the answers yet.”
15. “Consistency may feel quiet, but it builds loud results.”
16. “A little clarity can turn a stressful day into a productive one.”
17. “What we think, we become.” — Buddha
18. “Good work grows from patience, not pressure.”
19. “Each task done well becomes a building block for your future.”
20. “You don’t need to be perfect, you just need to keep going.”
Funny Work Quotes
1. “I pretend to work. They pretend to pay me.”
2. “I always arrive late at the office, but I make up for it by leaving early.” — Charles Lamb
3. “Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?” — Edgar Bergen
4. “I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.” — Jerome K. Jerome
5. “Doing nothing is very hard to do… you never know when you’re finished.” — Leslie Nielsen
6. “I’m great at multitasking. I can waste time, be unproductive, and procrastinate all at once.”
7. “The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more work.” — Jonas Edward Salk
8. “Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” — Will Rogers
9. “A committee is a group that keeps minutes and loses hours.” — Milton Berle
10. “Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.” — J.M. Barrie
11. “I always give 100% at work: 13% Monday, 22% Tuesday, 26% Wednesday, 35% Thursday, 4% Friday.”
12. “The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs… one step at a time.” — Joe Girard
13. “By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.” — Robert Frost
14. “Work fascinates me; I can sit and watch it for hours.” — Jerome K. Jerome
15. “Some people dream of success, while other people get up every morning and make it happen… then take a nap.”
16. “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” — Bill Gates
17. “The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.” — Lily Tomlin
18. “Work hard? I thought you said ‘twerk hard.’”
Sarcastic Work Quotes
1. “I work well with others when they leave me alone.”
2. “I’m not arguing. I’m just explaining why you’re wrong… in extreme detail.”
3. “I’m not saying I hate my job… but I’ve been known to fantasize about a mysterious office fire.”
4. “I’m great at my job, I can waste time, annoy people, and get paid for it.”
5. “If at first you don’t succeed, then skydiving is definitely not for you — same with this project.”
6. “I don’t need therapy. I just need my coworkers to stop talking.”
7. “I’m not lazy. I’m strategically conserving my energy for important meetings… like the ones I’ll skip.”
8. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were an expert in my life and how I should live it.”
9. “Sure, let’s have a meeting about the meeting we just had.”
10. “Of course I’m listening. I just don’t care.”
11. “My job is secure. No one else wants it.”
12. “My boss told me to have a good day… so I went home.”
13. “I work well under pressure… but my boss likes it under panic.”
14. “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” — Douglas Adams
15. “If each day is a gift, I’d like to know where I can return Mondays.”
16. “Teamwork is essential, it allows you to blame someone else.”
These work quotes are here to inspire, entertain, and remind you why you do what you do even on the toughest days. Work isn’t always easy, but it can be meaningful, funny, and even rewarding if you approach it with the right mindset.
Save these work quotes for when Monday hits hard (or every other day, let’s be real)!
Also Read:
