Workplace Quotes - Quotes About the Workplace

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Workplace dynamics are no less complicated or unexpectedly intense than family relations, with only the added difficulty that whereas families are at least well-recognised and sanctioned loci for hysteria reminiscent of scenes from Medea, office life typically proceeds behind a mask of shallow cheerfulness, leaving workers grievously unprepared to handle the fury and sadness continually aroused by their colleagues.” ~Alain De Botton

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” ~Confucius

“Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you're wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn't love you anymore.” ~ Lady Gaga

"What is the recipe for successful achievement? To my mind there are just four essential ingredients: Choose a career you love, give it the best there is in you, seize your opportunities, and be a member of the team." ~Benjamin F. Fairless

“Your career success in the workplace of today–independent of technical expertise–depends on the quality of your people skills." ~ Max Messmer Jr.

"Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs." ~Henry Ford

"Criticism of others is futile and if you indulge in it often you should be warned that it can be fatal to your career." ~ Dale Carnegie

“The standard of a true leader is that he sets also his own rules rather than merely and blindly obeying the set of standard rules, even if it means being treated as an idiot or a crazy by the fools. And to follow his noble dream to attain his cherished goal, he employs his wisdom tool gained from his own hard core experience in an open school called life.” ~Anuj Somany

"It is your attitude, not your aptitude, that determines your altitude." ~Zig Ziglar

“Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work.” ~Gustave Flaubert

"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

"The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work." ~ Richard Bach

“In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.” ~Leo Tolstoy

"There are few, if any, jobs in which ability alone is sufficient. Needed, also, are loyalty, sincerity, enthusiasm and team play." ~William B. Given, Jr.

“Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Desire! That's the one secret of every man's career. Not education. Not being born with hidden talents. Desire." ~Bobby Unser

"The highest compliment that you can pay me is to say that I work hard every day, that I never dog it." ~Wayne Gretzky

"When people go to work, they shouldn't have to leave their hearts at home.” ~Betty Bender

"Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do." ~Pope John Paul XXIII

"Nobody's a natural. You work hard to get good and then work to get better. It's hard to stay on top." ~Paul Coffey

"One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." ~Elbert Hubbard

“I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life. I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish… You see, it is difficult to get all which I want. And then when I do not succeed I get mad with anger.” ~Simone de Beauvoir

"If you wish to achieve worthwhile things in your personal and career life, you must become a worthwhile person in your own self-development." ~Brian Tracy

"One worthwhile task carried to a successful conclusion is worth half-a-hundred half-finished tasks." ~ Malcolm Forbes

”To find joy in work is to discover the fountain of youth.” ~Pearl S. Buck

"I think everyone should experience defeat at least once during their career. You learn a lot from it." ~Lou Holtz

"The man who does not work for the love of work but only for money is not likely to make money nor find much fun in life." ~Charles Schwab

"Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing." ~Thomas A. Edison

“Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action. ” ~William James

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." ~Mark Twain

"I learned the value of hard work by working hard." ~Margaret Mead

“Your purpose in life is to find your purpose and give your whole heart and soul to it” ~ Gautama Buddha

"Only undertake what you can do in an excellent fashion. There are no prizes for average performance." ~Brian Tracy

"Work harder on yourself than you do on your job." ~Jim Rohn

”When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt.” ~Henry J. Kaiser

“Work without love is slavery.” ~Mother Teresa

"There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there." ~Indira Gandhi

"Wanting to work is so rare a merit that it should be encouraged." ~Abraham Lincoln

"The world is full of willing people, some willing to work, the rest willing to let them." ~Robert Frost

“Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.” ~J.M. Barrie

"Plenty of men can do good work for a spurt and with immediate promotion in mind, but for promotion you want a man in whom good work has become a habit." ~Henry L. Doherty

"No labor, however humble, is dishonoring." ~anonymous

"Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid." ~Oscar Wilde

"Take your work seriously, but never yourself." ~Margot Fonteyn

"People might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get." ~Frederick Douglass

“This is the real secret of life -- to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.” ~Alan Wilson Watts

"Learn how to be happy with what you have while you pursue all that you want." ~Jim Rohn

"In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: They must be fit for it. They must not do too much of it. And they must have a sense of success in it." ~John Ruskin

“If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all.” ~Michelangelo

"Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all you heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours." ~ Dale Carnegie

"So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work." ~Peter Drucker

“Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.” ~Aristotle

"Don't set compensation as a goal. Find work you like, and the compensation will follow." ~Harding Lawrence

"Great work is done by people who are not afraid to be great." ~Fernando Flores

"The test of the artist does not lie in the will with which he goes to work, but in the excellence of the work he produces." ~Thomas Aquinas

"Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself." ~Elbert Hubbard

“Give a bowl of rice to a man and you will feed him for a day. Teach him how to grow his own rice and you will save his life.” ~Confucius

“The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.” ~Emile Zola

"A day of worry is more exhausting than a day of work." ~John Lubbock

“No man needs sympathy because he has to work, because he has a burden to carry. Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” ~Theodore Roosevelt

"You will find men who want to be carried on the shoulders of others, who think that the world owes them a living. They don't seem to see that we must all lift together and pull together." ~Henry Ford

"The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender." ~Vincent Lombardi

“You should not confuse your career with your life.” ~Dave Barry

"The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure is occupation." ~George Bernard Shaw

"If what you're working for really matters, you'll give it all you've got." Nido Qubein

"Do your work with your whole heart, and you will succeed—there’s so little competition." ~Richard Bach

"Never lose sight of the fact that the most important yardstick of your success will be how you treat people - your family, friends, and coworkers, and even strangers you meet along the way." ~ Barbara Bush

"Positive culture comes from being mindful, and respecting your coworkers, and being empathetic." ~Biz Stone

“Motivation comes from working on things we care about. It also comes from working with people we care about.” ~Sheryl Sandberg

"The wisest mind has something yet to learn." ~George Santayana

"Always do your best. Don't stop just because someone doesn't give you credit." ~Mary Rosen

"Sometimes, in order to follow our moral compass and/or our heart, we have to make unpopular decisions or stand up for what we believe in. It can be difficult and even frightening to go against the grain, whether it's a personal disagreement with a friend, partner, or family member or a professional decision that affects coworkers and colleagues." ~Tabatha Coffey

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." ~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"When you have choices, choose the best. When you believe you have no choice, do your best." ~Rosalene Glickman, Ph.D

"Your ability to communicate is an important tool in your pursuit of your goals, whether it is with your family, your co-workers or your clients and customers" ~ Les Brown

"The power of one man or one woman doing the right thing for the right reason, and at the right time, is the greatest influence in our society." ~Jack Kemp

"All motivation is self-motivation. Your family, your boss, or your co-workers can try to get your engine going, but until you decide what to accomplish, nothing will happen." ~Seth Godin

"Stop being who you were and become who you are." ~Paulo Coelho

"Management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things." ~Peter F. Drucker

"Let him who would be moved to convince others, be first moved to convince himself." ~Thomas Carlyle

"Never, "for the sake of peace and quiet," deny your own experience or convictions." ~Dag Hammarskjld

"By honoring feelings, thoughts, and motives, we establish our most rewarding connections." ~Rosalene Glickman, Ph.D

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” ~Douglas Adam

“Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could.” ~Charles J. Sykes

“I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.” ~Jerome K. Jerome

“I always arrive late at the office, but I make up for it by leaving early.” ~Charles Lamb

"Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats." ~ Howard Aiken

“I like to call in sick to work at places where I’ve never held a job. Then when the manager tells me I don’t work there, I tell them I’d like to. But not today, as I’m sick.” ~Jarod Kintz

“We often miss opportunity because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work” ~Thomas A. Edison

“If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be 'meetings.” ~Dave Barry

“The caterpillar does all the work, but the butterfly gets all the publicity.” ~George Carlin

"I've heard that hard work never killed anyone, but I say why take the chance?” ~Ronald Reagan

“Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all.” ~Sam Ewing

"Anyone who can walk to the welfare office can walk to work."~ Al Capp

"Tell your boss what you really think about him, and the truth shall set you free, from your job." ~Anonymous

"The light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off due to budget cuts." ~ Anonymous

"I've got all the money I'll ever need, if I die by four o'clock." ~ Henny Youngman

"Isn't it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do 'practice' ?" ~George Carlin

"I'm in desperate need of a 6 month vacation... twice a year." ~Anonymous

"A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him." ~David Brinkley

"A meeting is an event at which the minutes are kept and the hours are lost." ~ Anonymous

"Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar."~ Drew Carey

"When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: 'Whose?"~ Don Marquis

"I don't work on weekends, or any other day that ends with "Y"." ~ Anonymous

"A glass of beer shortens your life by one minute, a glass of wine by two minutes, and a day of work by seven to ten hours." ~ Anonymous

"They slipped into the gene pool when the lifeguard wasn’t looking." ~Anonymous

"If hard work is the key to success, most people would rather pick the lock." ~ Claude McDonald

"We pretend to work because they pretend to pay us. " ~ Anonymous

"By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day. " ~Robert Frost

"The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one." ~ Oscar Wilde

"Do not underestimate your abilities. That is your boss’s job." ~Anonymous

"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

"For maximum attention, nothing beats a good mistake." ~Anonymous