Are you willing to do whatever it takes to realize your vision? Even more so, are you willing to put in the necessary work to accomplish your goals in life? Most people simply work, but their efforts are neither focused nor intelligent. Instead of pushing their boundaries and striving for maximum efficiency, most are happy with ordinary efforts. They don’t go for the extra mile and have a tendency to give up quickly if challenges arise. If you’re a determined individual willing to strive for greatness, the following hard work quotes are for you. Enjoy reading our selection of inspirational work quotes that help you to push your limits. Be sure to also have a look at our list of the most motivational quotes ever.
Perseverance, effort, determination – they all describe characteristics of hard work. But working hard is not enough. Never mistake busyness for productivity. If you are busy, it means you’re doing stuff. If you’re productive, it means you’re getting stuff done. And that’s a big difference that can make or break you.
“Success travels in the company of very hard work. There is no trick, no easy way.”
John Wooden
The key ingredients to hard work are efficiency and intelligence. It’s not enough to work hard for the dreams you believe in. Putting in an exceptionally great deal of effort into a project is not enough either. What is needed is the laser-like focus to choose the right path and the diligence to see things through even when difficulties arise.
Enjoy this collection of hard work quotes that will help you to reach for the stars
During the pursuit of your dreams, there will be days when you struggle. These are the days that are filled with moments of doubt, hardships, and unwelcome challenges. It can be quite tough during these days to give your all to keep pushing ahead. That’s where inspirational quotes about hard work come in handy. These are exactly the motivational boosts that will help you to keep going when the going gets tough.
160 Inspirational Hard Work Quotes
Make no mistake, there will be moments of intense struggle throughout your journey. Most of these difficulties cannot be avoided. For this reason, it’s important to plan ahead and to have something at your side that helps you to maintain maximum efficiency and a high level of endurance. The following hard work quotes come from extraordinarily successful individuals who know what it means to put in a great deal of effort. As such, these people have found ways to keep their motivation at a high level in order to reach their ambitious goals. If you’re looking for some inspiration that helps you to keep working hard, the following quotes about work are just the right thing for you.
To give you a better overview, we’ve created the following categories:
- Hard work quotes
- Inspirational quotes for work
- Motivational quotes for work
- Positive quotes for work
- Funny work quotes
If you want even more quotes, have a look at our inspirational business quotes.
Here’s our collection of hard work quotes
1.
“Hard work beats talent, when talent doesn’t work hard.”
Tim Notke
2.
“No matter how hard you work, someone else is working harder.”
Elon Musk
3.
“It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.”
George Herman Ruth
4.
“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
5.
“It’s not about money or connections it’s the willingness to outwork and outlearn everyone.”
Mark Cuban
6.
“Overcoming fear is the first step to success for entrepreneurs. The winners all exemplify that, and the hard work and commitment they have shown underline what is needed to set up a business.”
Richard Branson
7.
“Don’t wish it were easier. Wish you were better.”
Jim Rohn
8.
“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.”
Beverly Sills
9.
“There’s no talent here, this is hard work. This is an obsession. Talent does not exist, we are all equals as human beings. You could be anyone if you put in the time. You will reach the top, and that’s that. I am not talented. I am obsessed.”
Conor McGregor
10.
“A quitter never wins and a winner never quits.”
Napoleon Hill
Can’t get enough of quotes about hard work? Read on…
11.
“The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense.”
Thomas A. Edison
12.
“If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all.”
Michelangelo Buonarroti
13.
“I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it”
Thomas Jefferson
14.
“Talent means nothing, while experience, acquired in humility and with hard work, means everything.”
Patrick Süskind
15.
“The sweet smell of success comes on the back of the stench of hard earned sweat.”
Anthony T.Hincks
16.
“Victory only comes through wear and tear.”
E.A. Bucchianeri
17.
“Work hard, be kind, and amazing things will happen”
Conan O’Brien
18.
“Without labor nothing prospers”
Sophocles
19.
“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work”
Stephen King
20.
“Without hustle, talent will only carry you so far”
Gary Vaynerchuk
21.
“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
22.
“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure”
Colin Powell
23.
“Make each day your masterpiece”
John Wooden
24.
“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.”
Theodore Roosevelt
25.
“The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.”
Jimmy Johnson
26.
“Inspiration is the windfall from hard work and focus. Muses are too unreliable to keep on the payroll.”
Helen Hanson
27.
“Your friends will believe in your potential, your enemies will make you live up to it.”
Tim Fargo
28.
“It’s not about working hard. It’s about what we’re working hard about.”
Craig D. Lounsbrough
29.
“Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost.”
Helen Keller
30.
“It is wonderful how much may be done, if we are always doing.”
Thomas Jefferson
Hard work quotes like this really hit home
31.
“Winners embrace hard work. And that’s the difference”
Lou Holtz
32.
“If you can’t outplay them, outwork them”
Ben Hogan
33.
“Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven’t planted”
David Bly
34.
“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
35.
“Success at anything will always come down to this: Focus and effort, and we control both”
Dwayne Johnson
36.
“I know the price of success: dedication, hard work and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen”
Frank Lloyd Wright
37.
“Hard work betrays none”
Hachiman Hikigaya
38.
“We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort.”
William James
39.
“Hard work without talent is a shame, but talent without hard work is a tragedy”
Robert Half
40.
“Excellence is not luck; it is the result of a lot of hard work and practice. Hard work and practice make a person better at whatever he is doing.”
Shiv Khera
41.
“Hard work is a prison only if it does not have meaning”
Malcolm Gladwell
42.
“Sometimes the greatest thing to come out of all your hard work isn’t what you get for it, but what you become for it.”
Steve Maraboli
43.
“Things made by effort are more real than things made by wishing.”
Katherine Arden
44.
“Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.”
Newt Gingrich
45.
“I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe”
Margaret Thatcher
46.
“When you live for a strong purpose, then hard work isn’t an option. It’s a necessity.”
Steve Pavlina
47.
“If you really want something, and really work hard, and take advantage of opportunities, and never give up, you will find a way”
Jane Goodall
48.
“Luck is great, but most of life is hard work”
Iain Duncan Smith
49.
“If you care about what you do and work hard at it, there isn’t anything you can’t do if you want to”
Jim Henson
50.
“I certainly am not afraid of hard work. Hard work is only hard if you are not passionate about what you are doing”
James Scott
These hard work quotes are brimming with great advice
51.
“Be prepared, work hard, and hope for a little luck. Recognize that the harder you work and the better prepared you are, the more luck you might have”
Ed Bradley
52.
“I think that my biggest attribute to any success that I have had is hard work. There really is no substitute for working hard”
Maria Bartiromo
53.
“Leaders aren’t born they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal”
Vince Lombardi
54.
“I learned the value of hard work by working hard”
Margaret Mead
55.
“Success is three parts hard work and one part serendipity”
Ken Poirot
56.
“Do not whine… Do not complain. Work harder”
Joan Didion
57.
“If you try and lose then it isn’t your fault. But if you don’t try and we lose, then it’s all your fault.”
Orson Scott Card
58.
“All the effort in the world won’t matter if you’re not inspired.”
Chuck Palahniuk
59.
“Inspiration is the windfall from hard work and focus”
Helen Hanson
60.
“We live in the kind of society where, in almost all cases, hard work is rewarded”
Neil deGrasse Tyson
61.
“I was determined to be the best football player I could be on the football field and I think I was able to accomplish that through hard work”
Jerry Rice
62.
“Walls don’t fall without effort.”
Neal Shusterman
63.
“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them”
Walt Disney
64.
“Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goals: my strength lies solely in my tenacity”
Louis Pasteur
65.
“To achieve what 1% of the world’s population has, you must be willing to do what only 1% dare to do… hard work and perseverance of the highest order.”
Manoj Arora
66.
“Only super-efforts count.”
G.I. Gurdjieff
67.
“There seems to be nothing that relieves anxiety state but hard outdoor exercise and useful work. Hard work is wonderful medicine.”
Blake F. Donaldson
68.
“Usually what people call talent is simply hard work. Talent cannot function without nurturing. Nurturing is hard work. So work hard. Work smartly. Improve your talent”
Martin Rutere
69.
“You can keep moving forward. I will not lie to you. I cannot predict what may become of you. It will require a lot of training, hard work, study, and danger. But in the very end, you will know strength. I swear it. You might just become someone who will make a difference in the world.”
Wesley Chu
70.
“Perseverance is the act of true role models and heroes.”
Liza Wiemer
71.
“Hard work makes you feel good because you have accomplished something.”
Alcurtis Turner
72.
“Hard work eventually solves all problems, but to solve problems quickly you need intelligence.”
Amit Kalantri
73.
“Nothing worth doing is easy. Especially not in the beginning. But I’m not about to give up.”
Morgan Matson
74.
“There is no substitute for hard work.”
Albert Einstein
75.
“Eventually, you get tired of seeing mediocre talent succeed, so you work as hard as they do.”
Darnell Lamont Walker
76.
“Hard work isn’t a punishment; it’s a gift.”
Frank Sonnenberg
77.
“There is no shortcut for hard work that leads to effectiveness. You must stay disciplined because most of the work is behind the scenes.”
Germany Kent
78.
“It is always the start that requires the greatest effort.”
James Cash Penney
79.
“Impatience destroys at least 98% of hard work’s potential.”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
80.
“Just hold onto your faith and always be willing to put in the hard work on your own.”
Cliff Hannold
These hard work quotes help you to keep pushing ahead
81.
“Work hard, put maximum effort, and have a good attitude. Most importantly never give up.”
Ana Monnar
82.
“Good fortune is multiplied by our effort, not added to it. If your effort is zero and you multiply it, the outcome is still zero. In the end, you’ve gained nothing.”
Suh Yoon Lee
83.
“The reward of work is to have produced it; the reward of effort is to have grown by it.”
Antonin Sertillanges
84.
“Confidence is what happens when you’ve done the hard work that entitles you to succeed.”
Pat Summitt
85.
“To rank the effort above the prize may be called love.”
Confucius
86.
“Determination, effort, and practice are rewarded with success.”
Mary Lydon Simonsen
87.
“A difficult life spent in hard-work, perseverance, and courage will pave the way for a life of true greatness!”
Avijeet Das
88.
“It is real hard work that will release your potential.”
Sunday Adelaja
89.
“While real sacrifice is committed to the result, it relishes the effort”
Craig D. Lounsbrough
90.
“Endless stairs require endless effort!”
Mehmet Murat Ildan
91.
“Effort is the only variable you have total control of.”
Ben Tolosa
92.
“Part-time effort means part-time results.”
Tony Curl
93.
“Genius is 10% talent and 90% hard work”
Sesan Kareem
94.
“The distance between your dreams and reality is inversely proportional to your efforts.”
Vineet Raj Kapoor
95.
“Action without intent is a waste of effort.”
Ibn Jeem
96.
“It’s about effort. And when you bring that effort every single day, that’s where transformation happens. That’s how change occurs.”
Jillian Michaels
97.
“No mistakes means you are not trying. Make the effort.”
Jeffrey G. Duarte
98.
“Destiny is for losers. It’s just a stupid excuse to wait for things to happen instead of making them happen.”
Blair Waldorf
99.
“One must work and dare if one really wants to live. ”
Vincent van Gogh
100.
“If you’re changing the world, you’re working on important things, you’re excited to get up in the morning.”
Larry Page
Inspirational quotes for work
101.
“Get going. Move forward. Aim High. Plan a takeoff. Don’t just sit on the runway and hope someone will come along and push the airplane. It simply won’t happen. Change your attitude and gain some altitude. Believe me, you’ll love it up here.”
Donald Trump
102.
“No work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
103.
“Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
Mark Twain
104.
“If you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires. (151)”
Malcolm Gladwell
105.
“Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.”
Aristotle
106.
“Earning happiness means doing good and working, not speculating and being lazy. Laziness may look inviting, but only work gives you true satisfaction.”
Anne Frank
107.
“Work is a blessing. God has so arranged the world that work is necessary, and He gives us hands and strength to do it. The enjoyment of leisure would be nothing if we had only leisure. It is the joy of work well done that enables us to enjoy rest, just as it is the experiences of hunger and thirst that make food and drink such pleasures.”
Elisabeth Elliot
108.
“Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it.”
Madeleine L’Engle
109.
“All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.”
Calvin Coolidge
110.
“Be concerned with doing good work and make the right choices and protect your work. And if you build a good name, eventually, that name will be its own currency.” – William S. Burroughs”
William S. Burroughs
111.
“I’m really very self-confident when it comes to my work. When I take on a project, I believe in it 100%. I really put my soul into it. I’d die for it. That’s how I am.”
Michael Jackson
112.
“When given an opportunity, deliver excellence and never quit.”
Robert Rodriguez
113.
“God sells us all things at the price of labor.”
Leonardo da Vinci
114.
“If you invest nothing, the reward is worth little.”
Richelle E. Goodrich
115.
“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
116.
“Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action. „
William James
117.
“I like what is in the work the chance to find yourself.”
Joseph Conrad
Motivational quotes for work
118.
“Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.”
Pele
119.
“The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person’s determination.”
Tommy Lasorda
120.
“Do not whine… Do not complain. Work harder.”
Joan Didion
121.
“The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.”
Émile Zola
122.
“It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste”
Henry Ford
123.
“If you care about what you do and work hard at it, there isn’t anything you can’t do if you want to.”
Jim Henson
124.
“All work is creative work if done by a thinking mind, and no work is creative if done by a blank who repeats in uncritical stupor a routine he has learned from others.”
Ayn Rand
125.
“Work is when you confront the problems you might otherwise be tempted to run away from”
Rolf Potts
126.
“Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning. Once it does, it becomes the kind of thing that makes you grab your wife around the waist and dance a jig.”
Malcolm Gladwell
127.
“I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?”
Marcus Aurelius
128.
“If I have a handful of silver it is because I work and my wife works, and we do not, as some do, sit idling over a gambling table or gossiping on doorsteps never swept, letting the fields grow to weeds and our children go half-fed!”
Pearl S. Buck
129.
“Those at the top of the mountain didn’t fall there.”
Marcus Washling
130.
“If your dream is a big dream, and if you want your life to work on the high level that you say you do, there’s no way around doing the work it takes to get you there.”
Joyce Chapman
131.
“We must work together on a common vision and a common goal.”
Lailah Gifty Akita
132.
“Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation.”
Alasdair Gray
133.
“Life has no bargains. Everything that you get that’s worthy of having had a price upon it.”
Napoleon Hill
134.
“The difference between greed and ambition is a greedy person desires things he isn’t prepared to work for.”
Habeeb Akande
Positive quotes for work
135.
“Work like you don’t need the money. Dance like no one is watching. And love like you’ve never been hurt.”
Mark Twain
136.
“It was good work, the kind of work that let you sleep soundly at night and, when you awoke, look forward to the day.”
Jeannette Walls
137.
“All happiness depends on courage and work.”
Honoré de Balzac
138.
“Don’t mistake activity with achievement.”
John Wooden
139.
“Even though your time on the job is temporary, if you do a good enough job, your work there will last forever.”
Idowu Koyenikan
140.
“Work and you’ll get what you need; work harder and you’ll get what you want.”
Prabakaran Thirumalai
141.
“Plan your work for today and every day, then work your plan”
Margaret Thatcher
142.
“That’s when I first learned that it wasn’t enough to just do your job, you had to have an interest in it, even a passion for it.”
Charles Bukowski
143.
“Elite runners are genetically gifted, sure, but without intense training, those gifts are wasted. Their training creates a strong work ethic that leaves humility in its wake. There are no shortcuts in marathoning, so anyone who is a marathoner has worked hard.”
Jeff Horowitz
144.
“Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work.”
Gustave Flaubert
145.
“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 Watts
146.
“Be regular and orderly in your life like a bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”
Gustave Flaubert
Funny work quotes
147.
“I’ve heard that hard work never killed anyone, but I say why take the chance?”
Ronald Reagan
148.
“When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: ‘Whose?”
Don Marquis
149.
“Opportunity is missed by most because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
Thomas Edison
150.
“Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could.”
Charles J. Sykes
151.
“I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.”
Jerome K. Jerome
152.
“Without hard work, nothing grows but weeds.”
Gordon B. Hinckley
153.
“These days no one challenges us,’ he said. ‘And because there is no challenge, there is no reason to work hard. And with no reason to work hard, we have all become lazy.”
Tahir Shah
154.
“I always arrive late at the office, but I make up for it by leaving early.”
Charles Lamb
155.
“It takes many years to become an overnight success.”
Frank Sonnenberg
156.
“When you play, play hard; when you work, don’t play at all.”
Theodore Roosevelt
157.
“I’m lazy! I hate work! Hate hard work in all its forms! Clever shortcuts, that’s all I’m about!”
Eliezer Yudkowsky
158.
“Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth’s surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first one is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid.”
Bertrand Russell
159.
“I am a great believer in Luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have.”
Coleman Cox
160.
“Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.”
J.M. Barrie
161.
“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”
Douglas Adams
I hope you enjoyed this collection of motivational work quotes. What inspires you to go the extra mile every day?
Stay victorious!
