250 Inspirational Quotes for Work to Empower your Workday

Even those who adore their jobs have bad days. Here are some inspirational quotes for work that will help you get through the day.

Whether you’re missing inspiration in your life or just need a little mompreneur pick-me-up, inspiring sayings can help you get through difficult times. They can also inspire you to take action, stop procrastinating, step outside of your comfort zone and complete the difficult job that has to be done. The perfect quote at the right time can alter your perspective on life.

What are Good Inspirational Quotes for Work?

You can use work quotes to encourage, motivate and inspire your coworkers to succeed. These expressions are frequently included in “work quote of the day” programs.

They are also known as “work sayings” or “work mottos.” Here are some motivating and inspirational success quotes by well-known authors and role models.

Positive Quotes for Work

• “Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” —Warren Buffet
• “Learning is the only thing the mind never exhausts, never fears, and never regrets.” —Leonardo Da Vinci
• “Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.” —William Feather
• “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” —Nelson Mandela
• “Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.” —Richard Branson
• “Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.” —Mark Twain
• “If you quit once it becomes a habit. Never quit!.” —Michael Jordan
• “Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.” —Napoleon Hill
• “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” —Theodore Roosevelt
• “What is delayed is not lost.” —Juliette Drouet

Positive Quotes for the Day

• “Everyday brings new choices.” —Martha Beck
• “The struggle you’re in today is developing the strength you need tomorrow.” —Robert Tew
• “Every day, there are 1,440 minutes. That means we have 1,440 daily opportunities to make a positive impact.” —Les Brown
• “If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.” —Martin Luther King Jr.
• “Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.” —Lyndon B. Johnson
• “Write it. Shoot it. Publish it. Crochet it. Sauté it. Whatever. MAKE.” —Joss Whedon
• “If we have the attitude that it’s going to be a great day it usually is.” —Catherine Pulsifier
• “Everyday may not be good, but there is something good in every day.” —Alice Morse Earle
• “Every morning is a new arrival.” —Rumi
• “Each day provides its own gifts.” —Marcus Aurelius

Motivational Quotes for Working Hard

• “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” —Tim Notke
• “Hard work is an essential element in tracking down and perfecting a strategy or in executing it.” —Charlie Munger
• “Work harder than you think you did yesterday.” —Alex Elle
• “Don’t quit now and live the rest of your life as a champion.” —Muhammad Ali
• “Without hard work and discipline it is difficult to be a top professional.” —Jahangir Khan
• “Perfection asks your time and hard work.” —Vinit Jain
• “Work hard and be authentic. Everything else will fall into place.” —Jessica Matthews
• “Hard work always pays off. Whatever you do.” —Dustin Lynch
• “Learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your job.” —Jim Rohn
• “There is no substitute for hard work.” —Thomas Edison

Inspirational Quotes for Your Work Team

• “If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of it self.” —Henry Ford
• “Teamwork is the secret that makes common people achieve uncommon results.” —Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha
• “Cooperation is the thorough conviction that nobody can get there unless everybody gets there.” —Virginia Burden
• “Success is best when shared.” —Howard Schultz
• “Talent wins games but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.” —Michael Jordan
• “None of us, including me, ever do great things. But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful.” —Mother Teresa
• “A team is not a group of people who work together. A team is a group of people who trust each other.” —Simon Sinek
• “The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” —Phil Jackson
• “A single leaf working alone provides no shade.” —Chuck Page
• “You cannot clap with one hand alone.” —John Taylor Wood

Short Inspirational Quotes

• “Whatever you are, be a good one.” —Abraham Lincoln
• “You are your home.” —Erin Hanson
• “Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.” —Will Rogers
• “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” —Nelson Mandela
• “Breathe. It’s just a bad day, not a bad life.” —Johnny Depp
• “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” —Walt Disney
• “She believed she could, so she did.” —R.S. Grey
• “Do what you do best, delegate the rest.” —Chris Ducker
• “Everything you want is on the other side of fear.” —Jack Canfield
• “It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.” —William Shakespeare

Powerful Motivational Quotes

• “The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” —Michael Altshuler
• “When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.” —Elon Musk
• “Don’t be pushed around by the fears in your mind. Be led by the dreams in your heart.” —Roy T. Bennett
• “Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.” —Martin Luther King Jr.
• “The harder the battle, the sweeter the victory.” —Les Brown
• “Be so good they can’t ignore you.” —Steve Martin
• “You will never be satisfied with anything less than the highest you can attain.” —Apoarve Dubey
• “You want to set a goal that is big enough that that in the process of achieving it you become someone worth becoming.” —Jim Rohn
• “Nothing is impossible. The word itself says ‘I’m possible!’” —Audrey Hepburn
• “If people are doubting how far you can go, go so far that you can’t hear them anymore.” —Michele Ruiz

Daily Motivational Quotes

• “Success is the product of daily habits – not once in a lifetime transformation.” —James Clear
• “You always pass failure on the way to success.” —Mickey Rooney
• “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. And today? Today is a gift. That’s why we call it the present.” —Babatunde Olatunji
• “Success isn’t overnight. It’s when everyday you get a little better than the day before. It all adds up.” —Dwayne Johnson
• “When you have a dream, you’ve got to grab it and never let go.” —Carol Burnett
• “With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.” —Eleanor Roosevelt
• “Life is not about having everything. It’s about finding meaning in everything.” —Jowl Randymar
• “I’ve got nothing to do today but smile.” —Simon and Garfunkel
• “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” —Alan Kay
• “Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.” ―H. Jackson Brown Jr.

Inspirational Quotes

• A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” ―Albert Einstein
• “Don’t waste your time with explanations, people only hear what they want to hear.” ―Paolo Coelho
• “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” ―Nelson Mandela
• “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” ―Helen Keller
• “You must find the place inside yourself where nothing is impossible.” ―Deepak Chopna
• “In a gentle way, you can shake the world.” ―Mahatma Gandhi
• “Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.” ―Oscar Wilde
• “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant.” ―Robert Louis Stevenson
• “The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.” ―Franklin D. Roosevelt
• “There is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.” ―Amanda Gorman

Inspirational New Year Quotes

• “We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity, and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.” ―Edith Lovejoy Pierce
• “Each day is a new beginning, the chance to do with it what should be done and not to be seen as simply another day to put in time.” ―Catherine Pulsifier
• “Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.” ―Oprah Winfrey
• “And every moment is a new and shocking / Valuation of all we have been / And so each venture / Is a new beginning.” ―T.S. Eliot
• “What the new year brings to you will depend a great deal on what you bring to the new year.” ―Vern McLellan
• “You are never to old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” ―C.S. Lewis
• “New day, new start, new you. New Year! It’s never too late to start anew, merely throw out the old and bring in the new.” ―Jean Renee Porter
• “New beginnings are in order, and you are bound to feel some level of excitement as new chances come your way.” ―Oscar Auliq-Ice
• “For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice.” ―T.S. Eliot
• “The best is yet to come.” ―Frank Sinatra

More Inspirational Quotes

• “The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.” ―Arthur C. Clarke
• “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.” —Steve Jobs
• “When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” —Henry Ford
• “In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.” —Bill Cosby
• “Either you run the day or the day runs you.” ―Jim Rohn
• “I never dreamed about success. I worked for it.” ―Estee Lauder
• “What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” —Zig Ziglar
• “If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” —Milton Berle
• “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” —Mark Twain
• “Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Motivational Quotes About Success

• “If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success.” —James Cameron
• “Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out.” —John Wooden
• “Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.” —Benjamin Franklin
• “The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.” —Vince Lombardi
• “The important thing in life is to have a great aim, and the determination to attain it.” —Johan Wolfgang von Goethe
• “Success is not final; failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.” —Winston ChurchHill
• “Success is a state of mind. If you want success, start thinking of yourself as a success.” —Dr. Joyce Brothers
• “Success is a slow process, and quitting does not speed it up.” —Jeffrey Fry
• “The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.” —Benjamin Disraeli
• “To become successful is to recognize every tiny step towards success and then take more of them.” —Larina Kase

Motivational Quotes About Life

• “What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” —Jane Goodall
• “You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.” —Rabindranath Tagore
• “I will not lose, for even in defeat, there’s a valuable lesson learned, so it evens up for me.” —Jay-Z
• “Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.” —Harvey Fierstein
• “Life teaches you a new lesson every day, if you are attentive enough in the class of life.” —Invajy
• “To be the best, you must be able to handle the worst.” —Wilson Kanadi
• “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” —George Bernard Shaw
• “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” —Charles R. Swindoll
• “Not in doing what you like, but in liking what you do is the secret of happiness.” —J.M Barrie
• “The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.” —Dolly Parton

Motivational Quotes for Women

• “She does not know what the future holds, but she is grateful for slow and steady growth.” —Morgan Harper Nichols
• “Strong women don’t have attitudes, we have standards.” —Marilyn Monroe
• “Once you figure out what respect is like, it tastes better than attention.” —Pink
• “The most alluring thing a woman can have is confidence.” —Beyonce
• “There is no limit to what we, as women, can accomplish.” —Michelle Obama
• “Be the woman who fixes another woman’s crown without telling the world it was crooked.” —Amy Morin
• “Where there is a woman, there is magic.” —Ntozake Shange
• “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” —Eleanor Roosevelt
• “A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it’s in hot water.” —Eleanor Roosevelt
• “Women are the real architects of society.” —Cher

Motivational Quotes for Men

• “A man is only as good as his words are.” —Frank Sinatra
• “A great man is hard on himself; a small man is hard on others.” —Confucius
• “The good man is the man who, no matter how morally unworthy he has been, is moving to become better.” —John Dewey
• “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” —Abraham Lincoln
• “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” —Heraclitus
• “Men are like steel. When they lose their temper, they lose their worth.” —Chuck Norris
• “Man is the only animal that refuses to be what he is.” —Albert Camus
• “Man is what he believes.” —Anton Chekhov
• “A wise man changes his mind, a fool never will.” —Icelandic Proverb
• “I think men who can cry are strong men.” —James Frey

Motivational Quotes for Students

• “The man who does not read books has no advantage over the one who cannot read them.”  —Mark Twain
• “The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.” —B.B. King
• “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.” —B.B. King
• “A little progress each day adds up to big results.” —Satya Nani
• “Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” —Henry Ford
• “Never let the fear of striking out stop you from playing the game.” —Babe Ruth
• “Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.” —John Wooden
• “Education is supposed to juice your curiosity, not diminish or sate it.”—Walter Isaacson
• “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” —Benjamin Franklin
• “Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” —Maria Robinson

 Funny Motivational Quotes

• “Whatever you do, always give 100%. Unless you’re donating blood.” —Bill Murray
• “If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in the dark with a mosquito.” —Betty Resse
• “Wisdom comes from experience, experience is often a result of lack of wisdom.” —Terry Pratchett
• “If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.” —Yogi Berra
• “People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.” —A.A. Mine
• “Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” —Charles Dickens
• “The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for.” —Maureen Dowd
• “In a world that wants women to whisper, I choose to yell.”—Luvvie Ajayi
• “It takes less time to do things right than to explain why you did it wrong.” —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• “Even if you’re on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there.” —Will Rogers

Motivational Monday Quotes

• “It’s a Monday morning; a new day and a new morning to start fresh and achieve your goals.” —Invajy
• “New beginnings are available to all of us over fifty times a year; they are called Mondays.” —Bryon Pulsifier
• “Hey, I know it’s Monday. But it’s also a new day and a new week. And in that lies a new opportunity for something special to happen.” —Michael Ely
• “Your Monday morning thoughts set the tone for your whole week. See yourself getting stronger, and living a fulfilling, happier and healthier life.”—Germany Kent
• “So, Monday. We meet again. We will never be friends—but maybe we can move past our mutual enmity towards a more-positive partnership.” —Julio Alexi Genao.
• “Every morning you have two choices: continue to sleep with your dreams or wake up and chase them.” —Carmelo Anthony
• “Sunday morning my head is bad. But it’s worth all the times I had. But I’ve got to go and get some rest. For Monday is a mess.” —Dave Bartholomew
• “Even the best weeks start with Monday.” —Nice Peter
• “Monday morning you sure look fine.” —Lindsey Buckingham
• “This should be the spirit every Monday. Know that something good will always happen.” —Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Friday Motivational Quotes

• “Friday is a day to finish your goals for the week. It is a day to celebrate that which you set out to accomplish at the beginning of the week. Well done.” —Byron Pulsifer
• “It’s Friday morning mankind! Good vibe, don’t frown and let the monster see you smile!” —Napz Cherub Pellazo
• “Happy Friday! Here’s to all of us who made it through another week of faking adulthood.” —Nanea Hoffman
• “Youth is like a long weekend on Friday night. Middle age is like a long weekend on Monday afternoon.” —Richard Nelson Bolles
• “Friday is like a superhero that always arrives just in time to stop me from savagely beating one of my coworkers with a keyboard.” —Rico
• “Every Friday, I like to high five myself for getting through another week on little more than caffeine, will power and inappropriate humor.” —Naner Hoffman
• “Music always sounds better on Friday.” —Lou Brutus
• “Friday sees more smiles than any other day of the workweek!” —Kate Summers
• “Any upward movement for one of us is upward movement for all.” —Octavia Spencer
• “Every day is a gift. But some days are packaged better.” —Sanhita Baruah

Best Motivational Quotes to Start Your Day

• “Write in your heart that every day is the best day in the year.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
• “Remember. Every day, some ordinary person does something extraordinary. Today, it’s your turn.” —Lou Holtz
• “What you do today can improve all your tomorrows.” —Ralph Marston
• “Every morning starts a new page in your story. Make it a great one today.” —Doe Zantamata
• “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” —Confucius
• “An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.” —Henry David Thoreau
• “Start each day with a positive thought and a grateful heart.” —Roy T. Bennett
• “Take every chance you get in life, because some things only happen once.” —Karen Gibbs
• “I hope you realize that every day is a fresh start for you. That every sunrise is a new chapter in your life waiting to be written.” —Juansen Dizon
• “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” —Zig Ziglar

Positive Quotes for Motivation

• “If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.” —Booker T. Washington
• “It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you are not.” —Denis Waitley
• “The starting point of all achievement is desire.” —Napoleon Hill
• “I just want you to know that if you are out there and you are being really hard on yourself right now for something that has happened…it’s normal. That is what is going to happen to you in life. No one gets through unscathed. We are all going to have a few scratches on us. Please be kind to yourselves and stand up for yourself, please.” —Taylor Swift
• “You will never win if you never begin.” —Helen Rowland
• “The important thing in life is to have a great aim, and the determination to attain it.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” —Winston Churchill
• “As we work to create light for others, we naturally light our own way.” —Mary Anne Radmacher
• “You can be everything. You can be the infinite amount of things that people are.” —Kesha
• “Weakness of attitude becomes the weakness of character.” —Albert Einstein

Positive Quotes for Motivation

• “I’ve learned it’s important not to limit yourself. You can do whatever you really love to do, no matter what it is.” —Ryan Gosling
• “You have to work at creating your own culture.” —Mitch Albom
• “Talk about your failures without apologizing.” —Brene Brown
• “Never confuse activity with accomplishment.” —Lori Richardson
• “Hard work keeps the wrinkles out of the mind and spirit.” —Helena Rubinstein
• “If you want to fly, give up everything that weighs you down.” —Buddha
• “Oh yes, the past can hurt. But, you can either run from it or learn from it.” —Rafiki
• “Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them!” —C.J. Walker
• “Any upward movement for one of us is upward movement for all.” —Octavia Spencer
• “The future belongs to the competent. Get good, get better, be the best.” —Brian Tracy

Positive Quotes

• “I know for sure what we dwell on is who we become.” —Oprah Winfrey
• “If you want to do something, you find a way.” —Amber Heard
• “If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought.” —Peace Pilgrim
• “You live with your thoughts – so be careful what they are.” —Eva Arrington
• “End is not the end. In fact, E.N.D. means “Efforts Never Dies.” —Dr. APJ Abdul
• “If you can’t do anything about it, then let it go. Don’t be a prisoner to things you can’t change.” —Tony Gaskins
• “Kindness is a language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” —Mark Twain
• “Spend a little more time trying to make something of yourself and a little less time trying to impress people.” —The Breakfast Club
• “I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear.” —Rosa Parks
• “The sun himself is weak when he first rises, and gathers strength and courage as the day gets on.” —Charles Dickens

Encouraging Quotes

• “You will face many defeats in life, but never let yourself be defeated.” —Maya Angelou
• “If you can dance and be free and not be embarrassed, you can rule the world.” —Amy Poehler
• “I hated every minute of training, but I said – ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’” —Muhammad Ali
• “Hard won things are more valuable than those that come easily.” —Richard Branson
• “Life is ours to be spent, not to be saved.” —D.H. Lawrence
• “If you can choose one characteristic to get you through life, choose a sense of humor.” —Jennifer Jones
• “There is no such thing as no chance.” —Henry Ford
• “Nothing lasts forever. Not even your troubles.” —Arnold Glasglow
• “Life is made of ever so many partings welded together.” —Charles Dickens
• “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” —George Eliot

Quotes About Life

• “Not in doing what you like, but in liking what you do is the secret of happiness.” —J.M. Barrie
• “If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out to it!” —Jonathan Winters
• “Don’t waste your time in anger, regrets, worries, and grudges. Life is too short to be unhappy.” —Roy T. Bennett
• “Be there for others, but never leave yourself behind.” —Dodinsky
• “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” —Confucius
• “Ask yourself if what you’re doing today is getting you closer to where you want to be tomorrow.” —Paulo Coelho
• “We grow through what we go through.” —Dhiman
• “Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on.” —Dale Carnegie
• “In any situation, there is a sacred-solution.” —Lailah Gifty Akita
• “If you fell down yesterday, stand up today.”  —H.G. Wells

Maximize Your Potential With these Inspirational Quotes

Occasionally, we could all use extra motivation. When you’re feeling down, spend a few minutes reading this collection of motivational work quotes. Before you know it, you’ll be back on the right track!

Quotes can make work simpler, offer you more time to concentrate on growing your company, and motivate your team to greatness.

Here is the final inspirational quote to assist you in moving forward.

“Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.” —Elbert Hubbard

This article originally appeared on Hello Sensible.