210 Inspirational Quotes for Work to Keep You Motivated

We all need a little extra motivation sometimes. This is especially true when you’re in a management position.

You have dozens of responsibilities to handle, from hiring and scheduling employees to doing inventory and accounting. Having all of these tasks to worry about isn’t always conducive to feeling motivated.

That’s why we’ve compiled this list of the best inspirational quotes for work. These quotes will keep you focused and give you the extra boost you need to make it through the tough days.

Table of contents

• Inspirational quotes for work
• Inspirational quotes for work about perseverance
• Inspirational quotes for work about goals
• Inspirational quotes for work about change
• Inspirational quotes for work about failure
• Inspirational quotes for work about excellence
• Inspirational quotes for work about motivation
• Inspirational quotes for work about hard work
• Inspirational quotes for work about positivity
• Bonus inspirational quotes for work

Inspirational quotes for work

We’ve chosen some of the best inspirational quotes for work and put them into several different categories: perseverance, goals, change, failure, and more. Each of these topics has valuable lessons to offer any manager.

Inspirational quotes for work about perseverance

1) “If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.” —Steve Jobs

2) “Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.” —Ella Fitzgerald

3) “The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” —Ayn Rand

4) “Never allow a person to tell you no, who doesn’t have the power to say yes.” —Eleanor Roosevelt

5) “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” —Henry Ford

6) “My attitude is that if you push me towards something that you think is a weakness, then I will turn that perceived weakness into a strength.” —Michael Jordan

7) “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win.” —Mahatma Gandhi

8) “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

9) “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.” —Edson Arantes do Nascimento (Pelé)

10) “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” —Wayne Gretzky

11) “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” —Albert Einstein

12) “It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.” —Confucius

13) “Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald

14) “Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.” —Newt Gingrich

15) “Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th.” —Julie Andrews

16) “Through perseverance, many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure.” —Benjamin Disraeli

17) “Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.” —William Feather

18) “We will either find a way or make one.” —Hannibal

19) “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” —Nelson Mandela

20) “The best way out is always through.” —Robert Frost

21) “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” —Robert Collier

22) “With ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable.” —Thomas Fowell Buxton

23) “Victory is always possible for the person who refuses to stop fighting.” —Napoleon Hill

24) “A river cuts through a rock not because of its power, but its persistence.” —Jim Watkins

25) “We can do anything we want to do if we stick to it long enough.” —Helen Keller

Inspirational quotes for work about goals

26) “I don’t focus on what I’m up against. I focus on my goals and I try to ignore the rest.” —Venus Williams

27) “The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.“ —Confucius

28) “If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.” —Dalai Lama

29) “The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.” —Vince Lombardi

30) “Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.” —Abraham Lincoln

31) “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” —John Quincy Adams

32) “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” —Thomas Edison

33) “One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals.” —Michelle Obama

34) “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” —C.S. Lewis

35) “All who have accomplished great things have had a great aim, have fixed their gaze on a goal which was high, one which sometimes seemed impossible.” —Orison Swett Marden

36) “Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal.” —Earl Nightingale

37) “You have to set goals that are almost out of reach. If you set a goal that is attainable without much work or thought, you are stuck with something below your true talent and potential.” —Steve Garvey

38) “By recording your dreams and goals on paper, you set in motion the process of becoming the person you most want to be. Put your future in good hands—your own.” —Mark Victor Hansen

39) “All successful people have a goal. No one can get anywhere unless he knows where he wants to go and what he wants to be or do. ” —Norman Vincent Peale

40) “Goals. There’s no telling what you can do when you get inspired by them. There’s no telling what you can do when you believe in them. And there’s no telling what will happen when you act upon them.” —Jim Rohn

41) “A goal properly set is halfway reached.” —Zig Ziglar

42) “Goals should never be easy. They should force you to work, even if they are uncomfortable at the time.” —Michael Phelps

43) “It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goals to reach.” —Benjamin E. Mays

44) “The thing about goals is that living without them is a lot more fun, in the short run. It seems to me, though, that the people who get things done, who lead, who grow and who make an impact… those people have goals.” —Seth Godin

45) “The great danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.” –-Michelangelo

46) “Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.” –-Henry Ford

47) “A goal should scare you a little and excite you a lot.” –-Joe Vitale

48) “The student has goals. The master has systems to reach her goals.” —Maxime Legace

49) “One day or day one. You decide.” —Paulo Coelho

50) “What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” —Henry David Thoreau

Inspirational quotes for work about change

51) “Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.” —Lyndon Johnson

52) “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” —Charles Darwin

53) “If something is wrong, fix it now. But train yourself not to worry, worry fixes nothing.” —Ernest Hemingway

54) “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.“ —Pablo Picasso

55) “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” —Anne Frank

56) “When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.” —Helen Keller

57) “Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games.” —Babe Ruth

58) “Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.” —Martin Luther King, Jr.

59) “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” —Mahatma Gandhi

60) “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” —John F. Kennedy

61) “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” —Maya Angelou

62) “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” —Barack Obama

63) “The world is changing very fast. Big will not beat small anymore. It will be the fast beating the slow.” —Rupert Murdoch

64) “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing [themself].” —Leo Tolstoy

65) “Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.” —Frank Herbert

66) “All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.” —Ellen Glasgow

67) “It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird — it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.” —C. S. Lewis

68) “Change your opinions, keep to your principles. Change your leaves, keep your roots intact.” —Victor Hugo

69) “You’re only as young as the last time you changed your mind.” —Timothy Leary

70) “What’s dangerous is not to evolve.” —Jeff Bezos

71) “The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions.” —James Russell Lowell

72) “Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.” —Confucius

73) “Ignorance is always afraid of change.” —Jawaharlal Nehru

74) “Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.” —John D. Rockefeller

75) “The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.” —Oprah Winfrey

Inspirational quotes for work about failure

76) “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” —Winston Churchill

77) “We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.” —Maya Angelou

78) “Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.” —Harper Lee

79) “I didn’t fail the test. I just found 100 ways to do it wrong.” —Benjamin Franklin

80) “Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.” —Truman Capote

81) “Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.” —Voltaire

82) “Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” —Albert Einstein

83) “Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire.” —Oprah Winfrey

84) “Fall seven times and stand up eight.” —Japanese Proverb

85) “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” —Thomas Edison

86) “Failure is the only opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” —Henry Ford

87) “A failure is not always a mistake. It may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.” —B.F. Skinner

88) “Failure is often that early morning hour of darkness which precedes the dawning of the day of success.” —Leigh Mitchell Hodges

89) “A winner is just a loser who tried one more time.” —George M. Moore Jr.

90) “Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure.” —George Edward Woodberry

91) “Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.” —Babe Ruth

92) “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.” —Winston Churchill

93) “Ask yourself this question: ‘Will this matter a year from now?’” —Richard Carlson

94) “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” —Ken Robinson

95) “Failure is the key to success; each mistake teaches us something.” —Morihei Ueshiba

96) “Failure is a bruise, not a tattoo.” —Jon Sinclair

97) “Don’t think of it as failure. Think of it as time-released success.” —Robert Orben

98) “A minute’s success pays the failure of years.” —Robert Browning

99) “Failure is success in progress.” —Albert Einstein

100) “Failure defeats losers, but it inspires winners.” —Robert T. Kiyosaki

Inspirational quotes for work about excellence

101) “What if I told you that 10 years from now, your life would be exactly the same? I doubt you’d be happy. So, why are you so afraid of change?” —Karen Salmansohn

102) “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’” —Mary Anne Radmacher

103) “I was taught that the way of progress is neither swift nor easy.” —Marie Curie

104) “Let me tell you the secret that has led to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity.” —Louis Pasteur

105) “The only courage that matters is the kind that gets you from one moment to the next.” —Mignon McLaughlin

106) “Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other.” —Walter Elliot

107) “Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.” —James A. Michener

108) “Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don’t have the strength.” —Theodore Roosevelt

109) “I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.” —Abraham Lincoln

110) “When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you…never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” —Harriet Beecher Stowe

111) “Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.” —Dale Carnegie

112) “As I look back on my life, I realize that every time I thought I was being rejected from something good, I was actually being redirected to something better.” —Dr. Steve Maraboli

113) “Ask yourself this question: ‘Will this matter a year from now?’” —Richard Carlson

114) “A bend in the road is not the end of the road…unless you fail to make the turn.” —Helen Keller

115) “It’s always too soon to quit!” —Norman Vincent Peale

116) “The only guarantee for failure is to stop trying.” —John C. Maxwell

117) “We cannot solve problems with the kind of thinking we employed when we came up with them.” —Albert Einstein

118) “Learn as if you will live forever. Live like you will die tomorrow.” —Mahatma Gandhi

119) “Stay away from those people who try to disparage your ambitions. Small minds will always do that, but great minds will give you a feeling that you can become great too.” —Mark Twain

120) “When you give joy to other people, you get more joy in return. You should give a good thought to happiness that you can give out.” —Eleanor Roosevelt

121) “When you change your thoughts, remember to also change your world.” —Norman Vincent Peale

122) “It is only when we take chances that our lives improve. The initial and the most difficult risk that we need to take is to become honest.” —Walter Anderson

123) “Nature has given us all the pieces required to achieve exceptional wellness and health, but has left it to us to put these pieces together.” —Diane McLaren

124) “The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.” —Winston Churchill

125) “Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.” —Will Rogers

Inspirational quotes for work about motivation

126) “Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.” —Lou Holtz

127) “Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards.” ―Vernon Sanders Law

128) “To know how much there is to know is the beginning of learning to live.” —Dorothy West

129) “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.” —Steve Jobs

130) “Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.” —Alexander Graham Bell

131) “Progress has little to do with speed, but much to do with direction.” —Unknown

132) “Failure is not the opposite of success: it’s part of success.” —Arianna Huffington

133) “If your dreams don’t scare you, they are too small.” —Richard Branson

134) “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” —Theodore Roosevelt

135) “Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.” —Henry Ford

136) “The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.” —Jimmy Johnson

137) “What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

138) “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” —George Bernard Shaw

139) “You learn more from failure than from success. Don’t let it stop you. Failure builds character.” —Unknown

140) “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” —Henry David Thoreau

141) “People who wonder if the glass is half empty or half full miss the point. The glass is refillable.” —Unknown

142) “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” —Aristotle

143) “Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those doing it.” —Chinese proverb

144) “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing; that’s why we recommend it daily.” —Zig Ziglar

145) “The best revenge is massive success.” —Frank Sinatra

146) “You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction.” —George Lorimer

147) “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.” —Amelia Earhart

148) “If you can’t yet do great things, do small things in a great way.” ―Napoleon Hill

149) “Do not wait for the perfect time and place to enter, for you are already onstage.” —Unknown

150) “If the decisions you make about where you invest your blood, sweat, and tears are not consistent with the person you aspire to be, you’ll never become that person.” ―Clayton M. Christensen

Inspirational quotes for work about hard work

151) “Work hard and be kind and amazing things will happen.” —Conan O’Brien

152) “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” —Tim Notke

153) “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” —Colin Powell

154) “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

155) “Nothing will work unless you do.” —Maya Angelou

156) “Work hard in silence, let your success be your noise.” —Frank Ocean

157) “Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress. Working hard for something we love is called passion.” —Simon Sinek

158) “The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.” ―Arthur C. Clarke

159) “When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” —Henry Ford

160) “Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.” —Vince Lombardi

161) “Get a good idea and stay with it. Dog it, and work at it until it’s done right.” —Walt Disney

162) “You can have results or excuses. Not both.” —Arnold Schwarzenegger

163) “Always deliver more than expected.” —Larry Page

164) “You can do anything, but not everything. Prioritize better.” —David Allen

165) “Eighty percent of success is showing up.’” —Woody Allen

166) “You must want to be a butterfly so badly, you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.” —Trina Paulus

167) “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” —Maya Angelou

168) “Self-esteem comes from achieving something important when it’s hard to do.” —Clayton M. Christensen

169) “Challenges are what makes life interesting. Overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” —Joshua J. Marine

170) “Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.” —Oprah Winfrey

171) “Don’t count the days, make the days count.” —Muhammad Ali

172) “I see the invisible. I believe the incredible. I attempt the impossible.” —Robert Schuller

173) “If plan ‘A’ doesn’t work, the alphabet has 25 more letters – 204 if you’re in Japan.” —Claire Cook

174) “If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one” —Dolly Parton

175) “Tough times never last, but tough people do.” —Robert Schuller

Inspirational quotes for work about positivity

176) “Every exit is an entry somewhere else.” —Tom Stoppard

177) “If you look for perfection, you will never be content.” —Leo Tolstoy

178) “Dream big and dare to fail.” —Norman Vaughan

179) “You were born to win, but to be a winner you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.” —Zig Ziglar

180) “It’s always the hard part that creates value.” —Seth Godin

181) “Success is my only option, failure’s not.” —Eminem

182) “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work”. —Stephen King

183) “When I hear somebody sigh, ‘Life is hard,’ I am always tempted to ask, “Compared to what?” —Sydney Harris

184) “We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.” —Marie Curie

185) “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” —Albert Einstein

186) “If you want to succeed, you should strike out on new paths rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.” —John Rockefeller

187) “Live life as if everything is rigged in your favor.” —Rumi

188) “If you hear a voice within you, say, ‘You cannot paint,’ then by all means, paint, and that voice will be silenced.” —Vincent Van Gogh

189) “Be so good they can’t ignore you.” —Steve Martin

190) “Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt 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

191) “If you don’t build your dream, someone else will hire you to help them build theirs.” — Dhirubhai Ambani

192) “Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you’re going to do now and do it.” —William Durant

193) “In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me, there lay an invincible summer.” —Albert Camus

194) “When you innovate, you’ve got to be prepared for everyone telling you you’re nuts.” —Larry Ellison

195) “Timing, perseverance, and ten years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success.” —Biz Stone

196) “The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.” —Stephen McCranie

197) “I wake up every morning and think to myself, ‘How far can I push this company in the next 24 hours?’” —Leah Busque

198) “If people are doubting how far you can go, go so far that you can’t hear them anymore.” —Michele Ruiz

199) “If we have the attitude that it’s going to be a great day it usually is.” —Catherine Pulsifer

200) “Impossible is just an opinion.” —Paulo Coelho

Bonus inspirational quotes for work

201) “Your passion is waiting for your courage to catch up.” —Isabelle Lafleche

202) “Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.” —John D. Rockefeller

203) “One day or day one. You decide.” —Anonymous

204) “Greatness only comes before hustle in the dictionary.” —Ross Simmonds

205) “If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on.” —Sheryl Sandberg

206) “The hard days are what make you stronger.” —Aly Raisman

207) “If you believe it’ll work out, you’ll see opportunities. If you don’t believe it’ll work out, you’ll see obstacles.” —Wayne Dyer

208) “You can waste your lives drawing lines. Or you can live your life crossing them.” —Shonda Rhimes

209) “You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction.” —George Lorimer

210) “If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” —Kurt Cobain

The bottom line

Work isn’t always easy because it’s, well, work. It’s important to remember that everyone struggles, everyone fails, and we all lose motivation sometimes.

That’s why these 210 inspirational quotes for work are good to know. They’re quotes from people who’ve accomplished magnificent things in their lives but, at one point or another, were down and out. Never forget that!

Tools that inspire your team to greatness

We all need a little extra inspiration now and then. This is especially true when you’re a busy manager and you feel like you’re overwhelmed with responsibilities like hiring, scheduling, inventory, accounting, and everything else.

When you feel defeated, take a few minutes to read through this list of inspirational quotes for work and then get back on the road to success.

The Sling app can help. Sling streamlines scheduling, team communication, time-tracking, payroll, and all things workforce management so you can stay focused on building your business.

It may just be the solution you need to simplify your work life, give you more time to focus on building your business, and inspire your team to greatness.

Finally, we’d like to close with one last quote to help you keep perspective during a tough time:

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

For more free resources to help you manage your business better, organize and schedule your team, and track and calculate labor costs, visit GetSling.com today.

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