It’s so easy to lose sight of what truly motivates us. You could be climbing the corporate ladder, building a business, managing a team, or just starting out in your career, sometimes all it takes is the right quote to shift your mindset and fuel your ambition.
Quotes have the power to spark inspiration, boost morale, and reconnect us with our purpose. They remind employees of their worth, encourage leaders to lead with empathy, and help anyone facing a tough workday feel a little less alone.
These words of wisdom are perfect for sharing with your team, posting on social media, or simply keeping close as a source of daily inspiration.
- “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” – Confucius
- “Opportunities don’t happen. You create them.” – Chris Grosser
- “It’s not what you achieve, it’s what you overcome. That’s what defines your career.” – Carlton Fisk
- “Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.” – George S. Patton
- “Work to become, not to acquire.” – Elbert Hubbard
- “Dreams are extremely important. You can’t do it unless you imagine it.” – George Lucas
- “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” – Arthur Ashe
- “Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.” – John D. Rockefeller
- “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life… do what you believe is great work.” – Steve Jobs
- “Find out what you like doing best, and get someone to pay you for doing it.” – Katharine Whitehorn
- “Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.” – Aristotle
- “Work hard in silence, let your success be your noise.” – Frank Ocean
- “When you feel like quitting, think about why you started.” – Unknown
- “A job isn’t just a job. It’s your story in the making.” – Unknown
- “Happiness is not in money, but in shopping. Just kidding. It’s in loving your job.” – Unknown
- “Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” – Henry David Thoreau
- “The future depends on what you do today.” – Mahatma Gandhi
- “You are not your resume, you are your work.” – Seth Godin
- “Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.” – Sam Levenson
- “Action is the foundational key to all success.” – Pablo Picasso
- “To win in the marketplace, you must first win in the workplace.” – Doug Conant
- “Clients do not come first. Employees come first.” – Richard Branson
- “Employees who believe that management is concerned about them as a whole person are more productive.” – Anne M. Mulcahy
- “Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don’t want to.” – Richard Branson
- “Your number one customers are your people. Look after employees first and then customers last.” – Ian Hutchinson
- “A company is only as good as the people it keeps.” – Mary Kay Ash
- “Motivated employees are the greatest asset of any company.” – Unknown
- “The way your employees feel is the way your customers will feel.” – Sybil F. Stershic
- “Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.” – Voltaire
- “When people are financially invested, they want a return. When they are emotionally invested, they want to contribute.” – Simon Sinek
- “The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.” – Vidal Sassoon
- “Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” – Albert Einstein
- “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” – Samuel Goldwyn
- “Success isn’t about how much money you make. It’s about the difference you make in people’s lives.” – Michelle Obama
- “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Mark Twain
- “Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Growth and comfort do not coexist.” – Ginni Rometty
- “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” – Zig Ziglar
- “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” – Colin Powell
- “Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.” – Maya Angelou
- “Leadership is not about being in charge. It’s about taking care of those in your charge.” – Simon Sinek
- “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” – Henry Ford
- “None of us is as smart as all of us.” – Ken Blanchard
- “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” – John C. Maxwell
- “The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” – Phil Jackson
- “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” – Michael Jordan
- “Good teams incorporate teamwork into their culture, creating the building blocks for success.” – Ted Sundquist
- “Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision.” – Andrew Carnegie
- “The best leaders are those most interested in surrounding themselves with assistants and associates smarter than they are.” – John C. Maxwell
- “Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.” – Steve Jobs
- “It’s never too late to be what you might have been.” – George Eliot
- “Your career is your business. It’s time for you to manage it as a CEO.” – Dorit Sher
- “Don’t be afraid to start over. It’s a brand new opportunity to rebuild what you truly want.” – Unknown
- “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Abraham Lincoln
- “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” – George Bernard Shaw
- “Change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end.” – Robin Sharma
- “Careers are a jungle gym, not a ladder.” – Sheryl Sandberg
- “Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall.” – Ray Bradbury
- “Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “A career is born in public, talent in privacy.” – Marilyn Monroe
- “I always give 100% at work: 13% Monday, 22% Tuesday, 26% Wednesday, 35% Thursday, 4% Friday.” – Unknown
- “Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?” – Edgar Bergen
- “I love my job only when I’m on vacation.” – Unknown
- “I used to think I was indecisive, but now I’m not too sure.” – Unknown
- “Work until your bank account looks like a phone number.” – Drake
- “My boss told me to start every presentation with a joke. The first slide was my paycheck.” – Unknown
- “The reward for good work is more work.” – Francesca Elisia
- “Behind every successful man is a surprised woman.” – Maryon Pearson
- “The only thing that ever sat its way to success was a hen.” – Sarah Brown
- “Why do they call it rush hour when nothing moves?” – Robin Williams
- “Be so good they can’t ignore you.” – Steve Martin
- “Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in.” – Bill Bradley
- “I’m not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” – Stephen Covey
- “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky
- “Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill
- “Push yourself, because no one else is going to do it for you.” – Unknown
- “Don’t limit your challenges. Challenge your limits.” – Jerry Dunn
- “There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.” – Beverly Sills
- “Stay away from those people who try to disparage your ambitions.” – Mark Twain
- “Make each day your masterpiece.” – John Wooden
- “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein
- “Knowledge will give you power, but character respect.” – Bruce Lee
- “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” – Albert Einstein
- “Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you.” – Aldous Huxley
- “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” – Theodore Roosevelt
- “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
- “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill
- “Don’t count the days, make the days count.” – Muhammad Ali
- “The mind is everything. What you think, you become.” – Buddha
- “The best way to enjoy your job is to imagine yourself without one.” – Oscar Wilde
- “A new job is not just a new beginning; it’s a new opportunity to build yourself.” – Unknown
- “The expert in anything was once a beginner.” – Helen Hayes
- “Your new job is the chance to redefine your limits.” – Unknown
- “Don’t stop until you’re proud.” – Unknown
- “Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.” – John F. Kennedy
- “With great responsibility comes greater impact.” – Unknown
- “Today is your opportunity to build the tomorrow you want.” – Ken Poirot
- “New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.” – Lao Tzu
- “It’s a beautiful thing when a career and a passion come together.” – Unknown
A powerful quote can do more than just fill a line on a wall it can inspire a new career path, remind us of the value of employees, or reignite our sense of purpose. We hope these 100+ career and employee quotes offered you something to think about.
