And, last but not least, what about motivational quotes that help us work hard and smart? Work constitutes such a significant part of our lives, so inextricably woven into the fabric of our existence, that it really is important to not only work for a living but to work and focus smarter and to also motivate yourself on rough days.
For this reason, many successful have come before us to provide us with the required guidance:
- “Either you run the day or the day runs you.” – Jim Rohn
- “I am a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.” – Thomas Jefferson
Interestingly enough, research (such as Motivation Factor and Boston Research Group, 2012) has shown the differences about what motivates women and men on the example of work which can also be translated into other areas of life as well.
Whereas men are more motivated by more practical and ‘concrete’ motivating factors, such as their salaries, women give a greater importance to emotions, interpersonal relationships, respect, and intuition. Men find it important to succeed at their tasks, they find it important to keep deadlines, they need to know the truth and, above all, they want to achieve their goals. Men generally also tend to respond better to financial rewards in any aspect of their lives and may be willing to work harder to obtain them.
Men also seem to be motivated by feeling needed (http://cynthiazhai.wordpress.com/2008/01/04/men-and-women-3-how-to-motivate-the-opposite-sex/). Research seems to indicate that the feeling of being able to make autonomous decisions and having a personal autonomy constitutes a much higher priority than for women. Men also seem to be more motivated by measurable success
(https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/publications/article/2006/gender-differences-in-performance-motivation). Nevertheless, work is a part of all our lives and thus observing the differences in what drives us has proven to be of the utmost importance as there is no Holy Grail of motivation at work and one-size-fits-all solutions cannot be applied in work settings (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/management/what-motivates-employees-its-not-just-the-money/article13205253/).
If people are motivated properly, their engagement and loyalty will be improved. For this reason, there are thousands upon thousands of motivational quotes on work available by various individuals that can help embrace all our variety in motivators.
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
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
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.
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
There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.
Colin Powell
The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.
Confucius
I don’t focus on what I’m up against. I focus on my goals and I try to ignore the rest.
Venus Williams
The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.
Confucius
If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.
Dalai Lama
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
If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.
Dalai Lama
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
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
Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.
Norman Vincent Peale,
A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.
Ayn Rand
If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.
Jim Rohn
Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
Abraham Lincoln
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.
Abraham Lincoln
You win by effort, by commitment, by ambition, by quality, by expressing yourself individually but in the team context.
José Mourinho
If two men on the same job agree all the time, one is useless. If they disagree all the time, both are useless.
Darryl F. Zanuck
Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value.
Albert Einstein
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
Plato
No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.
H.E. Luccock
Predicting rain doesn’t count. Building arks does.
Warren Buffet
When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.
Paulo Coelho
Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.
Benjamin Franklin
Talent wins games, but teamwork wins championship.
Micheal Jordan
Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.
Judy Garland
Creativity is contagious. Pass it on.
Albert Einstein
Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Don’t Let Yesterday Take Up Too Much of Today.
Will Rogers
A clay pot sitting in the sun will always be a clay pot. It has to go through the white heat of the furnace to become porcelain.
Mildred Struven
A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.
David Brinkley
Refuse failure. No matter how difficult the obstacles, find a way to around them.
JJ Goldwag
Talent means nothing, while experience, acquired in humility and with hard work, means everything.
Patrick Suskind
The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work.
Harry Golden
The sun himself is weak when he first rises, and gathers strength and courage as the day gets on.
Charles Dickens
When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.
Lao Tzu
Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude”.
Zig Ziglar
Don’t wish it were easier. Wish you were better.
Jim Roh
When your work speaks for itself, don’t interrupt..
Henry J. Kaiser
Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is.
Vince Lombard
There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.
Colin Powell
Either you run the day, or the day runs you.
Jim Rohn
Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.
Will Rogers
Excellence is not a skill. It is an attitude.
Ralph Marston
Genius is born—not paid.
Oscar Wilde
I will prepare and someday my chance will come.
Abraham Lincoln
When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.
Henry Ford
You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you.
Barack Obama
All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.
Calvin Coolidge
Becoming is better than being.
Carol Dweck
Believe you can and you’re halfway there.
Theodore Roosevelt
Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.
George Addai
The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.
Bruce Lee
Very often, a change of self is needed more than a change of scene
A.C. Benson
You can worry about the competition…or you can focus on what’s ahead of you and drive fast.
Jack Dorsey
It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.
Lou Holtz
Keep your face to the sun and you cannot see the shadows.
Helen Keller
Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.
Joshua J. Marine
Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
Mark Twain
Embrace the pain to inherit the gain.
Habeeb Akande
Goodness and hard work are rewarded with respect.
Luther Campbell
Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goals: my strength lies solely in my tenacity.
Louis Pasteur
Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.
Lucius Seneca
Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.
Vince Lombardi
The best things in life are often waiting for you at the exit ramp of your comfort zone.
Karen Salmansohn
The expert in anything was once a beginner.
Helen Hayes
The only way to achieve the impossible is to believe it is possible.
Charles Kingsleigh
The power of imagination makes us infinite.
John Muir
I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.
Lewis Carroll
It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.
Babe Ruth
It’s life. You don’t figure it out. You just climb up on the beast and ride.
Rebecca Wells
Limitations live only in our minds. But if we use our imaginations, our possibilities become limitless.
Jamie Paolinetti
Never ruin an apology with an excuse.
Benjamin Franklin
Nothing is impossible, the word itself says, I’m possible!”
Audrey Hepburn
Strength shows not only in the ability to persist, but in the ability to start over.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
The man who has confidence in himself gains the confidence of others.
Hasidic Proverb
The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.
Amelia Earhart
There are no two words in the English language more harmful than good job.
Terence Fletcher
Happiness is the real sense of fulfilment that comes from hard work.
Joseph Barbara
If you’re alive, you’re a creative person.
Elizabeth Gilbert
Life is about making an impact, not making an income.
Kevin Kruse
Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.
Michael Jordan
Hard work keeps the wrinkles out of the mind and spirit.
Helena Rubinstein
Hard work without talent is a shame, but talent without hard work is a tragedy.
Robert Hall
I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.
Thomas Jefferson
I got lucky because I never gave up the search. Are you quitting too soon? Or are you willing to pursue luck with a vengeance?
Jill Konrath
If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.
Zig Zigler
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
No great achiever – even those who made it seem easy – ever succeeded without hard work.
Jonathan Sacks
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
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
Thomas Edison
If you hit the target every time, it’s too near or too big.
Tom Hirshfield
“Someone, at some point, came up with this very bad idea that an ordinary individual couldn’t make a difference in the world. I think that’s just a horrible thing.
John Skoll
Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.
Arthur Ashe
The day is what you make it! So why not make it a great one?
Steve Schulte
The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.
Jimmy Johnson
Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.
Salvador Dali
Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.
Truman Capote
What good is an idea if it remains an idea? Try. Experiment. Iterate. Fail. Try again. Change the world.
Simon Sinek
You can’t change how people treat you or what they say about you. All you can do is change how you react to it.
Mahatma Gandhi
First principle: never to let one’s self be beaten down by persons or by events.
Marie Curie
If something is wrong, fix it now. But train yourself not to worry, worry fixes nothing.
Ernest Hemingway
I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.
Stephen Covey
No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.
Abraham Lincoln
You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.
C. S. Lewis
With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.
Eleanor Roosevelt
The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential…these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.
Confucius
Our greatest weakness lies in giving up.The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.
Thomas A. Edison
The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.
Ayn Rand
Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
Winston Churchill
We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.
Maya Angelou
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
I didn’t fail the test. I just found 100 ways to do it wrong.
Benjamin Franklin
Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.
Voltaire
Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
Albert Einstein
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
Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.
Elbert Hubbard
Never allow a person to tell you no, who doesn’t have the power to say yes.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.
Henry Ford
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
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win.
Mahatma Gandhi