We spend a huge chunk of our lives at work.
Sometimes it just flows effortlessly and you’re having a good day (or week).
And at other times… well, we all know those days when motivation seems to be hiding somewhere else and it’s all too easy to get stuck in negative thinking.
So in today’s post I’d like to share 101 positive workplace quotes.
To help you to find a positive mindset again, to renew your motivation, to make you laugh to relieve some stress and to make your team stronger.
I hope you’ll find something helpful here, for yourself and also to maybe help a co-worker out by nudging their perspective a little bit or at least giving them a good laugh.
Positive Workplace Quotes for Inspiration
“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.”
– Albert Schweitzer
“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.”
– Steve Jobs
“Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.”
– Aristotle
“The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today.”
– Elbert Hubbard
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”
– Robert Louis Stevenson
“The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.”
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
“Excellence is not a skill. It’s an attitude.”
– Ralph Marston
“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
– Confucius
“The future depends on what you do today.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
“The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.”
– Vidal Sassoon
“Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs.”
– Farrah Gray
“The harder you work for something, the greater you’ll feel when you achieve it.”
– Thomas Jefferson
“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.”
– Steve Jobs
“Your talent determines what you can do. Your motivation determines how much you’re willing to do. Your attitude determines how well you do it.”
– Lou Holtz
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
– Winston Churchill
“Dream big, work hard, stay focused, and surround yourself with good people.”
– Robin Sharma
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
– Mark Twain
“What you do today can improve all your tomorrows.”
– Ralph Marston
“Be so good they can’t ignore you.”
– Steve Martin
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. No matter what you have or where you are, always try to make the best use of your circumstances to pursue your goal.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.”
– Maya Angelou
“Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.”
– Sam Levenson
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
– Peter Drucker
Positive Workplace Quotes for Motivation
“Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.”
– Steve Jobs
“Leadership is not about being in charge. Leadership is about taking care of those in your charge.”
– Simon Sinek
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”
– Walt Disney
“If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.”
– Booker T. Washington
“Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.”
– Henry Ford
“Don’t be busy. Be productive.”
– Tim Ferriss
“The only person you should try to be better than is the person you were yesterday.”
– Tony Robbins
“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.”
– Zig Ziglar
“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.”
– Albert Einstein
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
– Helen Keller
“The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.”
– Walter Bagehot
“It’s not about perfect. It’s about effort.”
– Jillian Michaels
“Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.”
– John D. Rockefeller
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”
– Steve Jobs
“The expert in anything was once a beginner.”
– Helen Hayes
“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
– Nelson Mandela
“Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.”
– Brian Littrell
“The road to success is always under construction.”
– Lily Tomlin
“Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.”
– Henry David Thoreau
“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.”
– Beverly Sills
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt
“Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”
– Winston Churchill
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
– Wayne Gretzky
“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.”
– Milton Berle
Funny and Positive Workplace Quotes for Stress Relief
“I always arrive late at the office, but I make up for it by leaving early.”
– Charles Lamb
“If you think your boss is stupid, remember: you wouldn’t have a job if he was any smarter.”
– John Gotti
“The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one.”
– Oscar Wilde
“People who never do any more than they get paid for, never get paid for any more than they do.”
– Elbert Hubbard
“The difference between try and triumph is just a little umph!”
– Marvin Phillips
“I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.”
– Jerome K. Jerome
“The closest to perfection a person ever comes is when he fills out a job application form.”
– Stanley J. Randall
“Work is against human nature. The proof is that it makes us tired.”
– Michel Tournier
“The only thing that ever sat its way to success was a hen.”
– Sarah Brown
“If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be ‘meetings.’”
– Dave Barry
“I’ve got all the money I’ll ever need if I die by four o’clock this afternoon.”
– Henry Youngman
“The reward for good work is more work.”
– Tom Sachs
“Executive ability is deciding quickly and getting somebody else to do the work.”
– Earl Nightingale
“If hard work is the key to success, most people would rather pick the lock.”
– Claude McDonald
“The trouble with unemployment is that the minute you wake up in the morning you’re on the job.”
– Slappy White
“I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.”
– Lily Tomlin
“Doing nothing is very hard to do… you never know when you’re finished.”
– Leslie Nielsen
“Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.”
– Douglas Adams
“Hard work never killed anybody, but why take the chance?”
– Edgar Bergen
“Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit.”
– George Carlin
“The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.”
– Robert Frost
“My keyboard must be broken, I keep hitting the escape key, but I’m still at work.”
– Bill Murray
“I choose a lazy person to do a hard job because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.”
– Bill Gates
“The best excuse for not going to work is that you’re already there.”
– Jim Gaffigan
“The problem with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.”
– Lily Tomlin
“If you think your job is tough, try being an assistant to a boss who thinks he’s funny.”
– Jerry Seinfeld
Short Positive Workplace Quotes for Team Building
“Dream big. Start small.”
– Simon Sinek
“Make each day count.”
– Thomas Edison
“Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”
– Steve Jobs
“Work smarter, not harder.”
– Allen F. Morgenstern
“Teamwork makes the dream work.”
– John C. Maxwell
“Focus on the good.”
– Zig Ziglar
“Create your future.”
– Peter F. Drucker
“Make it happen.”
– Gary Vaynerchuk
“Embrace the challenge.”
– Richard Branson
“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”
– Arthur Ashe
“Keep moving forward.”
– Walt Disney
“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.”
– Michael Jordan
“Stay positive, work hard.”
– Debbie Millman
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
– Maya Angelou
“Dream bigger.”
– Tony Hsieh
“Never stop learning.”
– Stephen Covey
“Take the initiative.”
– Jack Welch
“Be the change.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
“Lead by example.”
– Peter F. Drucker
“Success isn’t about how much money you make; it’s about the difference you make in people’s lives.”
– Michelle Obama
“Make excellence a habit.”
– Aristotle
“Believe and achieve.”
– Zig Ziglar
“Attitude is everything.”
– Charles Swindoll
“Small progress is still progress.”
– Tony Robbins
“Done is better than perfect.”
– Sheryl Sandberg
“Work hard. Be kind.”
– Conan O’Brien
“Rise and grind.”
– Dwayne Johnson
Want more motivation and timeless wisdom for your work week? Have a look at these quotes for work (motivation to work hard and smart), these helpful teamwork quotes and these energy- and motivation-boosting work ethic quotes.
