41 Inspirational Quotes for Work to Motivate You in 2023

Updated: June 7, 2023

Even if you love your job, there are days when it’s hard to get motivated. And when you need that extra boost, reading some inspirational quotes for work can help you refocus and put in the effort to reach your professional goals.

So whether you’re a small business owner, a solopreneur, or you work on a remote team, there’s something for you. 

Here are the top 41 inspirational quotes for work to motivate you in 2023.

41 Inspirational Quotes for Work

Work Quotes for Motivation

1. “Define success on your own terms, achieve it by your own rules, and build a life you’re proud to life.” – Anne Sweeney, Member of the Board of Directors, LEGO
2. “You can’t be that kid standing at the top of the waterslide, overthinking it. You have to go down the chute.” – Tina Fey, Actor and comedian
3. “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, Singer 
4. “If your dreams don’t scare you, they are too small.” – Richard Branson, Businessman
5. “I take the position that I’m always to some degree wrong, and the aspiration is to be less wrong.” – Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX
6. “Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once.” – Drew Houston, Founder and CEO of Dropbox
7. “What you do everyday matters more than what you do once in a while.” – Gretchen Rubin, Author
8. “I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.” – Maya Angelou, Poet and Activist
9. “The fastest way to change yourself is to hang out with the people who are already the way you want to be.” – Reid Hoffman, Co-founder of LinkedIn
10. “Someday is not a day of the week.” – Janet Dailey, Author

Work Quotes for Innovation

1. “It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” – Herman Melville, Novelist
2. “The secret of changing is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” – Socrates, philosopher
3. “You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.” – William Faulkner, writer
4. “If you get tired, learn to rest, not to quit.” – Banksy, artist
5. “A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not the desire to beat others.” – Ayn Rand, writer
6. “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, Co-founder of Apple
7. “I would rather die of passion than of boredom.” – Emile Zola, French writer

Work Quotes for Mindset

1. “Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.” – Will Rogers, American vaudeville performer
2. “Don’t confuse having a career with having a life.” – Hillary Clinton, Politician
3. “We need to do a better job of putting ourselves higher on our own ‘to do’ list.” – Michelle Obama, former First Lady
4. “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, Entrepreneur
5. “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether he’s twenty or eighty.” – Henry Ford, Businessman
6. “If you’re not stubborn, you’ll give up on experiments too soon. And if you’re not flexible, you’ll pound your head against the wall and you won’t see a different solution to a problem you’re trying to solve.” – Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon
7. “Every person, organization, and even society reaches a point at which they owe it to themselves to hit refresh—to re-energize, renew, reframe, and rethink their purpose.” – Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft
8. “If you push through that feeling of being scared, that feeling of taking risk, really amazing things can happen.” – Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo
9. “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t—you’re right.” – Henry Ford, Founder of Ford
10. “Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.” – Dale Carnegie, Author
11. “I knew two things from my father: keep working hard, stay humble, and someday you’ll be ok.” – Eric Yuan, Founder and CEO of Zoom

Work Quotes for Leaders

1. “Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you’ll be able to see further.” – Thomas Carlyle, Writer
2. ”Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.” – Stephen Covey, Author
3. “Founding a company is hard. Most of it isn’t smooth. You’ll have to make very hard decisions. You have to fire a few people. Therefore, if you don’t believe in your mission, giving up is easy. The majority of founders give up. But the best founders don’t give up.” – Mark Zuckerberg, Co-founder and CEO, Meta (Facebook)
4. “Innovation distinguishes from a leader and a follower.” – Steve Jobs, Co-founder of Apple
5. “If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears.” – Simon Sinek, Author
6. “Leadership is not bullying and leadership is not aggression. Leadership is the expectation that you can use your voice for good. That you can make the world a better place.” – Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Meta (Facebook)
7. “Managing compassionately is not just a better way to build a team, it’s a better way to build a company.” – Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn

Work Quotes for Productivity

1. “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” – Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish Novelist
2. “The biggest lesson I learned, and I take it to everything I tackle now, large or small, inside of work and outside: If you have a problem, you’ve got to solve it. Because that problem is going to get bigger in six months. It could get bigger in two years. But it’s not going to get smaller with time.” – Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors
3. “Focus on being productive instead of busy.” – Tim Ferriss, Author and Speaker
4. “One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from a horse master. He told me to go slow to go fast. I think that applies to everything in life. We live as though there aren’t enough hours in the day but if we do each thing calmly and carefully we will get it done quicker and with much less stress.” – Viggo Mortensen, Actor
5. “Work smart. Get things done.” – Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube
6. “The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” – Stephen Covey, Author

If you’re feeling like you need a rallying cry to get you motivated, these inspirational quotes for work always help us and we hope you find the same!

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