These hard work quotes emphasize the importance of staying on task and putting in the necessary effort to succeed.
Sometimes, it’s just the slimmest of margins that determine why one venture succeeds and another fails. A little extra effort can result in significant gains. Read these selections for inspiration and motivation.
So, if you want to strengthen your work ethic, read through these insights. Hopefully, they’ll give you the strength you need for the hard work required in your day.
You may also enjoy our Never Give Up Quotes and our Adversity Sayings.
Best Hard Work Sayings
1.) Work is the key to success, and hard work can help you accomplish anything.
Vince Lombardi, Jr.
2.) Do or do not. There is no try.
Yoda
3.) Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.
Winston S. Churchill
4.) It is always the simple that produces the marvelous.
Amelia Barr
5.) Permanence, perseverance, and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.
Thomas Carlyle
6.) A dream does not become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination, and hard work.
Colin Powell
7.) Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
8.) The difference between try and triumph is just a little umph!
Marvin Phillip
9.) Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment.
Mahatma Gandhi
10.) Men die of boredom, psychological conflict, and disease. They do not die of hard work.
David Ogilvy
Tough Grind Sayings
11.) Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need.
Voltaire
12.) Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.
Henry David Thoreau
13.) Skill comes from consistent and deliberate practice.
Shawn Allen
14.) I was obliged to be industrious. Whoever is equally industrious will succeed equally well.
Johann Sebastian Bach
15.) Perseverance, the secret of all triumphs.
Victor Hugo
16.) Nobody ever drowned in his own sweat.
Unknown
17.) The road to success is not easy to navigate, but with hard work, drive, and passion, it’s possible to achieve the American dream.
Tommy Hilfiger
18.) Without labor, nothing prospers.
Sophocles
Steve Jobs Quote on Work
19.) 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 it when you find it.
Steve Jobs
Uphill Battle Quotations
20.) It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
Herman Melville
21.) Opportunities don’t happen. You create them.
Chris Grosser
22.) Let us make our future now, and let us make our dreams tomorrow’s reality.
Malala Yousafzai
23.) Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Calvin Coolidge
24.) Don’t give up in times of difficulty. Persevere on, as there will be an end to these.
Edward Dunedin
25.) There is no elevator to success. You have to take the stairs.
Unknown
26.) All roads that lead to success have to pass through the Hard Work boulevard at some point.
Eric Thomas
27.) 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.
Pelé
Motivational Quotes
28.) Some people dream of success, while others wake up and work hard at it.
Wayne Huizenga
29.) I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top but should get you pretty near.
Margaret Thatcher
30.) The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same.
Colin R. Davis
31.) All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination.
Earl Nightingale
32.)Look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow, it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.
Jacob A. Riis
33.) Fools wait for a lucky day, but every day is a lucky day for an industrious man.
Gautama Buddha
34.) Perseverance means that achieving a goal is not an ‘if’ possibility but, instead, is a ‘definite’ passion.
Byron Pulsifer
35.) The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
Thomas Paine
36.) Any reward that is worth having only comes to the industrious. The success which is made in any walk of life is measured almost exactly by the amount of hard work that is put into it.
Calvin Coolidge
Diligence and Drudgery
37.) Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding on the 20th.
Julie Andrews
38.) It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.
Babe Ruth – More Babe Ruth Quotations
39.) There is no substitute for hard work, 23 or 24 hours a day. And there is no substitute for patience and acceptance.
Cesar Chavez
40.) Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.
John D. Rockefeller
41.) Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.
E. E. Cummings
42.) It’s not that I’m so smart; it’s just that I stay with problems longer.
Albert Einstein
43.) Never, never, never, never give up.
Winston Churchill
44.) An industrious sinner, I much prefer to a lazy saint.
Sophie Kerr
45.) I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.
Thomas Jefferson
Video: The Success Paradox: Is Success Hard Work?
Toil and Effort Hard Work Quotes
46.) The affirmation of strong perseverance, of keeping at it, of continuous, undeviating effort, is bound to pay off ultimately if you have the inner compulsion to visualize and keep at it.
Norman Vincent Peale
47.) 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
48.) Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. Don’t wish it were easier; wish you were better.
Jim Rohn
49.) I dwell in possibility.
Emily Dickinson
50.) I will persist until I succeed. Always will I take another step. If that is of no avail, I will take another and yet another. In truth, one step at a time is not too difficult. I know that small attempts, repeated, will complete any undertaking.
Og Mandino
51.) Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing.
Troilus and Cressida
52.) Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is hard work.
Stephen King
53.) Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.
Abraham Lincoln
Persevere Sayings
54.) Perseverance is persistence, the prize of not giving up.
Jane Tedesco
55.) You can’t get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you’re doing. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself.
Alan Alda
56.) Just remember, you can do anything you set your mind to, but it takes action, perseverance, and facing your fears.
Gillian Anderson
57.) In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, and look around you.
Leo Tolstoy
58.) There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.
Mark Twain
59.) Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.
Tim Notke
60.) If people knew how hard I worked to achieve my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful after all.
Michelangelo
61.) Dreams can come true, but there is a secret. They’re realized through the magic of persistence, determination, commitment, passion, practice, focus & hard work. They happen a step at a time, manifested over years, not weeks.
Elbert Hubbard
Vigorous Hard Work Quotes
62.) Some temptations come to the industrious, but all temptations attack the idle.
Charles Spurgeon
63.) When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work.
George Bernard Shaw
64.) I know you’ve heard it a thousand times before. But it’s true–hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don’t love something, then don’t do it.
Ray Bradbury
65.) The ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones that do.
Unknown
66.) It’s not about money or connection — it’s the willingness to outwork and outlearn everyone.
Mark Cuban
67.) Never expect anyone to give you what you want. Work hard, show some dedication, and go get it yourself.
Unknown
68.) Without hustle, talent will only carry you so far.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Motivational Hard Work Quotes
69.) Believe in yourself, work hard, work smart, and passionately present your best self to the world.
Hill Harper
70.) Great things come from hard work and perseverance. No excuses.
Kobe Bryant
71.) Hard work without talent is a shame, but talent without hard work is a tragedy.
Robert Half
72.) Sometimes there’s not a better way. Sometimes there’s only the hard way.
Mary E. Pearson
73.) Winners embrace hard work. They love the discipline of it, the trade-off they’re making to win. Losers, on the other hand, see it as punishment. And that’s the difference.
Lou Holtz
74.) Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven’t planted.
David Bly
75.) This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.
Alan Wilson Watts
Hardworking Quotations
76.) A No. 2 pencil and a dream can take you anywhere.
Joyce Meyer
77.) 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
78.) One day, someone is going to come to you and ask how you did it. Because you were creative, because you persevered, because you persisted through the resistance, you will be able to hold your chin up and help someone else overcome.
David DeNotaris
79.) To do good work, a man should no doubt be industrious. To do great work he must certainly be idle a well.
Henry Ward Beecher
80.) Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.
Newt Gingrich
81.) Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.
Dwayne Johnson
82.) Work hard, be kind, and amazing things will happen.
Conan O’Brien
83.) 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
Tip: These hard-work quotes make excellent captions for social media posts.
Strenuous Effort
84.) There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.
Beverly Sills
85.) Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.
Peter Drucker
86.) The will to persevere is often the difference between failure and success.
David Sarnoff
87.) All progress takes place outside the comfort zone.
Michael John Bobak
88.) If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time.
Steve Jobs
89.) A lot of hard work is hidden behind nice things.
Ralph Lauren
90.) When the sun is shining, I can do anything; no mountain is too high, and no trouble is too difficult to overcome.
Wilma Rudolph
91.) Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman before which difficulties disappear, and obstacles vanish into air.
John Quincy Adams
92.) He conquers who endures.
Persius
93.) A professional is someone who can do his best work when he doesn’t feel like it.
Alistair Cooke
94.) The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense.
Thomas A. Edison
Inspirational Quotes
95.) Life can be filled with failures, but only those who don’t persevere adopt failure as the way it has to be.
Byron Pulsifer
96.) Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goals: my strength lies solely in my tenacity.
Louis Pasteur
97.) The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.
Walt Disney
98.) Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.
Robert Collier
99.) Nobody can think straight who does not work. Idleness warps the mind.
Henry Ford
100.) A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.
Christopher Reeve
101.) I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.
Coleman Cox, although frequently attributed to Thomas Jefferson
102.) Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.
Oprah Winfrey
Difficult Tasks
103.) You go on. You set one foot in front of the other, and if a thin voice cries out somewhere behind you, you pretend not to hear and keep going.
Geraldine Brooks
104.) Power means happiness; power means hard work and sacrifice.
Beyonce Knowles
105.) Persist and persevere, and you will find most things that are attainable and possible.
Lord Chesterfield
106.) If your dream is a big dream, and if you want your life to work on the high level that you say you do, there’s no way around doing the work it takes to get you there.
Joyce Chapman
107.) Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.
Conrad Hilton
108.) If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible with diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength but perseverance.
Samuel Johnson
109.) I can say the willingness to get dirty has always defined us as a nation, and it’s a hallmark of hard work and a hallmark of fun, and dirt is not the enemy.
Mike Rowe
Good Hard Work Sayings
110.) There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.
Colin Powell, Secretary of State
111.) 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
112.) 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.
Pele, a Brazilian soccer legend
113.) There will be obstacles. There will be doubters. (And) there will be mistakes. But with hard work, there are no limits.
Michael Phelps, Gold Medal-winning swimmer
114.) Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning. Once it does, it becomes the kind of thing that makes you grab your wife around the waist and dance a jig.
Malcolm Gladwell, author
115.) When you live for a strong purpose, then hard work isn’t an option. It’s a necessity.
Steve Pavlina
116.) It’s not about money or connections. It’s the willingness to outwork and outlearn everyone.
Mark Cuban, Dallas Mavericks owner and Shark (on Shark Tank)
117.) The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses — behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.
Muhammad Ali, Boxer, and Civil Rights Activist
Short Hard Work Quotes
118.) What you don’t sweat out when you’re young will turn into tears when you’re old.
Japanese Proverb
119.) Self-belief and hard work will always earn you success.
Virat Kohli
120.) I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.
Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady of the U.S.
121.) Many people can’t see the opportunity when it is dressed in overalls.
Unknown
122.) Without hard work, nothing grows but weeds.
Gordon B. Hinckley
123.) Hard work is an essential element in tracking down and perfecting a strategy or in executing it.
Charlie Munger
124.) Work harder than you did yesterday.
Alex Elle
125.) Genius begins great works; labor alone finishes them.
Joseph Joubert
126.) Nobody ever drowned in his own sweat.
Ann Landers
127.) Elbow grease is the best polish.
English Saying
128.) Chop your own wood, and it will warm you twice.
Fairlane
129.) The Gods rank work above virtues.
Hesiod
Working Hard Insights
130.) Miracles sometimes occur, but one has to work terribly hard for them.
Chaim Weizmann
131.) The work praises the man.
Irish Saying
132.) When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.
John Ruskin
133.) People should tell their children what life is all about – it’s about work.
Lauren Bacall
134.) Rest is the sweet sauce of labor.
Plutarch
135.) The only place where success comes before work is a dictionary.
Vidal Sassoon
136.) Do your duty until it becomes your joy.
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
137.) God sells us all things at the price of labor.
Leonardo da Vinci
138.) Hard work has made it easy. That is my secret. That is why I win.
Nadia Comaneci
By Mike O’Halloran
Sports Feel Good Stories Editor Mike lets everyone know that finding the best quotes can be hard work (but not too hard).
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