Work Quotes

It does not seem to be true that work necessarily needs to be unpleasant. It may always have to be hard, or at least harder than doing nothing at all. But there is ample evidence that work can be enjoyable, and that indeed, it is often the most enjoyable part of life.

A man ought to work. That's what he's here for. That's how he contributes to the welfare of the community.

I like manual labor. Whenever I've got waterlogged with study, I've taken a spell of it and found it spiritually invigorating.

You do your best work if you do a job that makes you happy.

Working from home meant we could vary snack and coffee breaks, change our desks or view, goof off, drink on the job, even spend the day in pajamas, and often meet to gossip or share ideas. On the other hand, we bossed ourselves around, set impossible goals, and demanded longer hours than office jobs usually entail. It was the ultimate "flextime," in that it depended on how flexible we felt each day, given deadlines, distractions, and workaholic crescendos.

In most cases being a good boss means hiring talented people and then getting out of their way. In other cases, to get the best work out of people you may have to pretend you are not their boss and let them treat someone else like the boss, and then that whispers to you behind a fake wall and you tell them what to tell the first person. Contrary to what I believed as a little girl, being the boss almost never involves marching around, waving your arms, and chanting, " I am the boss! I am the boss!"

At least one study of blocked writers has found that they were more productive and more creative when they were essentially forced to write instead of scribbling only when the mood struck them.

You've got to find what you love and that is as true for work as it is for lovers. 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 what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you've found it.

When you're doing the work you're meant to do, it feels right and every day is a bonus, regardless of what you're getting paid.

When you choose the paradigm of service, it turns everything you do from a job into a gift.

You can't rest on your laurels. Your own body of work is yet to come.

Doing what you love means dealing with things you don't.

Always work hard on something uncomfortably exciting.

You have to surrender to the fact that you are of too many in a highly competitive field where it is difficult to stand out. Over time, through your work, you will demonstrate who you are and what you bring to the field. Just stay with it and keep working.

You don't become great by trying to be great. You become great by wanting to do something, and then doing it so hard that you become great in the process.

Our great weariness comes from work not done.

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.

Folks who never do more than their paid for, never get paid for any more than they do.

Genius begins great works; labor alone finishes them.

A professional is one who does his best work when he feels the least like working.