“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.”
Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet
As quoted in Path for Greatness : Spiritualty at Work (2000) by Linda J. Ferguson, p. 51
Back To Work quotes
A collection of quotes on the topic of business, back to work, motivational, work.
Best back to work quotes
“Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.”
Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
Agatha Christie (1890–1976) English mystery and detective writer
“I would rather die of passion than of boredom.”
Emile Zola book Au Bonheur des Dames
Source: The Ladies' Paradise
“Preparation for tomorrow is hard work today.”
Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker
“Do not wait; the time will never be "just right."”
Napoleon Hill book Think and Grow Rich
Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.
Source: Think and Grow Rich (1938), p. 127
“Either you run the day, or the day runs you.”
Jim Rohn (1930–2009) American motivational speaker
“Tough times never last, but tough people do. ”
Robert H. Schuller (1926–2015) American television evangelist
Back To Work quotes
“The secret to getting ahead is getting started.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.”
Michael Jordan (1963) American retired professional basketball player and businessman
Source: Jordan, Michael. I Can't Accept Not Trying : Michael Jordan on the Pursuit of Excellence. San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994. p. 129
Context: I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying [no hard work].
Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships. (p. 20, 24)
“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
“Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end.”
John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter
Also found with the alternative spelling: Everything is okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end<br>Found anonymously on Usenet in 2000 https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=alt.support.divorce/gKiyfcAYreo/jjuc6KTu_NAJ. First known attribution to Lennon is from 2011 https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=stow-ma-apple-barn/45MNk9KiGsY/vaq6pr8hgI0J. <br class="br">Disputed <br class="br">Variant: Everything is OK in the end. If it's not OK, it's not the end.
“Choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.”
Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist
Sometimes quoted with "difficult" instead of "hard".
A similar thought was expressed by automobile executive Clarence Bleicher in 1947 (before Bill Gates was born): "if you get a tough job, one that is hard, and you haven’t got a way to make it easy, put a lazy man on it, and after 10 days he will have an easy way to do it".
Misattributed
Source: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/26/lazy-job/
Marie Curie (1867–1934) French-Polish physicist and chemist
As quoted in Our Precarious Habitat (1973) by Melvin A. Benarde, p. v
“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.”
Marie Curie (1867–1934) French-Polish physicist and chemist
As quoted in Our Precarious Habitat (1973) by Melvin A. Benarde, p. v
Context: Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.”
Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet
“Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.”
Judy Garland (1922–1969) actress, singer and vaudevillian from the United States
As quoted in Business Etiquette for the Nineties : Your Ticket to Career Success (1992) by Lou Kennedy, p. 8
Variant: Always be a first rate version of yourself and not a second rate version of someone else.
John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) American politician, 6th president of the United States (in office from 1825 to 1829)
Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist
Reported in Patti Denys, Mary Holmes, Animal Magnetism: At Home With Celebrities & Their Animal Companions (1998), p. 106
Source: Jane Goodall: 40 Years at Gombe
“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer
Variant: You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.
“If you think your boss is stupid, remember: you wouldn't have a job if he was any smarter. ”
John Gotti (1940–2002) American crime boss
“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”
Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet
Hawthorne and His Mosses (1850)
Context: It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness.
Context: It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness. And if it be said, that continual success is a proof that a man wisely knows his powers, — it is only to be added, that, in that case, he knows them to be small. Let us believe it, then, once for all, that there is no hope for us in these smooth pleasing writers that know their powers.
“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.”
A.A. Milne book Winnie-the-Pooh
Source: Winnie-the-Pooh
“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”
Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher
Source: Confucius: The Analects
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
Source: The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt
“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”
Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher
Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor
" The Problem of Increasing Human Energy http://www.tfcbooks.com/tesla/1900-06-00.htm", Century Illustrated Magazine (June 1900)
“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.”
Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy
“The caterpillar does all the work, but the butterfly gets all the publicity.”
George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary
Source: Anne Frank's Tales from the Secret Annex
“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.”
Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"
volume I, chapter VI: "The Voyage", page 266 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=284&itemID=F1452.1&viewtype=image; letter to sister Susan Elizabeth Darwin (4 August 1836) <br class="br">The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1887) <br class="br">Source: The Life & Letters of Charles Darwin
“The power of imagination makes us infinite.”
John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author
1 September 1875, page 226
John of the Mountains, 1938
Context: How infinitely superior to our physical senses are those of the mind! The spiritual eye sees not only rivers of water but of air. It sees the crystals of the rock in rapid sympathetic motion, giving enthusiastic obedience to the sun's rays, then sinking back to rest in the night. The whole world is in motion to the center. So also sounds. We hear only woodpeckers and squirrels and the rush of turbulent streams. But imagination gives us the sweet music of tiniest insect wings, enables us to hear, all round the world, the vibration of every needle, the waving of every bole and branch, the sound of stars in circulation like particles in the blood. The Sierra canyons are full of avalanche debris — we hear them boom again, for we read past sounds from present conditions. Again we hear the earthquake rock-falls. Imagination is usually regarded as a synonym for the unreal. Yet is true imagination healthful and real, no more likely to mislead than the coarser senses. Indeed, the power of imagination makes us infinite.
“Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.”
Newt Gingrich (1943) Professor, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
“I always arrive late at the office, but I make up for it by leaving early.”
Charles Lamb (1775–1834) English essayist
“As long as there's life, there's hope.”
Tamora Pierce (1954) American writer of fantasy novels for children
“Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.”
Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist
Variant: Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.
“I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.”
Jerome K. Jerome book Three Men in a Boat
Variant: I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.
Source: Three Men in a Boat (1889), Ch. 15.
Context: It always does seem to me that I am doing more work than I should do. It is not that I object to the work, mind you; I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. I love to keep it by me: the idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks my heart.
“The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.”
Emile Zola (1840–1902) French writer (1840-1902)
As quoted in Wisdom for the Soul : Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing (2006) by Larry Chang , p. 55.
“What matters is not to know the world but to change it.”
Frantz Fanon book Black Skin, White Masks
Source: Black Skin, White Masks
“Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction.”
Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary
Variant translation: Laziness may appear attractive but work gives satisfaction.
6 July 1944
The Diary of a Young Girl (1942 - 1944)
Variant: Laziness may look inviting, but only work gives you true satisfaction.
“The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.”
Phil Jackson (1945) basketball player and coach from the United States
“To do nothing is the way to be nothing.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879)
“I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.”
Stephen R. Covey (1932–2012) American educator, author, businessman and motivational speaker
“Mind can make a hell of heaven. Or a heaven of hell.”
Chinmayananda Saraswati (1916–1993) Indian spiritual teacher
Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago
“You will never find time for anything. If you want time, you must make it.”
Charles Buxton (1823–1871) English brewer, philanthropist, writer and politician
Source: Notes of Thought (1883), p. 158
Gertrude B. Elion (1918–1999) American biochemist and pharmacologist
Gertrude Elion https://www.famousscientists.org/gertrude-b-elion/
Amelia Earhart book Last Flight
Letter to her husband George P. Putnam, on the eve of her last flight
Last Flight (1937)
Context: Please know that I am aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be a challenge to others.
“I was not, I lived and loved, I am not.”
Eric Rücker Eddison book A Fish Dinner in Memison
A Fish Dinner in Memison (1941)
Context: The black arrowed swoop of the moment swung high into the unceilinged future, ten, fifty, sixty years, may be: then, past seeing, up to that warmthless unconsidered mock-time, when nothing shall be left but the memorial that fits all (except, if there be, the most unhappiest) of human kind: I was not, I lived and loved, I am not.
“I would rather die of passion than of boredom”
Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)
Not by van Gogh, but from Emile Zola's novel The Ladies' Paradise (1883)
Misattributed
“I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific.”
Lily Tomlin (1939) American actress, comedian, writer, and producer
“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.”
William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist
“Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it's always your choice.”
Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer
“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going”
Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist
“Make your work to be in keeping with your purpose”
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
“Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.”
Orison Swett Marden (1850–1924) American writer
“You can have it all. Just not all at once.”
Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist
“There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.”
Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker
As quoted in The Art of Expressing the Human Body (1998) edited by John R. Little, p. 23
Context: There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level.
“No! Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.”
George Lucas (1944) American film producer
Source: The Star Wars Trilogy
“You have to believe in it to get it…”
Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer
Source: Heart of the Sea
“If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old”
Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant
“It is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction.”
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer
“The harder I work, the luckier I get.”
Samuel Goldwyn (1879–1974) American film producer (1879-1974).
Misattributed
“Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing”
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
1900s, A Square Deal (1903)
Context: Among ourselves we differ in many qualities of body, head, and heart; we are unequally developed, mentally as well as physically. But each of us has the right to ask that he shall be protected from wrong-doing as he does his work and carries his burden through life. No man needs sympathy because he has to work, because he has a burden to carry. Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing; and this is a prize open to every man, for there can be no better worth doing than that done to keep in health and comfort and with reasonable advantages those immediately dependent upon the husband, the father, or the son. There is no room in our healthy American life for the mere idler, for the man or the woman whose object it is throughout life to shirk the duties which life ought to bring. Life can mean nothing worth meaning, unless its prime aim is the doing of duty, the achievement of results worth achieving.
“Go as far as you can see and you will see further.”
Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker
Variant: Go so far as you can see and when you get there you will always be able to see farther.
Source: See You at the Top (2000), p. 164; Variant: When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal; you do not change your decision to get there.
Context: Go so far as you can see and when you get there you will always be able to see farther. … as you head toward your goals, be prepared to make some slight adjustments to your course. You don't change your decision to go — you do change your direction to get there.
“It is not a daily increase, but a daily decrease. Hack away at the inessentials.”
Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker
“Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.”
Stephen R. Covey (1932–2012) American educator, author, businessman and motivational speaker
“Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.”
Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American writer and lecturer
“They can because they think they can.”
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer
Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book V
“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then Success is sure.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Mark Twain's Notebook, 1887 <br class="br">Letter to Cordelia Welsh Foote (Cincinnati), 2 December 1887. Letter reprinted http://www.twainquotes.com/Success.html in Benjamin De Casseres's When Huck Finn Went Highbrow https://www.worldcat.org/title/when-huck-finn-went-highbrow/oclc/2514292 (1934)
“no expectations, no disappointments!”
Eric Jerome Dickey (1961) American author
Sleeping with Strangers
“Behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife.”
Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian
“This is the chance to fulfill a dream.”
Elon Musk (1971) South African-born American entrepreneur
Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)
Plato (-427–-347 BC) Classical Greek philosopher
This quotation, often attributed on the Internet to Plato, cannot be found in any of Plato's writings, nor can it be found in any published work anywhere until recent years. If it really were a quotation by Plato, then some author in the recorded literature of the last several centuries would have mentioned that quote, but they did not. The sentiment isn't new, however. The ancient Roman Seneca, in his work on "Morals," quoted an earlier Roman writer, Lucretius (who wrote about the year 50 B.C.), as saying "we are as much afraid in the light as children in the dark." (Seneca was paraphrasing a longer passage by Lucretius from De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), Book II, lines 56 et seq.)
Misattributed
“To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.”
Fred Shero (1925–1990) Former ice hockey player and coach
Glenn
Liebman
Hockey Shorts: 1,001 of the games funniest one liners
1996
70, 113 & 229
Contemporary Books
0-8092-3351-7
“Because I loved myself, I was loved.”
Erica Jong (1942) Novelist, poet, memoirist, critic
Becoming Light: Poems New and Selected (1991)
“There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing and be nothing.”
Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy
Misattributed <br class="br">Source: Elbert Hubbard, Little Journeys to the Homes of American Statesmen (1898), p. 370 http://hdl.handle.net/2027/osu.32435065322687?urlappend=%3Bseq=458: "If you would escape moral and physical assassination, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing—court obscurity, for only in oblivion does safety lie." Other versions of the saying were repeated in several of Hubbard's later writings.
“Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.”
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
“Quality is not an act, it is a habit.”
Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”
Scott Adams (1957) cartoonist, writer
Source: Books, The Dilbert Principle (1996)
“Life's like a movie, write your own ending. Keep believing, keep pretending.”
Jim Henson (1936–1990) American puppeteer
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist
Variant: I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
Source: Walden: Or, Life in the Woods
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Self-Reliance
Context: A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
“The problem with doing nothing is not knowing when you are finished.”
Nelson DeMille (1943) American writer
Variant: The problem with doing nothing is that you never know when you're finished.
Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American writer and lecturer
As quoted in The Ring of Truth (2004) by Joseph O'Day
“If a man smiles all the time, he’s probably selling something that doesn’t work.”
George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet
The Ladder of St. Augustine, st. 10.
Source: Good Poems for Hard Times