Everybody’s professional life goes through ups and downs over the years. If you’re out of a job and searching for a new one, or dissatisfied with the one you have and dreaming of a new position—or even a completely new career—here are 49 inspirational quotes to help motivate you:
1. “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” —Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister
2. “If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on!” —Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook
3. “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” —Albert Einstein, physicist
4. “Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.” —George Patton, U.S. General
5. “I want to look back on my career and be proud of the work, and be proud that I tried everything.” —Jon Stewart, comedian
6. “Do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing, and you’ll never be criticized.” —John Willys, automotive pioneer and statesman
7. “One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.” —Arthur Ashe, tennis star
8. “Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell ’em, ‘Certainly I can!’ Then get busy and find out how to do it.” —Theodore Roosevelt, U.S. President
9. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” —Wayne Gretzky, hockey star
10. “There comes a time when you ought to start doing what you want. Take a job that you love. You will jump out of bed in the morning. I think you are out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you don’t like because you think it will look good on your resume. Isn’t that a little like saving up for sex for your old age?” —Warren Buffet, legendary investor
11. “The secret of joy in work is contained in one word—excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.” —Pearl Buck, author
12. “Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.” —Samuel Johnson, author and essayist
13. “Management is nothing more than motivating people.” —Lee Iacocca, automotive CEO
14. “The only way to get people to like working hard is to motivate them. Today, people must understand why they’re working hard. Every individual in an organization is motivated by something different.” —Rick Pitino, basketball coach
15. “When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.” —Dale Carnegie, motivational author and speaker
16. “Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.” —Maya Angelou, poet
17. “The harder you work, the luckier you get.” —Gary Player, professional golfer
18. “Take criticism seriously, but not personally. If there is truth or merit in the criticism, try to learn from it. Otherwise, let it roll right off you.” —Hillary Clinton, U.S. presidential candidate and former Secretary of State
19. “I learned a long time ago that there is something worse than missing the goal, and that’s not pulling the trigger.” —Mia Hamm, soccer star
20. “There are two kinds of people—those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there.” —Indira Gandhi, first female Prime Minister of India
21. “You can observe a lot by watching.” —Yogi Berra, baseball star
22. “If everybody’s thinking alike, then somebody’s not thinking.” —George Patton, U.S. General
23. “An optimist sees opportunity in every calamity; a pessimist sees a calamity in every opportunity.” —Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister
24. “I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.” —Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple
25. “Progress always involves risk. You can’t steal second base and keep your foot on first.” —Robert Quillen, journalist and humorist
26. “The biggest risk is not taking any risk…. In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” —Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook
27. “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.” —Tony Robbins, motivational speaker
28. “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” —Dan Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior
29. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” —Mark Twain, writer
30. “If Plan A doesn’t work, the alphabet has 35 more letters.” —Claire Cook, author
31. “Never tell your problems to anyone … 20% don’t care and the other 80% are glad you have them.” —Lou Holtz, football coach
32. “If people like you, they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.” —Zig Ziglar, motivational speaker
33. “When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can oftentimes arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions. Most people just don’t put in the time or energy to get there.” —Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple
34. “Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong.” —Donald Porter, British Airways
35. “Always deliver more than expected.” —Larry Page, co-founder of Google
36. “You are what you think. So just think big, believe big, act big, work big, give big, forgive big, laugh big, love big, and live big.” —Andrew Carnegie, industrialist and philanthropist
37. “Business is like poker. You have to be able to read people. You have to understand the odds of a particular endeavor. You need to make calculated bets. And you have to get lucky.” —Richard D. Harroch, venture capitalist and co-author of Poker for Dummies
38. “Be nice to geeks; you’ll probably end up working for one.” —Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft
39. “Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are asking, what’s in it for me?” —Brian Tracy, entrepreneur and author
40. “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.” —Michael Jordan, NBA legendary basketball MVP
41. “The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It’s as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.” —Nolan Bushnell, entrepreneur
42. “Don’t be cocky. Don’t be flashy. There’s always someone better than you.” —Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos
43. “Don’t be afraid to assert yourself, have confidence in your abilities, and don’t let the bastards get you down.” —Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York and founder of Bloomberg L.P.
44. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into smaller manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.” —Mark Twain, American humorist and author
45. “One can get anything if he is willing to help enough others get what they want.” —Zig Ziglar, motivational speaker and author
46. “Never, never, never give up.” —Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister
47. “Believe in yourself. Have faith in your abilities. Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.” —Norman Vincent Peale, author of The Power of Positive Thinking
48. “Successful and unsuccessful people do not vary greatly in their abilities. They vary in their desires to reach their potential.” —John Maxwell, author and speaker
49. “Set impossible challenges. Then catch up with them.” —Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin
Copyright Richard D. Harroch. All Rights Reserved.
Photo credits: Albert Einstein, Lee Iacocca, and Winston Churchill images from Wikimedia Commons.
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