Theme
Work
Effort, discipline, craft, and the dignity of labor.
Every quote here is provenance-checked. AI will happily put a fake quote on a beautiful slide — these are the ones you can actually use, with the right name on them.
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Verified quotes about work
Each is traced to a real source and correctly credited. ✓ Free to use = public domain, cleared for commercial reuse. Open one for a paste-ready credit line and its reuse status.
“As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death”
“Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness”
“Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing”
“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do”
“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration”
“Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance”
“He has half the deed done who has made a beginning”
“I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours”
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner”
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do”
“Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well”
“No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem”
“The life so short, the craft so long to learn”
“The only way to do great work is to love what you do”
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit”
“When a man is at peace with his gods and ancestors, his harvest will be good or bad according to the strength of his arm”
“All things are difficult before they are easy”
“Deeds, not words”
“Energy and persistence conquer all things”
“Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way”
“I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter”
“Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, and sacrifice”
“The best time to plan a book is while you're doing the dishes”
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing”
“Things don't turn up in this world until somebody turns them up”
No public-domain quotes on this theme yet — try another, or use an in-copyright one with attribution.
Don’t get caught out
Commonly shared about work — but misattributed
Popular work lines that get pinned on the wrong name. If you use one, credit it correctly.
“A penny saved is a penny earned”
ReallyUnknown — a traditional English proverb · not Benjamin Franklin
“Blood, sweat and tears”
ReallyWinston Churchill
“Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door”
ReallyRalph Waldo Emerson · not Ralph Waldo Emerson
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail”
ReallyAnonymous (proverbial) · not Benjamin Franklin
“Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work”
ReallyDr. John Trainer · not C.S. Lewis
“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life”
ReallyUnknown (a 20th-century American proverb) · not Confucius
“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it; he who doesn't, pays it”
ReallyAnonymous advertising copywriter · not Albert Einstein
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast”
ReallyUnknown · not Peter Drucker
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are”
ReallySquire Bill Widener
“Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are”
ReallySquire Bill Widener · not Theodore Roosevelt
“Duty makes us do things well, but love makes us do them beautifully”
ReallyPhillips Brooks · not Zig Ziglar
“England is a nation of shopkeepers”
ReallyAdam Smith · not Napoleon Bonaparte
“Find what you love and let it kill you”
ReallyKinky Friedman · not Charles Bukowski
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe”
ReallyAnonymous woodsmen & loggers (a folk aphorism) · not Abraham Lincoln
“God helps those who help themselves”
ReallyAlgernon Sidney
“I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it”
ReallyColeman Cox · not Thomas Jefferson
“I've never been hired by a poor person”
ReallyRobert Orben · not Ronald Reagan
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do”
ReallyJohann Wolfgang von Goethe · not Leonardo da Vinci