Successful Work Quotes & Sayings

what would happen if we left our heart on stage every time we created anything. It's a bust your ass to shine, honest to a fault, no bullshit, zero apology performance. If you look at the work of some of the most successful people in the world you'll see it as the undertone. It isn't just something they do, it's who they are. It's the kind of performance where your heart and soul bleed. — Srinivas Rao

Success is a choice; you choose it and work it out! Excellence is deliberate and so it is intentionally pursued. No successful person ever remained idle for success to knock his/her door for him/her — Israelmore Ayivor

You are successful if you are able to work on the kind of material that you want to - if your life conforms to your dreams, regardless of outside acceptance or acclaim. — James Franco

Every successful man or great genius has three particular qualities in common. The most conspicuous of these is that they all produce a prodigious amount of work. The second is that they never know fatigue. And the third is that their minds grow more brilliant as they grow older, instead of less brilliant. Great men's lives begin at forty, where the mediocre man's life ends. The genius remains an ever-flowing fountain of creative achievement until the very last breath he draws. — Walter Russell

You are only as successful as the people who work for you want you to be. — Leonard Lauder

Successful democratic politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle, or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies. The decisive consideration is not whether the proposition is good but whether it is popular
not whether it will work well and prove itself but whether the active talking constituents like it immediately. Politicians rationalize this servitude by saying that in a democracy public men are the servants of the people. — Walter Lippmann

One of the obstacles to recognizing chronic mistreatment in relationships is that most abusive men simply don't seem like abusers. They have many good qualities, including times of kindness, warmth, and humor, especially in the early period of a relationship. An abuser's friends may think the world of him. He may have a successful work life and have no problems with drugs or alcohol. He may simply not fit anyone's image of a cruel or intimidating person. So when a woman feels her relationship spinning out of control, it is unlikely to occur to her that her partner is an abuser. — Lundy Bancroft

In the 'west' success is defined in purely material terms. He with the most money wins ... We should question, speak out and work for a better society with a whole different definition of what is deemed a successful artistic life. — Mark A. Brennan

To lead a successful life, then, it's a good idea to work out what you really want. Then get together some plans. Then set some goals. — John C. Parkin

When Hamish and I loved each other for a whole year without making love, I did not realize that I had set the mould of my whole life. One could find endless reasons for our abstinence
fear, virtue, ignorance, perversion
but the fact remains that the Hamish pattern was to be endlessly repeated, and with increasing velocity and lack of depth, so that eventually the idea of love ended in me almost the day that it began. Nothing succeeds, they say, life success, and certainly nothing fails like failure. I was successful in my work, so I suppose other successes were too much to hope for. — Margaret Drabble

Be believing, be happy, don't get discouraged. Things will work out. — Gordon B. Hinckley

I've always been a contrarian of sorts. I'm not exactly sure where this quality comes from. I am among the approximately 13 percent of people who are left-handed, and a great deal has been written about the differences in the ways southpaws process ideas and motivations. In any event, always fitting in or going with the crowd has never been a big concern for me if my head and heart lay elsewhere. Admittedly, my inclination to stray from the pack didn't go over too well with my drill sergeant. My armed forces stint offered many lessons, one of which was that if I was to be successful as an individual in whatever I chose to do, I would have to work, and think, independently. — Charles Brandes

If you are at all successful in your business, be prepared to never have another good day or bad day at work. There will be so many things - good and bad - happening on any given day that you will be on a roller coaster of highs and lows. If that excites you, then go for it. — Tom Szaky

The truth be told, the World Trade Center was neither a very good work of architecture nor a very successful piece of urbanism. Its shortcomings were somewhat mitigated by the westward and southward expansion of the World Financial Center and Battery Park City during the 1980s. — Martin Filler

To be a successful general one must be prayful, faithful and work hard — Osunsakin Adewale

Whether you are watching a video or playing a game, whether you are doing work or fielding an unwanted phone call, whether you are being successful or smarting from failure - in the ordinary context of daily living, you show the power and viability of Christian faith. — Tedd Tripp

This work is the result of a meeting of minds from two of the most successful men in their respective fields. — Will Carling

In my view the successful companies of the future will be those that integrate business and employees' personal values. The best people want to do work that contributes to society with a company whose values they share, where their actions count and their views matter. — Jeroen Van Der Veer

Success is accomplishment of daily work. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Successful writers say you should never work from a desk with a view, and the view I have from this one is a huge distraction. There's a garden bursting with fresh vegetation, and just beyond the high wall at the end of it, I can see the sign of the local pub across the road. Distractions, eh? I'm so easily led. — Matt Roper

Every successful organization has to make the transition from a world defined primarily by repetition to one primarily defined by change. This is the biggest transformation in the structure of how humans work together since the Agricultural Revolution. — Bill Drayton

I got successful awfully quick, and I wanted it ... But I do think there is responsibility to move the musical theater form forward. I think you always have to be aware of the work that came before and build on that. — Harold Prince

When a business becomes successful seemingly overnight, no one knows about all the months and years you've invested, all the projects you've tried before that didn't work. — Niklas Zennstrom

What the world thought made little difference. Rembrandt had to
paint. Whether he painted well or badly didn't matter; painting was the
stuff that held him together as a man. The chief value of art, Vincent, lies
in the expression it gives to the artist. Rembrandt fulfilled what he knew
to be his life purpose; that justified him. Even if his work had been
worthless, he would have been a thousand times more successful than if
he had put down his desire and become the richest merchant in
Amsterdam. (Mendes Da Costa — Irving Stone

Don't worry about becoming successful but work toward being significant and the success will naturally follow. — Oprah Winfrey

How you got your college education mattered most." And two experiences stood out from the poll of more than one million American workers, students, educators, and employers: Successful students had one or more teachers who were mentors and took a real interest in their aspirations, and they had an internship related to what they were learning in school. The most engaged employees, said Busteed, consistently attributed their success in the workplace to having had a professor or professors "who cared about them as a person," or having had "a mentor who encouraged their goals and dreams," or having had "an internship where they applied what they were learning." Those workers, he found, "were twice as likely to be engaged with their work and thriving in their overall well-being." There's a message in that bottle. — Thomas L. Friedman

The secret of the true love of work is the hope of success in that work; not for the money reward, for the time spent, or for the skill exercised, but for the successful result in the accomplishment of the work itself. — Sidney Abram Weltmer

As a founder of two organizations that recruit top college graduates to expand educational opportunity, I've spent a lot of time examining what's at work in successful classrooms and schools over the past two decades. — Wendy Kopp

The more successful the work, the more people will step in to try to influence and manipulate the work for their own benefit. — Michael Gungor

There's only one good reason to be a writer-we can't help it! We'd all like to be rich, famous and successful, but if those are our goals, we're off on a wrong foot ... I just wanted to earn enough money so I could work at home on my writing. — Phyllis A. Whitney

Passion is different than desire. People that are successful recognize passion. You have to be willing to work at it. I love the image of pushing a boulder uphill - it will flourish you. — John Schneider

I've made 30 movies and for the most part my movies work. In a business where success is an exception and not the rule, I've mostly been successful. — Eddie Murphy

Friends," he began, "fellow citizens of the Federation, I have tonight a unique honor and privilege. Since the triumphant return of our trail-blazing ship Champion - " He continued in a few thousand well-chosen words to congratulate the citizens of Earth on their successful contact with another planet, another civilized race. He managed to imply that the exploit of the Champion was the personal accomplishment of every citizen of the Federation, that any one of them could have led the expedition had he not been busy with other serious work - and that he, Secretary Douglas, had been chosen by them as their humble instrument to work their will. The flattering notions were never stated baldly, but implied; the underlying assumption being that the common man was the equal of anyone and better than most - and that good old Joe Douglas embodied the common man. Even his mussed cravat and cowlicked hair had a "just folks" quality. — Robert A. Heinlein

There are no guarantees that if you work hard enough, or are talented enough, that you will be successful, be able to support yourself, or importantly, make a meaningful contribution to others. But in the meantime, if you are an artist, the art just comes - whether you like it or not - because you can't stop it. — Jessica Todd Harper

Luck is one thing. It has always been there, it has always been a part of my success. It's a part of everyone's success. Without it, you can't be successful. But luck is something you have to stimulate, something you have to nurture through the choices you make ... That's why things have always worked out for me. Things work out not just because I'm lucky, but because I plan ahead. I figure out what I want and I go for it. I've always spent a lot of time trying to surround myself with the right people, the kinds of teammates who could lead me to my goals. — Valentino Garavani

I like to think of the figures I make as companions for a personal journey. I try to fill each one with healing energy that responds to the person who owns it, and conversely, I hope that the person who owns it will respond with a true heart connection. I feel that my work is a sign post to the half forgotten world that we all carry inside of us. When people look at my work, I want them to think "Oh, now I remember." If they do that then I know that they have been successful. — Wendy Froud

You can say the president's private life takes up so much of his time that he doesn't focus on his job, so therefore he's terrible. But in my imagination, the 23 hours of the day that we don't experience, he's very hard at work. He's quite an effective and successful president - in my narcissistic imagination. — Tony Goldwyn

It's always interesting to watch people who have been incredibly successful in their own businesses work in a group made up of equally strong personalities. It takes a special kind of leader who can effectively manage a team of veritable strangers and find the best way to get strong, winning performances from them. — Donald Trump

Sometimes people are surprised to learn that most of the films I've made don't work. They've been released but nobody has ever seen them. Maybe 40 percent of them are very successful. That's a very high percentage; most people have maybe 10 or 15 percent of their films work. — George Lucas

Some read biographies of famous Christians to try to short-cut themselves into a deeper walk with the Lord and successful ministry. They think: "If I just copy some of their techniques, beliefs, and quotes, I will have their success." Such thinking, though, creates men who trust in the past work of other believers, living out of their zeal instead of tapping into the actual power of God which these men had. True men of God are only signposts to point the way. Their sign should point to heaven, to the Lord himself. — Greg Gordon

No matter how successful or skilled you are, you will inevitably fail at many things in your work. — Todd Henry

He moved well. He looked good. He was tall. He worked on his body and this work was extremely successful. He had a lot of thick, messy black hair. And he had a face that was movie star handsome in a way that, without a doubt, launched a million wedding fantasies, even from women who just caught a glimpse of him walking down the street. — Kristen Ashley

If somebody in your industry is more successful than you, it's because he works harder than you. — Hugh Jackman

I observed that the successful farmer worked at his job. He would do his plowing, disking, harrowing, seeding, and harvesting in the proper season and at the proper time, while his neighbor was procrastinating, or off hunting and fishing while the work was still to be done. We must learn to set our priorities straight. No one can be successful in his line of work unless he works at it in the proper season and plays in the proper season. — Nathan Eldon Tanner

There are many ways to run a successful company. What works once may never work again. What everyone tells you never to do may just work, once. There are no rules. You don't learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over, and it's because you fall over that you learn to save yourself from falling over. — Richard Branson

You must showcase your work, achievements and performance in the best possible manner. — Abhishek Ratna

But I find that for myself, without exception, the more I deal with the work as something that is my own, as something that is personal, the more successful it is. — Marian Bantjes

I believe that we all have a responsibility to give back. No one becomes successful without lots of hard work, support from others, and a little luck. Giving back creates a virtuous cycle that makes everyone more successful. — Ron Conway

I have gotten disturbed at ... some of the Democrats' anti-business behavior, the sentiment, the attacks on work ethic and successful people. I think it's very counter-productive. — Jamie Dimon

The ebb and flow as an artist is a bizarre experience, for sure. I was lucky enough to become successful pretty young - in late '79, 1980 - with a body of work that got recognized and became an archetype. — Robert Longo

I think a lot of my work has been a weird attempt to liberate myself, but it's not altogether successful. — Helen Mirren

Do all the work you can do, every day, and do each piece of work in a perfectly successful manner; put the power of success, and the purpose to get rich, into everything that you do. — Wallace D. Wattles

Especially has the State been successful in recent centuries in instilling fear of other State rulers. Since the land area of the globe has been parceled out among particular States, one of the basic doctrines of the State was to identify itself with the territory it governed. Since most men tend to love their homeland, the identification of that land and its people with the State was a means of making natural patriotism work to the State's advantage. If "Ruritania" was being attacked by "Walldavia," the first task of the State and its intellectuals was to convince the people of Ruritania that the attack was really upon them and not simply upon the ruling caste. In this way, a war between rulers was converted into a war between peoples, with each people coming to the defense of its rulers in the erroneous belief that the rulers were defending them. — Murray N. Rothbard

If we go to work at 8 am and go home at 5 pm, this is not a high-tech company and Alibaba will never be successful. If we have that kind of 8-to-5 spirit, then we should just go and do something else. — Jack Ma

The white backlash has been at work for a long time. It's been part and parcel of the Republican Party for the last 25 years or so, and it's been highly successful up until Barack Obama was ingeniously able to come up with strategies to deal with it. — Cornel West

Successful programs consist of people working hard, working together, while never worrying about who gets the credit. — Don Meyer

People that I know, the vast majority, who are successful work really, really hard. Sure, there's some people that either get lucky or inherited it or don't have to work hard for some reason, but the vast majority who are successful work really, really hard. — Will Packer

The secret of getting
successful work out of your trained men lies in one nutshell - in
the clearness of the instructions they receive. — Robert Baden-Powell

For actors, being successful is generally getting a job. If you can work a lot, you're really successful. If you work a lot on projects that are interesting and intelligent and great fun to be part of, then you're hugely successful. And I feel hugely successful. I can't believe that I get to be involved with the projects and the people I work with. — Anne-Marie Duff

People who dismiss the unemployed and dependent as 'parasites' fail to understand economics and parasitism. A successful parasite is one that is not recognized by its host, one that can make its host work for it without appearing as a burden. Such is the ruling class in a capitalist society. — Jason Read

I think to be successful you have to work really hard but you also have to have a little bit of luck. — Tom Petty

There is a widespread belief that americans hate cities. I think it is probable that Americans hate city failure, but, from the evidence, we certainly do not hate successful and vital city areas. On the contrary, so many people want to make use of such places, so many people want to work in them or live in them or visit in them, that municipal self-destruction ensues. In killing successful diversity combinations with money, we are employing perhaps our nearest equivalent to killing with kindness. — Jane Jacobs

Someone could have an outstanding comprehension of a bodybuilding diet and a background in nutrition but not have the work ethic and desire to put it into practice. That person won't be as successful as the person who understands some basics and puts them into action regularly. — Robert Cheeke

Most of us don't fear that we are not enough; what most of us really fear is our own greatness. Most of us have a fear of success. Why? Because we don't think that we deserve to be successful in anything. This is why people recklessly spend their money or don't work as hard as they could or do things that they know are wrong. They are hindering their own success on purpose, because they don't think they deserve it. They cut their own legs out from underneath them on purpose. They are self-sabotaging. — Lisa Bedrick

As successful companies mature, employees gradually come to assume that the priorities they have learned to accept, and the ways of doing things and methods of making decisions that they have employed so successfully, are the right way to work. Once members of the organization begin to adopt ways of working and criteria for making decisions by assumption, rather than by conscious decision, then those processes and values come to constitute the organization's culture. 7 As companies grow from a few employees to hundreds and thousands, the challenge of getting all employees to agree on what needs to be done and how it should be done so that the right jobs are done repeatedly and consistently can be daunting for even the best managers. Culture is a powerful management tool in these situations. Culture enables employees to act autonomously and causes them to act consistently. Hence, the location of the — Clayton M Christensen

Every business, like a painting, operates according to its own rules. There are many ways to run a successful company. What works once may never work again. What everyone tells you never to do may just work, once. — Richard Branson

Had it not been for the ministry of my good friend Dr. Billy Graham, my work in the civil rights movement would not have been as successful as it has been. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Linus: What's wrong, Charlie Brown?
Charlie Brown: I just got terrible news. The teacher says we're going on a field trip to an art museum; and I have to get an A on my report or I'll fail the whole course. Why do we have to have all this pressure about grades, Linus?
Linus: Well, I think that the purpose of going to school is to get good grades so then you can go on to high school; and the purpose is to study hard so you can get good grades so you can go to college; and the purpose of going to college is so you can get good grades so you can go on to graduate school; and the purpose of that is to work hard and get good grades so we can get a job and be successful so that we can get married and have kids so we can send them to grammar school to get good grades so they can go to high school to get good grades so they can go to college and work hard ...
Charlie Brown: Good grief! — Charles M. Schulz

Young men keep telling me they don't 'have it all' either. And they may have a point. But if you define 'having it all' as the opportunity to have a successful career and a family, I'd say this. When a man tells his coworkers he's going to have a child, no one asks him how he'll manage or if he'll be coming back to work. — Anne-Marie Slaughter

Successful, effective people are those who launch directly into their major tasks and then discipline themselves to work steadily and single-mindedly until those tasks are complete. In — Brian Tracy

But if they're so successful, why haven't parasites taken over the world? The answer is simple: they have. We just haven't noticed. That's because successful parasites don't kill us; they become part of us, making us perform all the work to keep them alive and help them reproduce. — Daniel Suarez

Every culture, if its natural development is not too much affected by political restrictions, experiences a perpetual renewal of the formative urge, and out of that comes an ever growing diversity of creative activity. Every successful piece of work stirs the desire for greater perfection and deeper inspiration; each new form becomes the herald of new possibilities of development. — Rudolf Rocker

We need to reevaluate and reconsider what is appropriate human behavior. Human beings have been so successful at surviving because of our intelligence and cooperation. When we are unintelligent and uncooperative it is no wonder that our survival is threatened. We need to be educated about our health and the health of our planet, and work together to achieve goals that are impossible to achieve individually. — Joseph P. Kauffman

Life's more important than a living. So many people who make a living are making death, not life. Don't ever join them. They're the gravediggers of our civilization - The safe men. The compromisers. The moneymakers. The muddlers-through.
Politics is full of them ... so is businesses ... so is the church. They're popular. Successful. Some of them work hard, other are slack, but all of them could tell a good story.
Never where there such charming gravediggers in the world's history. — James Hilton

We hold ourselves back not just out of fear of seeming too aggressive but also by underestimating our abilities. Ask a woman to explain why she's successful and she'll credit luck, hard work, and help from others. Ask a man the same question and he's likely to explain, or at least think, "C'mon, I'm awesome!"4 — Sheryl Sandberg

To me, the big thing in being a successful team is repetition of what you're doing, either by word of mouth, blackboard, or specifically by work on the field. You repeat, repeat, repeat as a unit. — Vince Lombardi

When you're around enormously successful people you realise their success isn't an accident - it's about work. — Ryan Tedder

Make sure you work at a place which gives you opportunities to learn, travel, explore, interact with intellectuals and new work skills. — Abhishek Ratna

If you want to live and you want to prosper, you've got to be ambitious. You've got to be ready to sacrifice leisure and pleasure, and you've got to plan ahead. I was forty years old before I had any money at all. But these things don't happen overnight. Now, how many people are there who will wait that long to be successful, and work all the time? Not very many. Maybe they're right. Maybe I'm a bloody fool. But I don't think I am. — Roy Thomson

One thing I began to realize in my travels was that everyone I met who was truly successful - whether in business, in philanthropic work, in human rights, in government, or in raising a family - shared one common trait: they were fanatically passionate about the work they did. — Wes Moore

You know, you don't have to have money to be a successful businessperson. You don't need a college degree. You just need a lot of common sense backed up by a willingness to work hard. — Farrah Gray

At the end of the day, you are solely responsible for your success and your failure. And the sooner you realize that, you accept that, and integrate that into your work ethic, you will start being successful. As long as you blame others for the reason you aren't where you want to be, you will always be a failure. — Erin Cummings

You get the idea. Every business, like a painting, operates according to its own rules. There are many ways to run a successful company. What works once may never work again. What everyone tells you never to do may just work, once. There are no rules. You don't learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over, and it's because you fall over that you learn to save yourself from falling over. It's the greatest thrill in the world and it runs away screaming at the first sight of bullet points. — Richard Branson

I like to remind people that creativity also isn't a spark; it's a slog. Every artist, inventor, designer, writer, or other creative in the world will talk about his work being an iterative experience. He'll start with one idea, shape it, move it, combine it, break it, begin anew, discover something within himself, see a new vision, go at it again, test it, share it, fix it, break it, hone it, hone it, hone it, hone it. This might sound like common sense, but it's not common practice, and that's why so many people are terribly uncreative - they're not willing to do the work required to create something that's beautiful, useful, desirable, celebrated. No masterpiece was shaped or written in a day. It's a long slog to get something right. This knowledge and willingness to iterate is what makes the world's most creative people so creative (and successful). — Brendon Burchard

The most successful people in all fields have a great work ethic. — Eric Mann

We all naturally want to become successful ... we also want to take shortcuts. And it's easy to do so, but you can never take away the effort of hard work and discipline and sacrifice. — Apolo Ohno

Most people only work enough so that it feels like work, whereas successful people work at a pace that gets such satisfying results that work is a reward. Truly successful people don't even call it work; for them, it's a passion. Why? Because they do enough to win! — Grant Cardone

You'll sacrifice a lot of things in the early part of your career to be successful, but to be ahead of your competitors, you have to work hard. — Ivan Glasenberg

Be Willing to Pay the Price If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it wouldn't seem wonderful at all. MICHELANGELO Renaissance sculptor and painter who spent 4 years lying on his back painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel Behind every great achievement is a story of education, training, practice, discipline, and sacrifice. You have to be willing to pay the price. Maybe that price is pursuing one single activity while putting everything else in your life on hold. Maybe it's investing all of your own personal wealth or savings. Maybe it's the willingness to walk away from the safety of your current situation. But though many things are typically required to reach a successful outcome, the willingness to do what's required adds that extra dimension to the mix that helps you persevere in the face of overwhelming challenges, setbacks, pain, and even personal — Jack Canfield

It takes a different mindset to be successful in anything; that's why there's not a lot of super duper successful people, because it's guys I know who may be ten times more talented than me, but they don't work as hard. — Rico Love

News reporting is a cycle: No matter how much you work at sending a message, it's only successful if it's received. — Jessica Savitch

The elements of trial and error, similar to earth and sky, and fire and water, delineates the constituent modules of our lives. Living robustly includes more failures than successes. We achieve adeptness to living by exhibiting a willingness to make good faith mistakes and learn from each misadventure. Every effort that fails to achieve our expected result is understandably frustrating. The fact is that without ideas and dreams and devoid of occasional crash landings, a person can never hope to achieve any worthy acts to temper resounding personal disappointment. Meaningful success is ultimately defined when a person dies, when an entire life's work devoted to performing passionate and compassionate enterprises can be judge as a whole unit. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Most people keep waiting on happiness, putting off happiness until they're successful or until they achieve some goal, which means we limit both happiness and success. That formula doesn't work. — Shawn Achor

Nobody should force you to do a bad piece of work in your whole life - no client, no creative director, nobody. The job isn't to please the client; the job is to produce something for the client that makes them incredibly successful. — George Lois

In order to be successful in any undertaking, I think the main thing is for one to grow to the point where he completely forgets himself; that is, to lose himself in a great cause. In proportion as one loses himself in this way, in the same degree does he get the highest happiness out of his work. — Booker T. Washington

Thankfully, over time, I have come to realize those skills initially dismissed as "soft" - communicating a vision, providing feedback, or leading a team - are fundamental to everything we try to do in business. You don't create a successful, sustainable, and scalable organization unless you can engage the people within the organization to work together. The "best friend at work" from the — Morag Barrett

A successful startup takes a very long time - certainly much longer than most founders think at the outset. You cannot treat it as an all-nighter. You have to eat well, sleep well, and exercise. You have to spend time with your family and friends. You also need to work in an area you're actually passionate about - nothing else will sustain you for ten years. — Sam Altman

When I graduated college, I had a fairly successful weekly club gig and was buying more studio equipment and writing my own music. I realized I didn't want to work. — Kaskade

The epic poet collaborates with the spirit of his time in the composition of his work. That is, if he is successful; the time may refuse to work with him, but he may not refuse to work with his time. — Lascelles Abercrombie

He will return with a greater understanding of himself, greater leadership capabilities, better work habits, and a better knowledge of what it takes to be successful. It really depends on the young man's desire, commitment, work habits, and how important it is to him when he returns. — LaVell Edwards