Work Ethic Quotes

I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs.

People often ask me if I know the secret of success and if I could tell others how to make their dreams come true. My answer is, you do it by working.

Without hustle, talent will only carry you so far.

A great man leaves clean work behind him, and requires no sweeper up of the chips.

It is willingness of people to give of themselves over and above the demands of the job that distinguishes the great from the merely adequate.

When there are duties to perform [true] servants and sons serve their labors.

Excellence isn't a one-week or one-year ideal. It's a constant.

It is astonishing what an effort it seems to be for many people to put their brains definitely and systematically to work.

There are twelve good reasons for failure. The first one is the avowed intention of doing no more than one is paid to do, and the person who makes this avowal may see the other eleven by stepping before a looking glass.

You might not be able to outthink, outmarket or outspend your competition, but you can outwork them.

Your self-image should not come from the job you do but from how well you do your job.

whatever you become be good at it

The most trifling actions that affect a man's credit are to be regarded. The sound of your hammer at five in the morning, or at nine at night, heard by a creditor, makes him easy six months longer; but if he sees you at the billiard-table, or hears your voice at a tavern, when you should be at work, he sends for his money the next day.

I want to be like one of those little fainting goats that get scared and then just fall over. I want to go and go and then drop dead in the middle of something I'm loving to do. And if that doesn't happen, if I wind up sitting in a wheelchair, at least I'll have my high heels on.

I used to be, like, "Sleep when I die."

It's the disease of thinking that a having a great idea is really 90% of the work. And if you just tell people, 'here's this great idea,' then of course they can go off and make it happen. The problem with that is that there's a tremendous amount of craftsmanship between a having a great idea and having a great product.

If you work for a man, in Heavens name work for him! If he pays you wages that supply your bread and butter, work for him, stand by him, and stand by the institution he represents.

I'll be judged on the body of work and not the popularity of any one decision.

In my mind nothing is more abhorrent than a life of ease. None of us has any right to ease. There is no place in civilization for the idler.

I don't keep up with a lot of trends. I've never been a fashion horse. I'm so busy writing my songs, trying to maintain my business, and all the new things that come along. I stay working all the time.

Take your work seriously, but don't take yourself seriously

A lot of times people get to a certain age and they quit. I always felt sorry for the Frank Capras, the Billy Wilders, directors like that, because they quit in their sixties. Why would you quit? Think of the great work they could've done in their sixties, seventies, and on up.

Those who grumble at the little thing that has fallen to their lot to do will grumble at everything. Always grumbling, they will lead a miserable life, and everything will be a failure. But those who do their duties as they go, putting their shoulders to the wheel, will see the light, and higher duties will fall to their share.

Business is business, no child's play.

At Apple, people are putting in 18-hour days. We attract a different type of person—a person who doesn’t want to wait five or ten years to have someone take a giant risk on him or her. Someone who really wants to get in a little over his head and make a little dent in the universe. We are aware that we are doing something significant. We’re here at the beginning of it and we’re able to shape how it goes. Everyone here has the sense that right now is one of those moments when we are influencing the future.

I figure if I keep my health, I have no intention of retiring. I love to work. I want to be like Bob Hope. I want to keep on going out and doing what I love to do. Of course, I'm no Bob Hope, but I mean that feeling that you never are old and have things to offer and can be useful to somebody. I always want to be useful, I have no intentions of retiring unless I should get sick or something should happen to my husband. Other than that I'm going to work until I fall over.

See the clock only when you have No work.... Don't see the clock when you are working.... Clock is a lock for success

I'm a workin' girl.

You have to be un-compromised in your level of commitment to whatever you are doing, or it can disappear as fast as it appeared. Commitment cannot be compromised by rewards.

Hustling is putting every minute and all your effort into achieving the goal at hand.

At age nine, I got a paper route. Sixty-six papers had to be delivered to sixty-six families every day. I also had to collect thirty cents a week from each customer. I owed the paper twenty cents per customer per week, and got to keep the rest. When I didn't collect, the balance came out of my profit. My average income was six dollars a week.

Success is based on imagination plus ambition and the will to work.

That man is idle who can do something better.

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

I think we ought to impress on both our girls and boys that successful marriages require just as much work, just as much intelligence and just as much unselfish devotion, as they give to any position they undertake to fill on a paid basis.

I'm working full-time on my job and part time on my fortune. But it won't be long before I'm working full-time on my fortune. . . can you imagine what my life will look like?

We're just enthusiastic about what we do.

I hope I don't sound like an old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud, but when I hear about people making vast fortunes without doing any productive work or contributing anything to society, my reaction is: “How can I get in on that?

I never feared about my skills because I put in the work. Work ethic eliminates fear. So if you put forth the work, what are you fearing? You know what you're capable of doing and what you're not.

I don't pity any man who does hard work worth doing. I admire him. I pity the creature who does not work, at whichever end of the social scale he may regard himself as being.

When you do more than you're paid for eventually you'll be paid for more than you do.

I haven't stopped working since I was 10.

I have worked ever since I was 13.

My father taught me to always do more than you get paid for as an investment in your future.

His answer to every problem, every setback was “I will work harder!” —which he had adopted as his personal motto.

He was by no means opposed to hard labour on principle, for he would work away at a cricket-match by the day together, - running, and catching, and batting, and bowling, and revelling in toil which would exhaust a galley-slave.

Working on your biceps? Try chopping down a cherry tree.

Get a good idea and stay with it. Dog it, and work at it until it's done right.

Even if you flippin' fries at McDonald's, if you are excellent, everybody wants to be in your line.

When I get on a roll with something, it's really hard for me to put it down unfinished.

For us is the life of action, of strenuous performance of duty; let us live in the harness, striving mightily; let us rather run the risk of wearing out than rusting out.

Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.

We don't get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? So this is what we've chosen to do with our life. We could be sitting in a monastery somewhere in Japan. We could be out sailing. Some of the team could be playing golf. They could be running other companies. And we've all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damn good. It better be worth it. And we think it is.

See, winners embrace hard work.

I don't think you're as capable of handling lack of sleep or whatever challenges you throw at your body as you get older. However, I never missed a day of work.

A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. There will be sleeping enough in the grave.

We're emotionally unfit. We expect things to be given to us that other generations had to earn. We think we're supposed to get homes with no money down and be supported by the government if we're unemployed.

Love your family, work super hard, live your passion.

Calm and silent and steady work, and no newspaper humbug, no name-making, you must always remember.

I have nothing in common with lazy people who blame others for their lack of success.