52 Hard Work Quotes for Success That Lasts

Nobody drifts into a great life. Every champion, builder and saint you admire paid for it in sweat long before anyone clapped. Talent opens the door, but hard work is what keeps you in the room when the excuses start whispering. I have learned that God blesses effort, not wishes. These 52 hard work quotes come straight from the speeches, books, letters and scripture where they were first written or said, from Hesiod and Proverbs to Frederick Douglass, Theodore Roosevelt, Edison and Shonda Rhimes, plus a few lines of my own. Read them when you are tired, then get back to work. And if you need the backbone to keep going when nobody is watching, pair this list with these discipline quotes for success.

Hard Work Quotes: Paying the Price for Success

1. “Prayer without action is a man asking God to do his pushups.” – Joel Brown

2. “Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” – Theodore Roosevelt

3. “Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration.” – Thomas Edison

4. “Nothing ever comes to me, that is worth having, except as the result of hard work.” – Booker T. Washington

5. “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure.” – Colin Powell

6. “Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work.” – Horace

7. “In front of excellence the immortal gods have put sweat, and long and steep is the way to it, and rough at first. But when you come to the top, then it is easy, even though it is hard.” – Hesiod

8. “We may explain success mainly by one word and that word is WORK! WORK!! WORK!!! WORK!!!! Not transient and fitful effort, but patient, enduring, honest, unremitting and indefatigable work, into which the whole heart is put.” – Frederick Douglass

9. “A man may, at times, get something for nothing, but it will, in his hands, amount to nothing.” – Frederick Douglass

10. “There are no gains without pains.” – Benjamin Franklin

11. “Diligence is the mother of good luck.” – Benjamin Franklin

12. “Dreams are lovely. But they are just dreams. Fleeting, ephemeral, pretty. But dreams do not come true just because you dream them. It’s hard work that makes things happen. It’s hard work that creates change.” – Shonda Rhimes

13. “Dreams build convictions because you work hard to pay the price to make sure that they come true. Wishes are hoping good things will happen to you, but there’s no fire in your gut that causes you to put everything forth to overcome all the obstacles.” – Dolly Parton

14. “In all labour there is profit: but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury.” – Proverbs 14:23

Hard Work Quotes: Outworking Everyone

15. “Earned dopamine. Honest work. Clean conscience. More Jesus. That’s the new high.” – Joel Brown

16. “I will not be out-worked, period. You might have more talent than me, you might be smarter than me… But if we get on the treadmill together, right, there’s two things. You’re getting off first, or I’m going to die. It’s really that simple, right?” – Will Smith

17. “Going through the pain barrier, that’s what makes the muscles grow. There’s this pain, this aching, and going on and on and on. That’s what divides a champion from a non-champion – having the guts to go through the pain barrier.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger

18. “The heights by great men reached and kept / Were not attained by sudden flight, / But they, while their companions slept, / Were toiling upward in the night.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

19. “I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come indirectly through accident, except the phonograph. No, when I have fully decided that a result is worth getting, I go about it, and make trial after trial, until it comes.” – Thomas Edison

20. “Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.” – Thomas Edison

21. “Believe me, I work, I drudge, I grind all day long and I do so with pleasure, but I should get very much discouraged if I could not go on working as hard or even harder.” – Vincent van Gogh

22. “I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” – Michael Jordan

23. “Ease is a greater threat to progress than hardship.” – Denzel Washington

24. “We must dare to be great; and we must realize that greatness is the fruit of toil and sacrifice and high courage.” – Theodore Roosevelt

25. “I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife.” – Theodore Roosevelt

26. “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.” – Frederick Douglass

27. “Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.” – Booker T. Washington

28. “The hand of the diligent shall bear rule: but the slothful shall be under tribute.” – Proverbs 12:24

Hard Work Quotes: Faith, Calling and Honest Work

29. “Pray first. Work hard. Tell the truth. Love your partner. Raise your kids. Keep your word. Leave the outcome to God. That’s most of it.” – Joel Brown

30. “And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men.” – Colossians 3:23

31. “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.” – Ecclesiastes 9:10

32. “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men.” – Proverbs 22:29

33. “Jesus was a great worker, and His disciples must not be afraid of hard work.” – Charles Spurgeon

34. “Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.” – Thomas Carlyle

35. “All work, even cotton spinning, is noble; work is alone noble… A life of ease is not for any man, nor for any god.” – Thomas Carlyle

36. “Every noble work is at first impossible.” – Thomas Carlyle

37. “Work is no disgrace: it is idleness which is a disgrace.” – Hesiod

38. “Our labour preserves us from three great evils – weariness, vice, and want.” – Voltaire

39. “Thou, O God, dost sell us all good things at the price of labour.” – Leonardo da Vinci

40. “The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.” – Steve Jobs

41. “Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.” – Conan O’Brien

42. “Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason why so few engage in it.” – Henry Ford

Hard Work Quotes: Excuses, Standards and the Long Game

43. “Your next 90 days can bury the last 9 years of mistakes if you stop making excuses.” – Joel Brown

44. “High standards feel lonely until the results arrive. Then everybody wants access.” – Joel Brown

45. “Fewer people are bent from hard work than are crooked from avoiding it.” – Zig Ziglar

46. “Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry all easy.” – Benjamin Franklin

47. “Industry need not wish, and he that lives upon hope will die fasting.” – Benjamin Franklin

48. “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.” – Proverbs 6:6

49. “He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich.” – Proverbs 10:4

50. “If any would not work, neither should he eat.” – 2 Thessalonians 3:10

51. “You are going to do something worthwhile, that you are going to work hard and do the things you set out to do.” – Theodore Roosevelt

52. “There is no substitute for persistence.” – Napoleon Hill

Hard work is not a punishment. It is a privilege, and most people waste it waiting for the perfect moment. Pick the one thing that matters most this week, outwork your old self on it, and let the results speak for you. Stop negotiating with comfort. If the real enemy is the voice telling you to start tomorrow, these quotes about overcoming procrastination will help you kill it. Which of these hard work quotes is going on your wall today?