Sometimes I just need to hear an affirmation to get going in the morning. We’re professionals who are working hard. It’s easy to get tangled up in the day-to-day grind. Inspirational career quotes can give you that little life you need to get through your day. 

So, without further ado, here are 65 inspirational career quotes to boost your spirits and give you the confidence you need to keep on keeping on. 

When you want to give up…

1. “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” – Henry Ford
2. “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” – Theodore Roosevelt
3. “Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible’!” – Audrey Hepburn
4. “Do or do not. There is no try.” – Yoda 
5. “Life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent of how I react to it.” – Charles Swindoll 
6. “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” – Chinese proverb
7. “You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.” – Babe Ruth
8. “If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time.” – Steve Jobs 
9. “The best revenge is massive success.” – Frank Sinatra
10. “The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” – Thomas Paine 
11. “You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.” – Henry Ford

Reach for your dreams…

1. “Risk something or forever sit with your dreams.” – Herb Brooks
2. “It’s better to risk starving to death than surrender. If you give up on your dreams, what’s left?” – Jim Carrey 
3. “Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.” – Peter Drucker
4. “Build your own dreams, or someone will hire you to build theirs.” – Farrah Gray
5. “Limitations live only in our minds. But if we use our imaginations, our possibilities become limitless.” – Jamie Paolinetti
6. “I never dreamed about success, I worked for it.” – Estee Lauder
7. “Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.” – Goethe
8. “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
9. “Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.” – Les Brown
10. “If you hear a voice within you say, ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.” – Vincent Van Gogh

Know that you are extraordinary…

1. “I think it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary.” – Elon Musk
2. “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” – Steve Jobs
3. “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” – Alice Walker
4. “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
5. “The successful warrior is the average man with laser-like focus.” – Bruce Lee 
6. “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
7. “It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” – Sir Edmund Hillary
8. “There is a real magic in enthusiasm. It spells the difference between mediocrity and accomplishment.” – Norman Vincent Peale
9. “You can control two things: your work ethic and your attitude about anything.” – Ali Krieger
10. “Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
11. “The secret to joy in work is contained in one word – excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.” – Pearl Buck
12. “Choose a job you love, and you will have to work a day in your life.” – Confucius
13. “I cannot do everything, but I can do something. I must not fail to do the something that I can do.” – Helen Keller
14. “It’s not the days in your life, but the life in your days that counts.” – Brian White
15. Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.” – Kurt Cobain
16. “No one can discover you until you do. Exploit your talents, skills, and strengths and make the world sit up and take notice.” – Rob Liano
17. “Desire! That’s the one secret of every man’s career. Not education. Not being born with hidden talents. Desire.” – Johnny Carson 
18. “I learned a long time ago that there is something worse than missing the goal, and that’s not pulling the trigger.” – Mia Hamm
19. “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” – Oscar Wilde 

When you need to keep keeping on…

1. “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.” – Vince Lombardi
2. “If you are not in the moment, you are either looking forward to uncertainty, or back at pain and regret.” – Jim Carrey
3. “Courage often times is not the loud roar but rather the soft voice at the end of the day whispering ‘I’ll try again tomorrow’.” – Unknown 
4. “I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” – Stephen Covey
5. “I find the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.” – Thomas Jefferson 
6. “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” – Robert Collier
7. “The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity.” – Amelia Earhart 
8. “Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.” – Dalai Lama 
9. “One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.” – Arthur Ashe
10. “If you’re going through hell keep going.” – Winston Churchill
11. “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” – Seneca 
12. “Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.” – General George Patton
13. “Leadership is about vision and responsibility, not power.” – Seth Berkley

Move beyond fear…

1. “Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.” – George Addair
2. “Low self-confidence isn’t a life sentence. Self-confidence can be learned, practiced, and mastered – just like any other skill. Once you master it, everything in your life will change for the better.” – Barrie Davenport 
3. “Successful people have fear, successful people have doubts, and successful people have worries. They just don’t let those feelings stop them.” – T. Harv Eker 
4. “Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” – Dale Carnegie
5. “Nothing will work unless you do.” – Maya Angelou
6. “Things do not ‘happen’. Things are made to happen.” – John F. Kennedy
7. “I’d rather attempt to do something great and fail than attempt to do nothing and succeed.” – Robert Schuller
8. “The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave in reflection.” – Thomas Paine 
9. “If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done.” – Thomas Jefferson
10. “A person who has never made a mistake never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein 
11. “The truth is that our finest moments are likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.” – M. Scott Peck
12. “Life opens up opportunities to you, and you either take them or you stay afraid of taking them.” – Jim Carrey

Ready to discover your career purpose? Click HERE for a FREE course to discover your most authentic career!