work ethic quotes

I never took a day off in my twenties. Not one. And I’m still fanatical, but now I’m a little less fanatical.

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

We should work with the principle that a work that can be done at a lower level should never be escalated to a higher level.

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

We go to school to learn to work hard for money. I write books and create products that teach people how to have money work hard for them.

Whatever work you do, you think are you doing this for the good of the nation? That’s the basic training. The other basic training is discipline. Your life should be disciplined. The other thing they say is what work you get, do it well.

Of course, I do everything for money.

I didn’t work hard to sit down and not work.

You can live within the institutions and work hard to change them.

I don’t know about other people, but I love to work.

A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation.

When you’re around me and really see that all I do is live and breathe for my work, it’s not strange, it’s just Gaga.

I like the cold weather. It means you get work done.

Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.

I’ve never thought about any kind of prejudice about women in country music because I never felt like it affected me. I was fortunate enough to come about in a time when I didn’t feel that kind of energy at all, and it was always my theory that if you want to play in the same ballgame as the boys, you’ve got to work as hard as them.

People’s blessings give you the power to work tirelessly. The only thing required is commitment.

When you play, play hard; when you work, don’t play at all.

The right-wingers don’t want to admit that for some people, there are no jobs; they think that conscientiousness in and of itself will do the trick.

In terms of doing work and in terms of learning and evolving as a person, you just grow more when you get more people’s perspectives… I really try and live the mission of the company and… keep everything else in my life extremely simple.

My strong point, if I have a strong point, is performance. I always do more than I say. I always produce more than I promise.

I can’t stand directors who try to micro-manage everything. When it happens these days I just walk off set, saying if they don’t like the way I’m doing it they can get someone else.

We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and wear nice clothes and live in nice apartments but don’t want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realize their full potential.

My goals are so high that I don’t have time to relax in any way, shape or form.

I believe you never get tired by doing work. You get tired when you don’t work. When you clean your house, you don’t get tired; it gives you satisfaction.

The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work.

There are millions of Americans outside Washington who are tired of stale political arguments and are moving this country forward. They believe, and I believe, that here in America, our success should depend not on accident of birth, but the strength of our work ethic and the scope of our dreams.

I’ve always wanted to make a career in the arts, and I think that my only hope at doing that is to make it more about the work.

Some slaves are scoured to their work by whips, others by their restlessness and ambition.

As a producer, as a CEO of Hartbeat Productions, I am making deals to put my company in place to win, to put my staff to work so that while all this stuff is going on, they’re in the kitchen cooking. So it’s understanding the longevity of the entertainment business; you get out of it what you put into it.

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.

I like to work and am a focused person.

We learned about dignity and decency – that how hard you work matters more than how much you make… that helping others means more than just getting ahead yourself.

The best workers, like the happiest livers, look upon their work as a kind of game: the harder they play the more enjoyable it becomes.

It sounds simple telling people to work hard and never quit, but to really execute and demonstrate those principles takes discipline and faith. Those are the two factors that I believe separate the good from the great, the successes from the failures.

Surround yourself with people who take their work seriously, but not themselves, those who work hard and play hard.

Men don’t and can’t live by exchanging articles, but by producing them. They don’t live by trade, but by work. Give up that foolish and vain title of Trades Unions; and take that of laborers Unions.

An employer of mine back in the ’80s was kind enough to take me on after a rough patch, and it made a big difference in my life that I knew I was the sort of person who showed up on time. It’s a basic tell of character.

It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary importance, and that, in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things.

Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit.

I focus on my own job.

A young man who does not have what it takes to perform military service is not likely to have what it takes to make a living. Today’s military rejects include tomorrow’s hard-core unemployed.

The more that learn to read the less learn how to make a living. That’s one thing about a little education. It spoils you for actual work. The more you know the more you think somebody owes you a living.

By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.

I wish everyone well, but you need to focus on yourself. You need to stop putting your hand out. Everyone wants hand outs. Everyone wants things for free. You’ve got to put in the work. You’ve got to grind. You’ve got go through the struggle, and you’ve got to get it.

I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president – with the possible exceptions of Johnson, FDR, and Lincoln – just in terms of what we’ve gotten done in modern history. But, you know, but when it comes to the economy, we’ve got a lot more work to do. And we’re gonna keep on at it.

If it is surely the means to the highest end we know, can any work be humble or disgusting? Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder, the means by which we are translated?

Yes, and I can sit down on a white piece of paper and work because I don’t believe too much into inspiration, only I’m waiting for inspiration, work and then inspiration may come. It’s a little too easy to say that.

If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.

Our work is never over.

I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living.

The humanists‘ replacement for religion: work really hard and somehow you’ll either save yourself or you’ll be immortal. Of course, that’s a total joke, and our progress is nothing. There may be progress in technology but there’s no ethical progress whatsoever.

A reputation as a hard worker is a good reputation to have.

The idea that to make a man work you’ve got to hold gold in front of his eyes is a growth, not an axiom. We’ve done that for so long that we’ve forgotten there’s any other way.

I’ve had the good fortune and blessing to run for the offices for which I really wanted to do the work.

If you work hard and play by the rules, this country is truly open to you. You can achieve anything.

Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.

When Thomas Edison worked late into the night on the electric light, he had to do it by gas lamp or candle. I’m sure it made the work seem that much more urgent.

I wanted to sell a million records, and I sold a million records. I wanted to go platinum; I went platinum. I’ve been working nonstop since I was 15. I don’t even know how to chill out.

I do my job like I breathe.

A man is not paid for having a head and hands, but for using them.