Logo - Feel The Words

Work Quotes

Quotes on the meaning of work.

Several quotes here describe work as a solitary process, one that takes real effort to protect from distraction, while others connect a person's politics directly to the character of their work. Related reading includes Growth Quotes.

I understand what's it like to work all week and on Friday night just want to go and leave your brain at the door, buy some popcorn and be thrilled by something.

Quotes by Don Cheadle

I imagine it was much different in the 1970s. That was the Renaissance for black actors, albeit in blaxploitation movies. There was a much greater preponderance of work then than there is now.

Quotes by Don Cheadle

My father worked real hard. I admired him. My father taught me you needed to work with your brain and not your back. I've made that a passion.

Quotes by Don Cornelius

When I have a job to do, time means nothing. I lose patience with people who work on a clock.

Quotes by Don Cornelius

If I were a writer, how I would enjoy being told the novel is dead. How liberating to work in the margins, outside a central perception. You are the ghoul of literature. Lovely.

Quotes by Don DeLillo

I quit my job just to quit. I didn't quit my job to write fiction. I just didn't want to work anymore.

Quotes by Don DeLillo

I think there is a sense of last things in my work that probably comes from a Catholic childhood.

Quotes by Don DeLillo

I've always liked being relatively obscure. I feel that's where I belong, that's where my work belongs.

Quotes by Don DeLillo

I've always seen myself in sentences. I begin to recognize myself, word by word, as I work through a sentence.

Quotes by Don DeLillo

Silence, exile, cunning and so on... it's my nature to keep quiet about most things. Even the ideas in my work.

Quotes by Don DeLillo

Shortly after I moved to Los Angeles, I was looking for work, and I happened to be invited to Ray's studio and sat in and played on a couple of his demos. I didn't charge him a dime for it....

Quotes by Don Felder

I try to balance work and family. As long as I'm able physically and mentally to do it, I will.

Quotes by Don Felder

Not that I'm in the stage of my career where they're offering me parts in 'The Revenant,' but I try very hard to go through the audition process because I feel like I learn quite a lot about the character...

Quotes by Dominic Sherwood

Preparation is a mentality... With wrestling being my background, I've always learned to overwork, overwork. Work, work, work, work. It's not always the talented that wins, but it's the one who puts in the most preparation and thought into things.

Quotes by Dominick Cruz

To me, acting is all about hard work and talent. Once you get your first wrinkle, if you are a female actress, nobody will care about what you look like - it's all about what you can do.

Quotes by Dominik Garcia-Lorido

I've always loved playing tennis. When I was 12, my parents decided that I should try to do it seriously. My father started to travel with me, and as a family, we tried to make it work.

Quotes by Dominika Cibulkova

I realized I love motivating and I love empowering and I love inspiring people. I did that as an athlete for 18 years, and I am able to do that as a motivational speaker now as well as doing work...

Quotes by Dominique Dawes

I thoroughly enjoy the work I do in helping motivate and empower young girls to celebrate and love their natural selves.

Quotes by Dominique Dawes

I never, ever objected to hard work.

Quotes by Dominique Moceanu

When I met Penn, he was an actor, but he wasn't working, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to go back to work, and I was kind of into that!

Quotes by Domino Kirke

Frequently Asked Questions

What kind of quotes are on the "Work" page?
These lean toward the thoughtful side of work — the idea that "intellectual work is essentially a lonely process," the belief that one's politics and "the character of his particular work are inseparable," and an image of people unwinding after work all over the world talking about life's bigger questions.
Is there a spiritual angle to any of these?
While these particular quotes are secular, if you're looking for a spiritual perspective on work, see Prayers for that theme.
Do these quotes connect work to personal identity?
Yes, one of the strongest lines here argues that your politics and "the character of his particular work are inseparable" — the idea that what you do reflects who you are. If that resonates, Growth quotes explore a similar idea of work shaping the person.
Is there anything here about effort or persistence?
These specific quotes focus more on the nature and meaning of work than on effort itself, but Effort quotes cover that ground directly.
What about setting goals through work?
For that angle, Goal quotes is the better fit — the "Work" page here is more about the character and process of working itself.

There's also a lighter side - people unwinding after work to talk through life's bigger questions over drinks. See Effort Quotes and Goal Quotes for more on getting things done.