Some days are just a slog. We all have days when we can’t get focused, are convinced we’re on the wrong path, or just plain feel exhausted. Whether you’re looking to apply for that job you'll actually love waking up for, building up the confidence to ask for that promotion, or trying to figure out what you should do with your life, you might need a little boost.
So we’ve pulled together 50 career quotes to help you look at your job from a different perspective, motivate you to keep working toward your goals, or inspire you to take that next step.
Read More: 45 Inspirational Quotes That Will Get You Through the Work Week
“Find out what you like doing best, and get someone to pay you for doing it.” —Katharine Whitehorn
“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” —Alice Walker
“The truth is that our finest moments are most 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
“If you don’t feel it, flee from it. Go where you are celebrated, not merely tolerated.” —Paul F. Davis
“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” —Confucius
“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” —Milton Berle
“Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.” —Kurt Cobain
“Nothing will work unless you do.” —Maya Angelou
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” —Winston Churchill
“The future depends on what you do today.” —Mahatma Gandhi
“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” —Mae West
“I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” —Stephen Covey
“Opportunities don’t happen, you create them.” —Chris Grosser
“Start by doing what is necessary, then do what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” —Francis of Assisi
“Write your own book instead of reading someone else’s book about success.” —Herb Brooks
“Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.” —Gore Vidal
“Getting fired is nature’s way of telling you that you had the wrong job in the first place.” —Hal Lancaster
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” —Eleanor Roosevelt
“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
“There is nothing like a concrete life plan to weigh you down. Because if you always have one eye on some future goal, you stop paying attention to the job at hand, miss opportunities that might arise, and stay fixedly on one path, even when a better, newer course might have opened up.” —Indra K. Nooyi
“A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory.” —Arthur Golden
“There is no passion to be found playing small—in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” —Nelson Mandela
“Do the best you can in every task, no matter how unimportant it may seem at the time. No one learns more about a problem than the person at the bottom.” —Sandra Day O’Connor
“Whatever you decide to do, make sure it makes you happy.” —Paulo Coelho
“To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.” —Elbert Hubbard
“If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on.” —Sheryl Sandberg
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” —Oscar Wilde
“Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.” —Gloria Steinem
“A mind that is stretched by new experiences can never go back to its old dimensions.” —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.” —Mark Twain
“He who never makes an effort, never risks a failure.” —Anonymous
“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” —Lao Tzu
“You know, everybody has setbacks in their life, and everybody falls short of whatever goals they might set for themselves. That's part of living and coming to terms with who you are as a person.” —Hillary Rodham Clinton
“If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try.” —Seth Godin
“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.” —Les Brown
“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” —Mother Teresa
“When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you until it seems that you cannot hold on for a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time when the tide will turn.” —Harriet Beecher Stowe
“Make sure your own worst enemy doesn’t live between your own two ears.” —Laird Hamilton
“There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but only a few will catch your heart. Pursue these.” —Michael Nolan
“When the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, it may be that they take better care of it there.” —Cecil Selig
“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.” —Amelia Earhart
“Don’t feel sorry for yourself, only assholes do that.” —Haruki Murakami
“I was once afraid of people saying ‘Who does she think she is?’ Now I have the courage to stand and say, ‘This is who I am.’” —Oprah
“The best revenge is massive success.” —Frank Sinatra
“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.” —Beverly Sills
“I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.” —Charles Swindoll
“If you want to achieve greatness, stop asking for permission.” —Eddie Colla
“I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence, but it comes from within. It is there all the time.” —Anna Freud
“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.” —Martin Luther King Jr.
"There isn’t any great mystery about me. What I do is glamorous and has an awful lot of white-hot attention placed on it. But the actual work requires the same discipline and passion as any job you love doing, be it as a very good pipe fitter or a highly creative artist." —Tom Hanks
“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” —William James
“If you want to be a true professional, do something outside yourself.” —Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Regina Borsellino contributed writing, reporting, and/or advice to this article.