Today is Labor Day.
A day to celebrate and honor the hard work, dedication and sacrifices that have built our communities and made dreams into reality.
So in today’s post I’d like to share 110 of the most powerful, inspirational and motivational Labor Day quotes.
To help you appreciate the many hours of work that you and the people in your life and in your part of the world have put in. To give you new energy and motivation to go after what you and your loved ones dream of.
And to lighten the mood when you need it but also give you a sharp focus when that’s what’s need for success.
Labor Day Quotes for Employees (Appreciation and Motivation at Work)
“I cannot imagine anything nobler or more national than that for, say, one hour in the day we should all do the labor the poor must do, and thus identify ourselves with them and through them, with all mankind.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
“You can’t get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you’re doing. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself.”
– Alan Alda
“Labor Day symbolizes our determination to achieve an economic freedom for the average man, which will give his political freedom reality.”
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
“No work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
“The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it.”
– Mother Teresa
“Work has indeed been my best beauty treatment. I believe in hard work. It keeps the wrinkles out of the mind and the spirit.”
– Helena Rubinstein
“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure.”
– Colin Powell
“It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up.”
– Vince Lombardi
“Labor Day stands for America’s greatest natural resource – not its minerals, its timber or its farmland, but its people: Americans who get up early every day and go home tired every night, quietly creating a better life for their families and fellow citizens.”
– Gerald Ford
“I have no use for those – regardless of their political party – who hold some foolish dream of spinning the clock back to days when unorganized labor was a huddled, almost helpless mass.”
– Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.”
– Alexander Graham Bell
“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
– Abraham Lincoln
“A job is about a lot more than a paycheck. For real. It’s about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity. It’s about respect. It’s about being able to look your kid in the eye and say, ‘Honey, it’s going to be OK,’ and mean it when you say it.”
– Joe Biden
“We salute working people because they have built our land with skill, energy and resourcefulness, transforming raw materials into a shining edifice of freedom and prosperity.”
– Ronald Reagan
“The history of the United States is in vital respects the history of labor. Free men and women, working for a better life for themselves and their children, settled a continent, built a society, and created and diffused an abundance hitherto unknown to history.”
– John F. Kennedy
“Each life matters. Everybody counts, everybody has got purpose, everybody is important in life.”
– George W. Bush
“It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.”
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
“It was working men and women who made the 20th century the American century. It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today.”
– Barack Obama
“For working people and union members, Labor Day stands for something special and profound. It’s a day to honor the deep commitment each of us has to serve the children we teach, the families we heal, and the communities we love.”
– Randi Weingarten
“Each year, Labor Day gives us an opportunity to recognize the invaluable contributions that working men and women make to our nation, our economy, and our collective prosperity. It gives us a chance to show gratitude for workers’ grit, dedication, ingenuity, and strength, which define our nation’s character.”
– Tom Perez
“All wealth is the product of labor.”
– John Locke
“A man is not paid for having a head and hands, but for using them.”
– Elbert Hubbard
Inspirational Labor Day Quotes on Hard Work and Success
“The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity.”
– Amelia Earhart
“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.”
– Beverly Sills
“He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin!”
– Horace
“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling but in rising every time we fall.”
– Nelson Mandela
“A lot of hard work is hidden behind nice things.”
– Ralph Lauren
“Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.”
– Newt Gingrich
“The best advice I can give anybody is to try and understand who you are and what you want to do, and don’t be afraid to go down that road and do whatever it takes and work as hard as you have to work to achieve that.”
– Sally Ride
“Work hard in silence, let success be your noise.”
– Frank Ocean
“The distance between dreams and reality is called action.”
– Ben Francia
“As is the case in all branches of art, success depends in a very large measure upon individual initiative and exertion, and cannot be achieved except by dint of hard work.”
– Anna Pavlova
“You see, if you take pains and learn in order to get a reward, the work will seem hard; but when you work… if you love your work, you will find your reward in that.”
– Leo Tolstoy
“The greater the obstacle, the greater the glory in overcoming it.”
– Molière
“Goals allow you to control the direction of change in your favor.”
– Brian Tracy
“The only thing that is ultimately real about your journey is the step you are taking at this moment. That’s all there ever is.”
– Eckhart Tolle
“If you really want something, and really work hard, and take advantage of opportunities, and never give up, you will find a way.”
– Jane Goodall
“I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt
Funny Labor Day Quotes and Sayings for Laughs and Less Stress
“Labor Day is a glorious holiday because your child will be going back to school the next day. It would have been called Independence Day, but that name was already taken.”
– Bill Dodds
“Labor Day means grilling outside!”
– Katie Lee
“For every two minutes of glamour, there are eight hours of hard work.”
– Jessica Savitch
“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration. The rest of us just get up and go to work.”
– Stephen King
“If all the cars in the United States were placed end to end, it would probably be Labor Day Weekend.”
– Doug Larson
“Labor Day is a great American holiday that people celebrate by going out and buying products made in China.”
– David Letterman
“Hard work should be rewarded by good food.”
– Ken Follet
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
– Thomas Edison
“The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.”
– Richard Bach
“Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is the lightning that does the work.”
– Mark Twain
“Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”
– Thomas Edison
“There is more to life than making a living. Do not work more than you live.”
– Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time.”
– Steve Jobs
“It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.”
– Babe Ruth
Happy Labor Day Quotes for a Positive and Great Weekend
“Life, as I see it, is not a location, but a journey. Life flows.”
– Henry Ford
“Champions keep playing until they get it right.”
– Billie Jean King
“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”
– Tim Notke
“We must continue our efforts to create further job growth and new opportunities, enabling more of our citizens to realize the American Dream.”
– Bill Clinton
“In every human endeavor, persistence is everything.”
– Joan Rivers
“I believe Americans willing to work hard should be able to get a job no matter where they live – in the Heartland, small towns, the Northeast, big cities – to raise their kids on a good paycheck and keep their roots where they grew up.”
– Joe Biden
“Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.”
– Gilda Radner
“Begin, be bold and venture to be wise.”
– Abraham Cowley
“One of the most important habits of successful people is, simply, starting. Start before you are ready. Stop thinking and start doing. Make a move. Any move. Send the email. Register for the class. Pick up the phone. Schedule the meeting. Have the conversation.”
– Marie Forleo
“Appreciation empowers not just money transactions, but all interactions. Gratitude is one of the greatest meditations of a lifetime, the fastest attitude uplifter I know. Be grateful for all the good in your life and your good will only increase, along with your happiness.”
– Alan Cohen
“The difference between successful people and others is how long they spend time feeling sorry for themselves.”
– Barbara Corcoran
“The failure of one thing is repaired by the success of another.”
– Thomas Jefferson
“America cannot have a strong, growing economy without a strong, growing middle class and the chance for everybody, no matter how humble their beginnings, to join that middle class—a middle class built on the idea that if you work hard, if you live up to your responsibilities, you can get ahead, and enjoy some basic guarantees in life.”
– Barack Obama
“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”
– Mother Teresa
“Every man among us is more fit to meet the duties and responsibilities of citizenship because of the perils over which, in the past, the nation has triumphed; because of the blood and sweat and tears, the labor and the anguish, through which, in the days that have gone, our forefathers moved on to triumph.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
“Let us make our future now, and let us make our dreams tomorrow’s reality.”
– Malala Yousafzai
“Let us give thanks to those who came before us and who strived to improve working conditions and create fair labor laws. They risked their livelihoods and often their very lives to ensure that children could go to school instead of to work in mines and factories, that laborers could work without risking injury and that Americans who toiled throughout the week would be rewarded with a decent living and could spend more time raising their families.”
– Bill Clinton
“I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse.”
– Florence Nightingale
“Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations.”
– Dr. Mae Jemison
“We want everybody in America to own their own home. That’s what we want… An ownership society is a compassionate society.”
– George W. Bush
“Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe.”
– Gail Devers
“We all know what that American Dream is. It’s the idea that in America, we can make of our lives what we will. It’s the idea that if you work hard and live up to your responsibilities, you can get ahead and enjoy some of the basic guarantees in life: a good job that pays a good wage, health care that will be there when you get sick, a secure retirement even if you’re not rich, an education that will give our kids a better life than we had. They’re very simple ideas, but they’re the ideas that are at the heart of our middle class, the middle class that made the 20th century the American century.”
– Barack Obama
“Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs.”
– Farrah Gray
Short Labor Day Quotes and Messages
“Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.”
– Aristotle
“Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.”
– William Feather
“Don’t worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.”
– Abraham Lincoln
“Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.”
– Ovid
“Hard work makes easy reading or, at least, easier reading.”
– M.H. Abrams
“Stay humble, work hard, be kind.”
– Conan O’Brien
“The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.”
– Jimmy Johnson
“Hard work without talent is a shame, but talent without hard work is a tragedy.”
– Robert Half
“Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work gains success. Greatness will come.”
– Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.”
– Maya Angelou
“Today I will do what other’s won’t, so tomorrow I will do what others can’t.”
– Jerry Rice
“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”
– Arthur Ashe
“Today’s accomplishments were yesterday’s impossibilities.”
– Robert Schuller
“Either you run the day or the day runs you.”
– Jim Rohn
“The road to success is always under construction.”
– Lily Tomlin
“I never dreamed about success. I worked for it.”
– Estée Lauder
“Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.”
– Coco Chanel
“There is no substitute for hard work.”
– Thomas A. Edison
“Focus on being productive instead of busy.”
– Tim Ferriss
“Without hard work, nothing grows but weeds.”
– Gordon B. Hinckley
“If you care about what you do and work hard at it, there isn’t anything you can’t do if you want to.”
– Jim Henson
“Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.”
– Michael Jordan
“Great things come from hard work and perseverance. No excuses.”
– Kobe Bryant
“Dedication, hard work all the time, and belief.”
– Cristiano Ronaldo
“You always pass failure on your way to success.”
– Mickey Rooney
“The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense.”
– Thomas A. Edison
“Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers.”
– Robert Green Ingersoll
“Perseverance is the act of true role models and heroes.”
– Liza M. Wiemer
“To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lonely labor, to be given a chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is gravy.”
– Bette Davis
“Nothing will work unless you do.”
– Maya Angelou
“It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
“The only thing that’s keeping you from getting what you want is the story you keep telling yourself.”
– Tony Robbins
“Without labor nothing prospers.”
– Sophocles
“Genius begins great works; labor alone finishes them.”
– Joseph Joubert
“The fruit derived from labor is the sweetest of pleasures.”
– Luc de Clapiers
“It is labour indeed that puts the difference on everything.”
– John Locke
“The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.”
– Émile Zola
“All happiness depends on courage and work.”
– Honoré de Balzac
“I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”
– Thomas Jefferson
“Today is your opportunity to build the tomorrow you want.”
– Ken Poirot
Want more uplifting motivation and inspiration? Then have a look at these hard work quotes, at this one with motivational quotes for students and this post with short and inspirational fall quotes.