110 Inspiring Quotes About Working Hard and Having Fun for A Balanced Life

It’s not unheard of that you can have fun while you work. Everybody, no matter who you are in the organization or your position you need to have that work-life balance; in order to be successful in whatever field you find yourself.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with having fun at work. It is needful to have fun while you’re working and putting in the long hours. This is needed to break the monotony. This, in turn, will inspire your creativity, help you avoid burnout, and foster teamwork between you and your co-workers.

Taking, out some of your time to have fun or having fun while you work is needed to keep your mind fresh and active and ensure you have a productive workday.

That being said, no matter how much you love your job, you shouldn’t be a slave to your work. It can be very tasking to organize your life in such a way that you have time for family, friends, and hobbies. You try to do this as much as possible but no matter how much you try the demands of work just keep creeping in.

I know it seems like a lot but these 110 quotes about working hard and having fun from very educated personalities will help you a long way to achieve that balance you so need.

These are not some random quotes about hard work. I have carefully taken out my time to look for these 110 quotes about working hard and having fun, to help you see the benefits of having fun while you’re at work as well as having a productive workday.

You can pick out the ones that interest you and recite them as many times as you need. You may also want to paste them somewhere in your office to remind you that you need to take out some time to grease your wheel.

Quotes About Working Hard To Achieve Goals

“If you don’t believe you’re the best, then you will never achieve all that you are capable of”— Cristiano Ronaldo

 

When you do well or succeed in your career faster than others; many assume, “He’s lucky”. Very few folks will attribute your success to the hard work that you put into doing your job.

Conversely, when you don’t do well or when you make a mess of almost everything, some folks will attribute your shortcomings to “bad luck”. The truth, however, is that those who fail lack the discipline and hard work to achieve their goals as the successful folks do.

There are a lot of reasons why people would think so because most people don’t understand the distinction between chance and luck. When you leave things to chance, you’re unconsciously agreeing to an outcome that is completely out of your control and hence greatly diminishing the success factors in your life. As for luck, what most people refer to as luck is merely the Law of Probabilities in action.

The combination of the various activities carried out by the successful individual was what led to the dramatic increase in the likelihood that his or her desired career goals would be achieved.

If you were to examine the history of successful men and women and look at their lives before they become successful you will notice a pattern emerge. You will see how that successful individual did many little things, sometimes for years, which finally made his dream a reality.

It is said that very few achieve their goals. Everyone has a goal they would like to achieve, a life they would love to live but very few people do anything to make their dream a reality. To be successful one has to continually innovate and search for new and better ways of doing things.

You must always be on the lookout for new methods that can help you achieve your goals and get you through challenges that may stare you in the face. By doing this, you put yourself miles ahead of those who don’t try anything new; but prefer to play it safe.

If you truly want to succeed and achieve all your career goals you must be ready to put in the hard work required to get you to the top. You must be ready to invest in the success factors that will take you there. It may seem difficult to set goals for yourself, but I know these quotes about working hard to achieve goals will inspire you to take that bold step.

1. “You have to set goals that are almost out of reach. If you set a goal that is attainable without much work or thought, you are stuck with something below your true talent and potential.” — Steve Garvey

2. “The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score.” — Bill Copeland

3. “A goal properly set is halfway reached.” — Zig Ziglar

4. “One way to keep momentum going is to have constantly greater goals.” — Michael Korda

5. “If you set goals and go after them with all the determination you can muster, your gifts will take you places that will amaze you.” — Les Brown

6. “Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal.” — Earl Nightingale

7. “You’re always working to improve, and you’re always being critiqued on your next performance. It’s not about what you’ve done. There’s always room to grow.” — Misty Copeland

8. “You can do anything if you set goals. You just have to push yourself.” — RJ Mitte

9. “A goal is not always meant to be reached; it often serves simply as something to aim at.” — Bruce Lee

10. “Be practical as well as generous in your ideals. Keep your eyes on the stars, but remember to keep your feet on the ground.” — Theodore Roosevelt

11. “Impossible is just a word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.” — Muhammad Ali

12. “You are never too old to set a new goal or to dream a new dream.” — C.S. Lewis

13. “If we have a goal and a plan, and are willing to take risks and mistakes and work as a team, we can choose to do the hard thing.” — Scott Kelly

14. “Everybody wants to be famous, but nobody wants to do the work. I live by that. You grind hard so you can play hard. At the end of the day, you put all the work in, and eventually, it’ll pay off. It could be in a year; it could be in 30 years. Eventually, your hard work will pay off.” — Kevin Hart

15. “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.”— Colin Powell

16. “Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.” — Newt Gingrich

17. “Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.” — Stephen King

18. “Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.”— Abraham Lincoln

19. “Never give up. Today is hard, tomorrow will be worse, but the day after tomorrow will be sunshine.” — Jack Ma

20. “Some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all — in which case, you fail by default.” — J.K. Rowling

21. “It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goals to reach.” —Benjamin E. Mays

22. “Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal.” — Earl Nightingale

Hard Work and Smart Work Quotes

 

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” —Robert Louis Stevenson

I guess you’ve heard this a lot of time, either during your careers or line of work, when you’re told to work, not just hard but to work smart as well. But what does it truly mean to work smart? Are people who work smart better or more qualified than people who work hard or are they just seen as lazy? Let’s dive into the differences between hard work and smart work.

Hard work can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. If you want to be successful in the long run, you have to put in the long hours into work. You have to start early, before all other people and this can mean ‘burning late-night candles’. It can mean sacrificing your afternoons and nights while others are having fun.

Working hard means putting a lot of hours in your work. The challenge, however, with working hard, is that you’re not the only one working hard. There are others who are putting as much work as you are, and maybe working harder than you do. So, this can make you wonder what can be done to be different and achieve competitive results. That’s where smart work comes in.

When it comes to smart work it’s all about efficiency. It’s essentially achieving more in less time. It’s all about using your creativity and experience to complete your work in the fastest and most productive way possible. There are certain elements a smart worker should have for him to effectively carry out his duties. Some of these elements include:

• Life management skills

• Time management skills

• Knowing what you want

• Being in the right industry

• Being agile and adaptable

The most important element of a smart worker is to know when to take time and focus on acquiring and implementing new relevant knowledge that can unlock your potential and make you much more successful in many areas of life.

To be a smart worker you first have to be smart. In this section, are amazing hard work and smart work quotes, to help you make the transition from a hard worker to a smart worker.

23. “Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus. “—Alexander Graham Bell

24. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”—Mark Twain

25. “Either you run the day or the day runs you.”—Jim Rohn

26. “When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.” Paulo Coelho

27. “You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction.”—George Lorimer

28. “Show me someone who has never made a mistake and I’ll show you someone who has never achieved much” — Joan Collins

29. “Just one small positive thought in the morning can change your whole day.” —Dalai Lama

30. “One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from a horse master. He told me to go slow to go fast. I think that applies to everything in life. We live as though there aren’t enough hours in the day but if we do each thing calmly and carefully, we will get it done quicker and with much less stress.” —Viggo Mortensen

31. “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.”—Henry Ford

32. “Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people can’t buy more hours. Scientists can’t invent new minutes. And you can’t save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you’ve wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow.”—Denis Waitley

33. “Don’t wish it were easier. Wish you were better.”—Jim Rohn

34. “Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.”—Dale Carnegie

35. “Developing a good work ethic is key. Apply yourself at whatever you do, whether you’re a janitor or taking your first summer job because that work ethic will be reflected in everything you do in life.”—Tyler Perry

36. “Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.”—Franklin D. Roosevelt

37. “The future depends on what you do today.”—Mahatma Gandhi

38. “Do more than is required. What is the distance between someone who achieves their goals consistently and those who spend their lives and careers merely following? The extra mile.”—Gary Ryan Blair

39. “The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”—Confucius

40. “Start by doing what’s necessary, then what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”—Saint Francis

41. “People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.”—Dale Carnegie

42. “To think too long about doing a thing often becomes its undoing.”—Eva Young

43. “Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves.” William Patten

44. “This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.”—Alan Wilson Watts

45. “Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly.”—Stephen R. Covey

Hard Work and Health Quotes

“Health is wealth”

It’s a known fact that health is wealth. Your health is very important and should be your number one priority; if not it could affect all areas of your life and not just your work. No matter how much money you make it doesn’t change the fact that you need to take care of yourself.

You need to be consciously aware of how you’re doing physically, mentally, and spiritually. As much as your job is important for paying your bills and various other reasons, a good work-life balance is needed to ensure you don’t break down or lose it someday.

You need a good work-life balance to ensure that all your priorities and responsibilities are in order. A work-life balance is basically a state where there is stability between the demands of one’s career and the demands of one’s personal life.

At work, you can create your own best work-life balance by making sure you do not only achieve success at work, but also reflect the joy of the job, and the joy of life, every day. Give yourself some words of encouragement from time to time. If no one else appreciates you then learn to appreciate yourself and pat yourself on the back every once in a while. This is necessary to remind yourself how amazing you truly are, not just at your job, but also in every aspect of your life.

And don’t forget to do the same for others, because we all need our spirits lifted irrespective of our positions. Most importantly, you should remember that we’re all still humans, and our health matters a lot especially our mental health.

We should always ensure that we create an environment that makes it possible for us to grow and enjoy the wonders of life. This is needed to avoid a lot of unnecessary health issues that can come up when we’re stressed such as having high blood pressure which isn’t something, I think anyone would want.

Everyone has needs that can only be met through the contribution of others. First of all, your physiological needs such as food, water, and shelter must be provided. After that, people need to feel safe and then be loved and belong to a group. They then move on to issues of self-esteem, cognitive needs, and aesthetic needs, and finally, at the top of the pyramid, there is self-actualization, or achieving your full potential as a human being.

The absence of any of these things can affect anyone. Therein, lies the importance of a good work-life balance.

Remember, it is possible to achieve a reasonable work-life balance, but you have to want to do it. These hard work and health quotes are here to help achieve it.

46. “We need to do a better job of putting ourselves higher on our own ‘to do’ list.” —Michelle Obama, former First Lady

47. Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.” —Dolly Parton, singer

48. “You can’t have everything you want, but you can have the things that really matter to you.” —Marissa Mayer, former president and CEO of Yahoo

49. “Work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls—family, health, friends, and integrity—are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered.” —Gary Keller, real estate entrepreneur

50. “You can’t truly be considered successful in your business life if your home life is in shambles.” —Zig Ziglar, motivational speaker

51. . “No one on his deathbed ever said, ‘I wish I had spent more time at the office.’” —commonly attributed to politician Paul Tsongas or rabbi Harold Kushner

52. “We think, mistakenly, that success is the result of the amount of time we put in at work, instead of the quality of time we put in.” —Arianna Huffington

53. “The groundwork of all happiness is health.” —Leigh Hunt

54. “Your goals, minus your doubts, equal your reality.”-Ralph Marston

55. “The world belongs to the energetic.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

56. “Balance is not better time management, but better boundary management. Balance means making choices and enjoying those choices.” – Betsy Jacobson, Business Consultant

57. “Always take some of the play, fun, freedom, and wonder of the weekend into your week and your work.” – Rasheed Ogunlaru, Life Coach

58. “Women, in particular, need to keep an eye on their physical and mental health, because if we’re scurrying to and from appointments and errands, we don’t have a lot of time to take care of ourselves. We need to do a better job of putting ourselves higher on our own ‘to do’ list.” – Michelle Obama, former First Lady

59. “A career is wonderful, but you can’t curl up with it on a cold night.” – Marilyn Monroe, Actress

60. “Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.” – Stephen Covey

61. “Burnout is about resentment. Preventing it is about knowing yourself well enough to know what it is you’re giving up that makes you resentful.” – Marissa Mayer

62. “A time for everything: A time to relax and a time to be busy, a time to frolic and a time to labor, a time to receive and a time to give, a time to begin and a time to finish.” – Jonathan Lockwood Huie

63. “Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm, and harmony.” – Thomas Merton

64. “You can’t do a good job if your job is all you do.” – Katie Thurmes

65. “Balance, peace, and joy are the fruit of a successful life. It starts with recognizing your talents and finding ways to serve others by using them.” – Thomas Kinkade

66. “Reconsider your definitions. We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to mankind.”– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Quotes on Fun and Enjoyment

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive, to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.” — Marcus Aurelius

Fun is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “Light-hearted pleasure, enjoyment or amusement; boisterous joviality or merry-making”. Fun isn’t just meant for recreation and play. You can have fun whenever you want. You can have fun during work, social functions, and in daily life.

Enjoyment can be defined as the state or process of taking pleasure in something. Enjoyment is simply what you experience when you are having a good time. You find yourself enjoying certain activities such as going to amusement parks, dancing, or even exercising.

Enjoyment of life is the level of happiness or contentment that an individual professes, or is observed to display with regards to their life situation. Those who enjoy life the most are three times more likely to live longer than those who enjoy it the least, a study of aging suggests.

As much as you need to work long hours to get that promotion or get that raise, you’ve waited for so long, ye need time to also recharge your batteries and rest. This is why hobbies are very important. It helps keep us busy with activities we enjoy doing which doesn’t involve our work.

Whenever you’re having fun, you’re enjoying yourself. And vice versa. The fun part of the enjoyment comes from choosing to do something you enjoy. Just knowing you’re about to do something enjoyable makes it feel like fun. Choosing to enjoy something is fun. Choosing to do something you enjoy is fun. Choosing to do something fun is fun. Then there’s a pleasure. Pleasure is also fun. Like enjoyment is. And like enjoyment, the more you choose to do something for the sake of the pleasure you find in it, the more fun.

You need to learn how to enjoy life in a way most people don’t and these quotes on fun and enjoyment should help do the trick.

67. “The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it.” ~ Richard Bach

68. “Enjoy the journey, enjoy every moment, and quit worrying about winning and losing.”~ Matt Biondi

69. “Enjoyment is an incredible energizer to the human spirit.” ~ John C. Maxwell

70. “Every minute should be enjoyed and savored.” ~ Earl Nightingale

71. “The greatest sweetener of human life is friendship.” ~ Joseph Addison

72. “Nothing has to happen for me to feel good! I feel good because I’m alive! Life is a gift, and I revel in it.” ~ Tony Robbins

73. “The test of enjoyment is the remembrance which it leaves behind.” ~ Logan Pearsall Smith

74. “People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.” ~ Dale Carnegie

75. “If I don’t enjoy myself now, when shall I?” ~ Omar Khayyam

76. “Life is pain and the enjoyment of love is an anesthetic.” ~ Cesare Pavese

77. “The biggest mistake people make in life is not trying to make a living at doing what they most enjoy.” ~ Malcolm Forbes

78. “The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.” ~ Bertrand Russell

79. “Enjoy yourself -it’s later than you think.” ~ Guy Lombardo

80. “The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

81. “He who enjoys doing and enjoys what he has done is happy.” ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

82. “Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game.” ~ Michael Jordan

83. “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” ― Helen Keller

84. “There’s no fear when you’re having fun.” – Will Thomas

85. “I am going to keep having fun every day I have left because there is no other way of life. You just have to decide whether you are a Tigger or an Eeyore.” – Randy Pausch

86. “We’re so busy watching out for what’s just ahead of us that we don’t take time to enjoy where we are.” ― Bill Watterson

87. “Do anything, but let it produce joy.” ― Walt Whitman

88. “The life you have left is a gift. Cherish it. Enjoy it now, to the fullest. Do what matters, now.” ― Leo Babauta

Funny Work Quotes

 

“If you ever get caught sleeping at work, just slowly raise your head and say “in Jesus’ name I pray” – Annonymous

Going to work every time can be very stressful for almost everyone. That’s why almost everyone can relate with the cliché “Thank God It’s Friday”.

Most days the sound of that early morning alarm can be so annoying that you just can’t muster the strength to get out of bed. Even if you do muster the strength and energy required to get out of bed you may not find the inspiration to go to work. But then you realize those bills aren’t going to pay themselves so you put on your clothes and face your hustle.

You might not want to go to work because of a variety of reasons. This can be because you have a big deadline at work that has been stressing you out, or you’re sick of hearing the same office drama day in and day out. Or maybe you just generally don’t have it in you to go to work. You know, not everyone is wired for 9-to-5.

When any part of your work makes you feel down or restless, you need some humor in your life to laugh and forget about your challenges; because no matter who you are there will always be challenges.

For this reason, as humans, we need to smile and laugh whenever we can. After all, without joy and laughter life looks gloomy and boring.

As a reminder, this post focuses on quotes about working hard and having fun; so here are funny work quotes, as they can help to add a smile to your day. Sometimes, at work, we need a bit of humor or a smile to relieve the stress and demands of the workplace. I hope some of these can brighten up your day the same way they do for me.

89. “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” — Bill Gates

90. “If you think your boss is stupid, remember: you wouldn’t have a job if he was any smarter.” — John Gotti

91. “I am a friend of the workingman, and I would rather be his friend than be one.” — Clarence Darrow

92. “The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one.” — Oscar Wilde

93. “Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?” — Edgar Bergen

94. “The only thing that ever sat its way to success was a hen.” — Sarah Brown

95. “If hard work is the key to success, most people would rather pick the lock.” — Claude McDonald
96. “The easiest job in the world has to be a coroner. Surgery on dead people. What’s the worst thing that could happen? If everything went wrong, maybe you’d get a pulse.” — Dennis Miller

97. “If A equals success, then the formula is A = X + Y + Z. Where X is work. Y plays. Z is keeping your mouth shut.” — Albert Einstein

98. “The problem with doing nothing is that you never know when you’re finished.” – Groucho Marx

99. “Executive ability is deciding quickly and getting somebody else to do the work.” – Earl Nightingale

100. Going to work for a large company is like getting on a train. Are you going sixty miles an hour or is the train going sixty miles an hour and you’re just sitting still?” — J. Paul Getty

101. “It’s a funny feeling to work with people who you consider your colleges and to realize that they actually are young enough to be your children.” – Alan Alda

102. “Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit.” — George Carlin

103. “Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy.” – Charlie McCarthy

104. “When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: ‘Whose?’” — Don Marquis

105. “Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there.” — Will Rogers

106. “Where people aren’t having fun, they seldom produce good work.” – David Ogilvy

107. “Leaders who don’t listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say.” – Andy Stanley

108. “Why do people say they wish every day was Friday? If it was always Friday, we’d be here every freakin’ day.” — Ed Bernard

109. “People who work sitting down get paid more than people who work standing up.” – Ogden Nash

110. “My boss told me to start every presentation with a joke. The first slide was my paycheck” — Anonymous.

It’s my earnest desire that these quotes about working hard and having fun have helped you see your work in a different light. Of course, going to work isn’t easy. However, imagine what may happen if you didn’t go to work and didn’t have a source of income. I think that maybe more challenging for you.

Hey friend. Let me know how helpful you found this to be. Also, do well to share with others. Let’s see what we can do to help them to achieve this work-life balance with these exciting quotes about working hard and having fun.