Our connoisseur of quotes gives you his best collection about motivation, strategy, and leadership.
You’ve probably seen how the perfect quote can inspire, challenge, and refocus you in just the right ways.
Below is our first-ever collection of the carefully selected quotes we use in each edition of the Work Life newsletter. We hope you’ll discover a gem or two from our one-of-a-kind batch, maybe even your next go-to quote. (But please, think twice before tattooing one onto your body.)
7 quotes to change your mindset and inspire creativity
1. Failure and invention are inseparable twins. To invent you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it’s going to work, it’s not an experiment. – Jeff Bezos
2. Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple. – Charles Mingus
3. Iteration is the fundamental basis of all improvement. – Mark Manson
4. If you don’t change your direction, you may end up where you are going. – Lao Tzu
5. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. – Theodor Suess Geisel, aka, Dr. Suess
6. Imagination is more important than knowledge. – Albert Einstein
7. We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. – E.O. Wilson
11 quotes on building relationships that stand the test of time
1. Love is the force that ignites the spirit and binds teams together. – Phil Jackson
2. Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are. – John Wooden
3. I do not like that man. I must get to know him better. – Abraham Lincoln
4. Love is a fruit in season at all times and in reach of every hand. – Mother Teresa
5. Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you. – Ruth Bader Ginsberg
6. Every once in a while you hear an expert that says team chemistry is overrated. You just write that person off. – Tony La Russa
7. I’d prefer 1,000 followers, friends, and fans that actually meant something, rather than 10 million that weren’t engaged. – Jared Leto
8. It’s better to be alone than in bad company. – George Washington
9. Nothing is a greater impediment to being on good terms with others than being ill at ease with yourself. – Honoré de Balzac
10. There is nothing more beautiful than someone who goes out of their way to make life beautiful for others. – Mandy Hale
11. You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist. – Indira Gandhi
9 quotes on motivation that will ignite your inner fire
1. When you feel like you’re not productive, it’s not necessarily because you’re lazy or because you have bad habits, it’s because you’re not working on the right projects. – Adam Grant
2. Don’t loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don’t get it you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it. – Jack London
3. To know and not to do is not to know. – Wang Yangming
4. The more that we can bring our authentic selves with hope into the moment, the more that moment will show up for us. – Amanda Gorman
5. Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. – Maya Angelou
6. You can’t get to courage without walking through vulnerability. – Brené Brown
7. Whatever the hell happens, say, “This is what I need.” – Joseph Campbell
8. I think people ought to do what they want to do, what else are they alive for? – James Baldwin
9. Passion is never enough; neither is skill. But try. – Toni Morrison
8 quotes on decision making to help you focus on what matters
1. There’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. – Morpheus
2. You can’t change conditions. Just the way you deal with them. – Jessica Watson
3. Survival is not about being fearless. It’s about making a decision, getting on and doing it. – “Bear” Grylls
4. I’m no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I’m changing the things I cannot accept. – Angela Davis
5. Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself. – Rumi
6. In the rush to return to normal, use this time to consider which parts of normal are worth rushing back to. – Dave Hollis
7. When one door is closed, don’t you know, another is open. – Bob Marley
8. When the world is running down, you make the best of what’s still around. – Gordon Sumner, aka, Sting
8 quotes on leadership to set your sights higher
1. Effective leaders must be truth seekers, and that requires a willingness to understand truths other than our own. – Stacey Abrams
2. If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. – Sir Isaac Newton
3. Create an environment where people can take risks. If everything has to be brilliant from the word go, you’re never gonna get off the ground. – Paul Hewson, aka, Bono
4. Always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. – Elie Wiesel
5. Real leadership is inviting people on a mission to do something extraordinary together. – Brett Culp
6. If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
7. I realized we were just growing for the sake of growing, which is bullshit. – Yvon Chouinard
8. None of us is as smart as all of us. – Ken Blanchard
11 quotes on purpose to keep you fixed on your inner North Star
1. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. – Bruce Lee
2. Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
3. Some people grumble that roses have thorns; I am grateful that thorns have roses. – Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr
4. When a library is open, no matter its size or shape, democracy is open, too. – Bill Moyers
5. The grass may look greener on the other side, but believe me, it’s just as hard to cut. – Little Richard
6. Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. – Marie Curie
7. For those about to rock, we salute you. – AC/DC
8. A child who does not play is not a child, but the man who doesn’t play has lost forever the child who lived in him and who he will miss terribly. – Pablo Neruda
9. A sure sign of a soul-based workplace is excitement, enthusiasm, real passion; not manufactured passion, but real involvement. – David Whyte
10. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. – Carl Jung
11. A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention. – Herbert A. Simon