The things most worth doing require the most from us—it takes hard work to accomplish important tasks, achieve major goals, and realize your dreams. Commitment, sweat, exhaustion, frustration, and a willingness to fail are all necessary parts of taking on challenges.

When you’re in the middle of a difficult project, there will be times when you’re tempted to simply give up, roll over, and go back to sleep—or do something easier instead. In such moments, look to these quotes about hard work from successful authors to help motivate you to keep going.

1. “Ideas are worth nothing unless backed by application. The smallest of implementations is always worth more than the grandest of intentions.” - Robin Sharma, The 5AM Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life.

2. “Dreams mean work.” - Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

3. “It's easier to bleed than sweat.” - Flannery O’Connor, Wise Blood

4. “Talent means nothing, while experience, acquired in humility and with hard work, means everything.” - Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

5. “A person who has not done one half his day's work by ten o'clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone.” - Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

6. “Have regular hours for work and play; make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will be delightful, old age will bring few regrets, and life will become a beautiful success.” - Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

7. “Only I have no luck any more. But who knows? Maybe today. Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.” - Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

8. “As long as you are alive, you will either live to accomplish your own goals and dreams or be used as a resource to accomplish someone else's.” - Grant Cardone, The 10x Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure

9. “Did you ever consider how ridiculous it would be to try to cram on a farm—to forget to plant in the spring, play all summer and then cram in the fall to bring in the harvest? The farm is a natural system. The price must be paid and the process followed. You always reap what you sow; there is no shortcut.” - Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

10. “It is hard work and great art to make life not so serious.” - John Irving, The Hotel New Hampshire

Quotes About Hard Work and Success

It’s tempting to seek out shortcuts—or try to coast on looks, charm, and luck. These quotes from successful people are proof that achieving your goals and dreams takes determination and hard work.  

11. "I am not lucky. You know what I am? I am smart, I am talented, I take advantage of the opportunities that come my way and I work really, really hard. Don’t call me lucky. Call me a badass." - Shonda Rhimes, Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand in the Sun and Be Your Own Person

12. “The work you put in when no one is watching will matter far more than the work you do when the cameras are rolling.” - Leslie Odom Jr., Failing Up: How to Take Risks, Aim Higher, and Never Stop Learning

13. “No one understands and appreciates the American Dream of hard work leading to material rewards better than a non-American.” - Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

14. “You can do whatever you set your mind to if you just roll up your sleeves, get in there, and do it. Everything is figureoutable.” - Marie Forleo, Everything Is Figureoutable: How One Simple Belief Can Help Us Overcome Any Obstacle and Create Unstoppable Success

15. "No matter what your ability is, effort is what ignites that ability and turns it into accomplishment." - Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

16. “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, It's Not Easy Being Green: And Other Things to Consider

17. “If you try and lose then it isn't your fault. But if you don't try and we lose, then it's all your fault.” - Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

18. "They tell you: Follow your dreams. Listen to your spirit. Change the world. Make your mark. Find your inner voice and make it sing. Embrace failure. Dream. Dream and dream big. As a matter of fact, dream and don’t stop dreaming until your dream comes true. I think that’s crap. I think a lot of people dream. And while they are busy dreaming, the really happy people, the really successful people, the really interesting, powerful, engaged people? Are busy doing." - Shonda Rhimes, Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand in the Sun and Be Your Own Person

19. “It’s okay to be discouraged. It’s not okay to quit. To know you want to quit but to plant your feet and keep inching closer until you take the impenetrable fortress you’ve decided to lay siege to in your own life—that’s persistence.” - Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way

Quotes About the Value of Hard Work

It’s not just about the promise of success. Even (and especially) when the results aren’t guaranteed, hard work is its own reward: It makes us more honest and accountable, helps us understand ourselves and our lives, and improves the world around us. These quotes are powerful testaments to the value of hard work for hard work’s sake.

20. “I don't like work—no man does—but I like what is in the work—the chance to find yourself. Your own reality—for yourself not for others—what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means.” - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

21. “If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter. If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right. And, if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made—that you made—and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better. If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.” - William H. McRaven, Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…and Maybe the World

22. "It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it.” - A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine

23. “The homeliest tasks get beautified if loving hands do them.” - Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

24. “Perhaps this is how you know you're doing the thing you're intended to: No matter how slow or how slight your progress, you never feel that it's a waste of time.” - Curtis Sittenfeld, The Man of My Dreams

25. “The monkeys solved the puzzle simply because they found it gratifying to solve puzzles. They enjoyed it. The joy of the task was its own reward.” - Daniel H. Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

26. "All profit that is out of proportion to the labor expended is dishonest.” - Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

27. “Whatever you make, base it upon that which is most important to you. Only then will it have depth and meaning, and only then will it resonate with others.” - Christopher Paolini, Eldest

28. “When the reward is the activity itself—deepening learning, delighting customers, doing one's best—there are no shortcuts.” - Daniel Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

29. “Go on with your work as usual, for work is a blessed solace.” - Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

30. “Sometimes there's not a better way. Sometimes there's only the hard way.” - Mary E. Pearson, The Fox Inheritance

31. “Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it.”  - Madeleine L’Engle, The Summer of the Great Grandmother

Quotes About Hard Work and Persistence

It’s easiest to work hard when you’re just starting out. It’s when you must continue working hard, after spending hours, days, or even years on a project, that your energy will threaten to give out. These quotes are about those moments—and about finding the motivation needed to persist.

32. “Being relentless means demanding more of yourself than anyone else could ever demand of you, knowing that every time you stop, you can still do more. You must do more.” - Tim S. Grover, Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable

33. “All shadows of insecurity dissolve in the warm glow of persistence.” - Robin Sharma, The 5AM Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life.

34. “The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.” - Steven Pressfield, The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles

35. “Do. The. Work. Every day, you have to do something you don’t want to do. Every day. Challenge yourself to be uncomfortable, push past the apathy and laziness and fear.” - Tim S. Grover, Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable

36. “Until you become completely obsessed with your mission, no one will take you seriously. Until the world understands that you're not going away—that you are 100 percent committed and have complete and utter conviction and will persist in pursuing your project—you will not get the attention you need and the support you want.” - Grant Cardone, The 10x Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure

37. “You should first follow the plow if you want to dance the harvest jig.” - Ken Follett, World Without End

38. “When we're determined to reach an objective, it's the gap between where we are and where we aspire to be that lights a fire under us.” - Adam Grant, Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World

39. “The time you least feel like doing something is the best time to do it.” - Robin Sharma, The 5AM Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life.