13 Quotes to Celebrate Your Hard Work

Staying busy gets a bad rap these days, especially with all the scientific studies explaining how overworking can ruin your health. But when done right, getting your mind and body employed in a passionate pursuit can be the most defining experience life has to offer.

When a holiday rolls around and we finally get to press pause on our busy lives, we sometimes take pleasure in doing absolutely nothing. But even when we get a break from our normal routine, it’s important to remember that a busy mind is still a happy mind.

Related: How to Find Your Work-Life Balance

This Labor Day, do the things that recharge you, but don’t forget to celebrate the perks that come with hard work, like intellectual stimulation and a strong sense of purpose.

Start right here with these 13 inspiring quotes.

1. “The highest reward for a man’s toil is not what he gets for it but what he becomes by it.” ―John Ruskin

2. “Genius begins great works; labor alone finishes them.” ―Joseph Joubert

3. “All wealth is the product of labor.” ―John Locke

4. “Employment is nature’s physician, and is essential to human happiness.” ―Galen

5. “Work isn’t to make money; you work to justify life.” ―Marc Chagall

6. “A mind always employed is always happy. This is the true secret, the grand recipe, for felicity.” ―Thomas Jefferson

7. “The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.” ―Émile Zola

8. “Diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs.” ―Malcolm Forbes

9. “Work keeps at bay three great evils: boredom, vice, and need.” ―Voltaire

10. “I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living.” ―John D. Rockefeller

11. “The fruit derived from labor is the sweetest of pleasures.” ―Luc de Clapiers

12. “Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another.” ―Anatole France

13. “No great achievement is possible without persistent work.” ―Bertrand Russell

Related: Embrace the Hustle With These 13 Motivating Quotes