133 Labor Day Quotes to Honor Hard Work and Celebrate Well-Deserved Rest
Labor Day is a time to appreciate all the effort and dedication that goes into everyday work, so we have put together a list of all the best Labor Day quotes to help show that respect.
And if you’re looking for short quotes to post or share, we also have you covered.
Now go ahead and browse through to find your favorite.
Inspirational Labor Day Quotes
“All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”— Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”— Abraham Lincoln
“Every job from the heart is, ultimately, of equal value. The nurse injects the syringe; the writer slides the pen; the farmer plows the dirt; the comedian draws the laughter. Monetary income is the perfect deceiver of a man’s true worth.”— Criss Jami
“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
“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
“I think sometimes in life the biggest challenges end up being the best things that happen in your life.” — Tom Brady
“Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.” — William Feather, “The Business of Life”
“A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.” — Colin Powell
“I’ve got a woman’s ability to stick to a job and get on with it when everyone else walks off and leaves it.” — Margaret Thatcher
“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” — Herman Cain
“Labor in this country is independent and proud. It has not to ask the patronage of capital, but capital solicits the aid of labor.”— Daniel Webster
“Labor Day honors American workers. Workers make our nation strong.”— Meredith Dash
“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 doesn’t matter how great your shoes are if you don’t accomplish anything in them.” — Martina Boone, “Compulsion”
“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
“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” — Tim Notke
“Persistence overshadows even talent as the most valuable resource shaping the quality of life.” — Tony Robbins
“Hard work should be rewarded by good food.” — Ken Follet
“Sometimes there’s not a better way. Sometimes there’s only the hard way.” — Mary E. Pearson, “The Fox Inheritance”
“Dedication, hard work all the time, and belief.” — Cristiano Ronaldo
“We fail the minute we let someone else define success for us.” — Brené Brown, “Dare to Lead”
“Your success and happiness lies in you.” — Helen Keller
“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.” — Abraham Lincoln(Note: “Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.” is new and also by Lincoln, kept below)
“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.” — Beverly Sills
“It’s not easy, but if you accept your misfortune and handle it right, your perceived failure can become a catalyst for profound reinvention.” — Conan O’Brien
“Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.” — Kevin Durant
“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
“Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.” — Michael Jordan
“I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.” — Thomas Jefferson
“The only thing that’s keeping you from getting what you want is the story you keep telling yourself.” — Tony Robbins
“Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.” — Coco Chanel
“You always pass failure on your way to success.” — Mickey Rooney
“Don’t worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.” — Abraham Lincoln
“If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” — Shirley Chisholm
“Then give the world the best that you have / And the best will come back to you.” — Madeline S. Bridges
“It’s not about money or connections — it’s the willingness to outwork and outlearn everyone when it comes to your business. And if it fails, you learn from what happened and do a better job next time.” — Mark Cuban
“It doesn’t matter how many times you fail. You only have to be right once and then everyone can tell you that you are an overnight success.” — Mark Cuban
“It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.” — Tom Hanks as Jimmy Dugan, “A League of Their Own”
“There’s only one way to succeed in anything, and that is to give it everything.” — Vince Lombardi
“If we want people to fully show up, to bring their whole selves including their unarmored, whole hearts — so that we can innovate, solve problems and serve people — we have to be vigilant about creating a culture in which people feel safe, seen, heard and respected.” — Brené Brown, “Dare to Lead”
“What is success? I think it is a mixture of having a flair for the thing that you are doing; knowing that it is not enough, that you have got to have hard work and a certain sense of purpose.” — Margaret Thatcher
“You must work and do good, not be lazy and gamble, if you wish to earn happiness. Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction.” — Anne Frank, “The Diary of Anne Frank”
“I have a firm belief in the ability and power of women to achieve the things they want to achieve.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” — Dale Carnegie
“Without hard work, nothing grows but weeds.” — Gordon B. Hinckley
“The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense.” — Thomas A. Edison
“There is more to life than making a living. Do not work more than you live.” — Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“Though you can love what you do not master, you cannot master what you do not love.” — Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.” — Henry Ford
“Today is your opportunity to build the tomorrow you want.” — Ken Poirot
“I learned the value of hard work by working hard.” — Margaret Mead
“I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.” — Booker T. Washington, “Up from Slavery: An Autobiography”
“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
“Sometimes you have to be satisfied. You try hard enough. Don’t be so self-critical; don’t be so hard on yourself.” — Billie Jean King
“Perseverance is the act of true role models and heroes.” — Liza M. Wiemer
“Hard work keeps the wrinkles out of the mind and spirit.” — Helena Rubinstein
“Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Magic lies in challenging what seems impossible.” — Carol Moseley Braun
“The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.” — Richard Bach, “Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah”
“Be the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment, own it.” — Oprah Winfrey
“Great things come from hard work and perseverance. No excuses.” — Kobe Bryant
“Do we settle for the world as it is, or do we work for the world as it should be?” — Michelle Obama, “Becoming”
“Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” — Theodore Roosevelt
“If any man tells you he loves America, yet hates labor, he is a liar. If any man tells you he trusts America, yet fears labor, he is a fool.”— Abraham Lincoln
“There is no labor a person does that is undignified; if they do it right.”— Bill Cosby
“The dignity of labor depends not on what you do, but how you do it.”— Edwin Osgood Grover
“He who labors diligently need never despair; for all things are accomplished by diligence and labor.”— Menander
“Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers.”— Robert Green Ingersoll
“It is labour indeed that puts the difference on everything.”— John Locke
“All wealth is the product of labor.”— John Locke
“Everything in the world is purchased by labor.”— David Hume
“Without labor nothing prospers.”— Sophocles
“Labor is the fabled magician’s wand, the philosopher’s stone, and the cap of good fortune.”— James Weldon Johnson
“Employment is nature’s physician, and is essential to human happiness.”— Galen
“To labor means to work. Labor Day is a national holiday that honors all people who work by giving them a day off to rest and ‘play.'”— Inc. Teacher Created Materials
Motivational Labor Day Quotes
“Before the reward there must be labor. You plant before you harvest. You sow in tears before you reap joy.”— Ralph Ransom
“Genius begins with great works; labor alone finishes them.”— Joseph Joubert
“One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.”— Elbert Hubbard
“A man is not paid for having a head and hands, but for using them.”— Elbert Hubbard
“Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.”— Edward R. Murrow
“Just plain working at it. Work, that’s the real secret.”— Ted Williams
“A mind always employed is always happy. This is the true secret, the grand recipe, for felicity.”— Thomas Jefferson
“Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it.”— Madeleine L’Engle
“Work isn’t to make money; you work to justify life.”— Marc Chagall
“There is virtue in work and there is virtue in rest. Use both and overlook neither.”— Alan Cohen
“The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.”— Vince Lombardi
“My theory has always been, you put your head down and work hard, and good things happen.”— Donald Rumsfeld
“You’re either getting better or you’re getting worse, so if you’re not working hard enough to get better, you’re getting worse.”— Woody Hayes
“If players work hard, they usually improve. Hard work will give them the chance to get better.”— Jerry Sloan
“I’ve got a theory that if you give 100 percent all of the time, somehow things will work out in the end.”— Larry Bird
“Success is exhausting. In fact, the more success you achieve, the harder you’ll have to work.”— Gene Perret
“Being successful carries an obligation to continue to work hard to be successful. There are very few plateaus where you can stop and rest, because those who don’t stop will go right past you.”— Pat Williams
“She believed more than ever that work – the harder the better – was the essence of life.”— A. Scott Berg
“Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another.”— Anatole France
“It is important to keep in mind that our bodies must work pretty well, or there wouldn’t be so many humans on the planet.”— Ina May Gaskin
“If you push the human body, it will respond.”— Bobby Clarke
“I was made to work. If you are equally industrious, you will be equally successful.”— Johann Sebastian Bach
“Nothing is born into this world without labor.”— Rob Liano
“Good timber does not grow with ease. The stronger the wind, the stronger the trees.”— J. Willard Marriott
“Business, labor and civil society organizations have skills and resources that are vital in helping to build a more robust global community.”— Kofi Annan
“But every acquisition that is disproportionate to the labor spent on it is dishonest.”— Leo Tolstoy
Meaningful Labor Day Quotes
“Oregon made Labor Day a holiday in 1887. It was the first state to do so.”— Meredith Dash
“On June 28, 1894, Labor Day became a national holiday. President Grover Cleveland signed it into law.”— Meredith Dash
“People worked very long days in the 1800’s. Even children worked. It was a hard life.”— Meredith Dash
“The idea for a Labor Day began over 100 years ago in New York City.”— Teacher Created Materials
“Workers throughout America liked this idea of Labor Day. The next year, hundreds of cities held Labor Day celebrations.”— Teacher Created Materials
“September 5, 1882: Workers marched on the first Labor Day in New York City.”— Robin Nelson
“President Grover Cleveland signed a law making the first Monday in September Labor Day nationwide.”— Robin Nelson
“Schools, government offices, and most businesses are closed on Labor Day.”— Robin Nelson
“The United States is not the only country that celebrates Labor Day. Labor Day is celebrated in Canada and many other countries.”— Robin Nelson
“Labor Day is now a recognized and an established institution; a day peculiarly Labor’s own – set apart as the annual holiday of those who obey the injunction to eat their bread in the sweat of their faces.”— Harvard University Library
“During Labor Day, many businesses close to give workers a day off. Some schools close, too. Cities hold colorful parades. Workers march together while crowds cheer.”— Rachel Grack
“The very first Labor Day was observed in New York City on September 5, 1882. On that day, thousands of workers marched in a parade from City Hall to Union Square.”— Katie Kubesh
“Other Labor Day parades were demonstrations to support the eight-hour workday.”— Katie Kubesh
“In the 1800’s, many laborers worked long hours and received low wages.”— Katie Kubesh
“Labor Day was not just a holiday to thank laborers’ contribution to society; it also served as a way to draw attention to the struggles that workers and labour unions faced trying to improve working conditions.”— Katie Kubesh
“Labor Day celebrations in many towns and cities include parades where workers march with their local union and speakers give speeches about labor’s contributions to society.”— Katie Kubesh
“Labor Day, a public holiday celebrated in the United States and Canada on the first Monday of September, was begun by the Knights of Labor as a march in New York City in 1882.”— James C. Docherty
“Labor Day public holidays are also a feature of Australia and New Zealand, though largely devoid of their original significance.”— James C. Docherty
“We continue to celebrate Labor Day in the tradition of those workers of long ago. We have a day off work and school, sharing food and fun with our families and friends.”— Teacher Created Materials
Funny Labor Day Quotes
“People have cookouts during Labor Day. Many cities have parades.”— Connor Dayton
“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 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
“You may not know it’s coming / But it’s coming, almost die / Labor Day’s around the corner / Happy Labor Day to You!”— Jim Lowery
“But just as Memorial Day has largely become a time to gather around the barbecue and welcome the beginning of summer, so Labor Day has largely become a day to give the season a good send off.”— Columbia University Press
“Socialist William Kruse explained that the roots of the labor holiday go back to ancient Rome and sacrifices to Mai, Mother Earth, and Flora, goddess of flowers.”— Colin Fisher
“Labor Day reveals the age-old conflict between art and life, and the hard labor it takes to reconcile the two. In the end, life wins. Hands down.”— Albert Ramsdell Gurney
“Where the whole man is involved there is no work. Work begins with the division of labor.”— Marshall McLuhan
“Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.”— Confucius
“A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor.”— Victor Hugo
“Without labor there is no rest, nor without fighting can the victory be won.”— Thomas a Kempis
“Labor Day is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race or nation.”— Samuel Gompers
“If the workers took a notion they could stop all speeding trains; Every ship upon the ocean they can tie with mighty chains. Every wheel in the creation, every mine and every mill; Fleets and armies of the nation, will at their command stand still.”— Joe Hill
