71 Best Job Satisfaction Quotes for Employees in 2023

You found our list of the best job satisfaction quotes.

Job satisfaction quotes are sayings about finding satisfaction in a job. For example “Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.” – Aristotle. The purpose of these sentiments is to inspire employees and help professionals find enjoyable work.

These phrases are a subset of inspirational work quotes and are similar to HR quotes, quotes on jobs and life, and quotes about hard work. These quotes relate to employee engagement best practices and ways to improve employee job satisfaction.

This list includes:

• meaningful work quotes
• quotes about passion for work
• quotes about having a meaningful work life
• sayings about job satisfaction
• quotes about work and purpose
• quotes about fun at work

Here we go!

Meaningful work quotes

1. “Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.” – Aristotle
2. “Honor lies in honest toil.” – Grover Cleveland
3. “A job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity. It’s about respect. It’s about your place in your community.’” -Joe Biden
4. “I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle – victorious.” – Vince Lombardi
5. “A lot of people quit looking for work as soon as they find a job.” – Zig Ziglar
6. “He who seeks rest finds boredom. He who seeks work finds rest.” – Dylan Thomas
7. “There is nothing to regret with a job well done.” – Joe Garcia
8. “Be happy with what you have while working for what you want.” – Helen Keller
9. “Be thankful for problems. If they were less difficult, someone with less ability might have your job.” – Jim Lovell
10. “The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one.” – Oscar Wilde
11. “Do your job and demand your compensation – but in that order.” – Cary Grant
12. “If you do a good job for others, you heal yourself at the same time, because a dose of joy is a spiritual cure. It transcends all barriers.” – Ed Sullivan
13. “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” – Winston Churchill
14. “If you are prepared, you will be confident, and will do the job.” – Tom Landry
15. “If something is wrong, fix it if you can. But train yourself not to worry: Worry never fixes anything.” – Ernest Hemingway

Quotes about passion for work

1. “Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.” – Rumi
2. “The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.” – Steve Jobs
3. “Find joy in everything you choose to do. Every job, relationship, home… it’s your responsibility to love it, or change it.” – Chuck Palahniuk
4. “Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” – Theodore Roosevelt
5. “Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.” – Henry David Thoreau
6. “There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.” – Henry Ford
7. “The person who knows HOW will always have a job. The person who knows WHY will always be his boss.” – Alanis Morissette
8. “The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more.” – Jonas Salk
9. “Your job is not just to do what your parents say, what your teachers say, what society says, but to figure out what your heart calling is and to be led by that.” – Oprah Winfrey
10. “Inspiration comes of working every day.” – Charles Baudelaire
11. “To be a CEO is a calling. You should not do it because it is a job. It is a calling, and you have got to be involved in it with your head, heart and hands. Your heart has got to be in the job; you got to love what you do; it consumes you. And if you are not willing to get into the CEO job that way, there is no point getting into it.” – Indra Nooyi

Quotes about having a meaningful work life

1. “Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.” – Albert Camus
2. “Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
3. “Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.” – Robert Benchley
4. “Goal setting is the most important aspect of all improvement and personal development plans. It is the key to all fulfillment and achievement.” – Paul J. Meyer
5. “When you have balance in your life, work becomes an entirely different experience. There is a passion that moves you to a whole new level of fulfillment and gratitude, and that’s when you can do your best… for yourself and for others.” – Cara Delevingne
6. “Work harder on yourself than you do on your job.” – Jim Rohn
7. “It’s impossible to be perfect, and you won’t do a good job if you’re too focused on proving yourself to others.” – Jessica Williams
8. “What I always say is, ‘Do every job you’re in like you’re going to do it for the rest of your life, and demonstrate that ownership of it.’” – Mary Barra
9. “Successful people maintain a positive focus in life no matter what is going on around them. They stay focused on their past successes rather than their past failures, and on the next action steps they need to take to get them closer to the fulfillment of their goals rather than all the other distractions that life presents to them.” – Jack Canfield

Sayings about job satisfaction

1. “Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress. Working hard for something we love is called passion.” – Simon Sinek
2. “I guess we all like to be recognized not for one piece of fireworks, but for the ledger of our daily work.” Neil Armstrong
3. “The only way to enjoy anything in this life is to earn it first.” – Ginger Rogers
4. “True motivation comes from achievement, personal development, job satisfaction, and recognition.” – Fredrick Herzberg
5. “Success is not just making money. Success is happiness. Success is fulfillment; it’s the ability to give.” – Adam Neumann
6. “A job should bring enough for a worker and family to live on, but after that, self-realization, the exercise of one’s gifts and talents, is what truly matters.” Michael Dirda
7. “Research indicates that employees have three prime needs: Interesting work, recognition for doing a good job, and being let in on things that are going on in the company.” – Zig Ziglar
8. “We can’t all be good at everything. This is partly the logic behind having a team in the first place, so each role can be filled with the person best suited for that role and together, every job and every strength is covered.” – Simon Sinek
9. “There is absolutely nothing that you can control except showing up and doing your job.” – Tituss Burgess
10. “Whatever it is you want to do, take a job in that field. You will learn by experience and, slow and steady, you’ll get it done!” – Rachael Ray
11. “Every job is good if you do your best and work hard. A man who works hard stinks only to the ones that have nothing to do but smell.” – Laura Ingalls Wilder

Quotes about work and purpose

1. “Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it.” – Stephen Hawking
2. “Careers, like rockets, don’t always take off on time. The trick is to always keep the engine running.” – Gary Sinise
3. “It is only when I am doing my work that I feel truly alive.” – Federico Fellini
4. “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 the gravy.” – Bette Davis
5. “We work to become, not to acquire.” – Elbert Hubbard
6. “To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness.” John Dewey
7. “Work takes on new meaning when you feel you are pointed in the right direction. Otherwise, it’s just a job, and life is too short for that.” – Tim Cook
8. “It is not in the pursuit of happiness that we find fulfillment, it is in the happiness of pursuit.” – Denis Waitley
9. “Give yourself something to work toward – constantly.” – Mary Kay Ash
10. “Happiness does not come from a job. It comes from knowing what you truly value and behaving in a way that’s consistent with those beliefs.” – Mike Rowe
11. “I learnt to stop fantasizing about the perfect job or the perfect relationship because that can actually be an excuse for not living.” – Alain de Botton
12. “It’s good to test yourself and develop your talents and ambitions as fully as you can and achieve greater success; but I think success is the feeling you get from a job well done, and the key thing is to do the work.” – Peter Thiel

Quotes about fun at work

1. “People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.” – Dale Carnegie
2. “Work is much more fun than fun.” – Noel Coward
3. “To find joy in work is to discover the fountain of youth.” – Pearl S. Buck
4. “I never did a day’s work in my life. It was all fun.” – Thomas A. Edison
5. “Work hard, have fun, make history.” – Jeff Bezos
6. “The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.” – Richard Bach
7. “No person who is enthusiastic about his work has anything to fear from life.” – Samuel Goldwyn
8. “You know you are on the road to success if you would do your job, and not be paid for it.” – Oprah Winfrey
9. “You don’t have to be serious all the time to do a good job.” – Simone Biles
10. “Never continue in a job you don’t enjoy. If you’re happy in what you’re doing, you’ll like yourself, you’ll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined.” – Johnny Carson
11. “Work hard, be yourself, and have fun!” – Michelle Kwan
12. “Take your job seriously, but don’t take yourself too seriously.” – Alex Trebek
13. “Have fun, work hard and money will come. Don’t waste time – grab your chances. Have a positive outlook on life. When it’s not fun, move on.” – Richard Branson

Conclusion

Finding meaningful work is one of the most sought-after goals in modern life. Many professionals dream of landing a job that is enriching both spiritually and financially. Yet the quest to find the perfect position often eludes the modern worker. As turnover increases and more workers resign from roles, these professionals turn to the wise words of great achievers to learn how to lead more fulfilling work lives. Job satisfaction quotes can provide guidance and motivation and point listeners in the direction of professional purpose.

For more ways to find meaning in work, check out this list of career books or take a quiz on this list of career tests.

Next, check out this job satisfaction data.