Outwork the Competition Quotes
Talent is common; the will to outwork everyone is not. The man who gives more than is asked collects rewards the clock-watchers never see. This Productivity path holds history's hardest quotes on work ethic and the extra mile. Scroll through and put them to work.
Choose a Pillar of Greatness
Pick a Type of Insight
“To give any less than your best is to sacrifice a gift.”
“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”
“No one can guarantee success in war, but only deserve it.”
“You have to be ready for hard work and frugal spending to get the idea off the ground.”
“Just say to yourself, how bad do I want this? Am I working harder than the person who will be standing next to me?”
“Without hustle, talent will only carry you so far.”
“The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.”
“Why put out something less when you can put out something more?”
“Competition breeds excellence.”
“My powers are ordinary. Only my application brings me success.”
“If you're going to run a small business, you need to know what everyone is doing, be the first one in and the last one out, and work weekends.”
“Success is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.”
“Winners embrace hard work. They love the discipline of it.”
“Always deliver more than expected.”
“The only way to beat the competition is to stop trying to beat the competition.”
“Quantity and persistence will get you the outcomes you need.”
“The difference between good and great is just a little extra effort.”
“Render more service than that for which you are paid and you will soon be paid for more than you render.”
“Train like an underdog, perform like a champion.”
“Hustle until you no longer need to introduce yourself.”
“You only have to do a few things right in your life so long as you don't do too many things wrong.”
“Some people dream of success, while others wake up and work hard at it”
“The few who do are the envy of the many who watch.”
“Look in the mirror. That's your competition.”
“Faith can move mountains, but don't be surprised if God hands you a shovel.”
“The real story of Facebook is just that we've worked really hard”
“Effort is one of the things that gives meaning to life. Effort means you care about something.”
“Success in life is in direct proportion to what you do after you do what you are expected to do.”
“Hustle beats talent when talent doesn't hustle.”
“You will succeed because most people are lazy.”
“There is no substitute for hard work. No one has ever drowned in their own sweat.”
“It's not about money or connections. It's the willingness to outwork and outlearn everyone.”
“Sweat plus sacrifice equals success.”
“Everybody wants to be a beast, until it's time to do what real beasts do.”
“Folks who never do any more than they get paid for, never get paid for any more than they do.”
“No matter what your ability is, effort is what ignites that ability and turns it into accomplishment.”
“The man on top of the mountain didn't fall there.”
“Don't expect anything from anybody, work hard, put your head down, be good at what you do and good stuff will happen.”
“It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones who win in the lifelong race.”
“Winners are those people who make a habit of doing the things losers are uncomfortable doing.”
“You cannot cheat the grind; it knows how much you have invested.”
“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.”
“Success in business requires training and discipline and hard work. But if you're not frightened by these things, the opportunities are just as great today as they ever were.”
“Competition is for losers.”
“Success is very much the intersection of luck and hard work.”
“It's what you practice in private that you'll be rewarded for in public.”
“The dream is free. The hustle is sold separately.”
“I've always tried to go one step past wherever people expected me to end up.”
“Enjoy your sweat because hard work doesn't guarantee success, but without it you don't have a chance.”
“Be humble. Be hungry. And always be the hardest worker in the room.”
“Winning means you're willing to go longer, work harder, and give more than anyone else.”
“First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit is persistence in practice.”
“Play by the rules, but be ferocious.”
“You did not wake up today to be mediocre.”
“If you're not pissed off for greatness, that just means you're okay with being mediocre.”
“Success is just a war of attrition. If you just stick around long enough, eventually something is going to happen.”
“Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it's when you've had everything to do, and you've done it.”
“There are no traffic jams along the extra mile.”
“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”
“It's human nature to start taking things for granted again when danger isn't banging loudly on the door.”
“The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.”
“Working hard is very important. You're not going to get anywhere without working extremely hard.”
“The formula for success is simple: practice and concentration then more practice and more concentration.”
“Work harder on you than everyone else and you will become unusually successful.”
“Nothing will work unless you do.”
“Go the extra mile. There's no one on it!”
“Much effort, much prosperity.”
“Entrepreneurs are willing to work 80 hours a week to avoid working 40 hours a week for someone else.”
“Success is a garden cultivated through effort”
“Being an entrepreneur is being willing to do a job that no one else wants to do, in order to be able to live the rest of your life doing whatever you want to do.”
“The man who does more than he is paid for will soon be paid for more than he does.”
“Whatever you are, be a good one.”
“The only thing standing between you and outrageous success is continuous progress.”
“All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”
“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.”
“Gold medals aren't really made of gold. They're made of sweat, determination, and a hard-to-find alloy called guts.”
“Work like there is someone working 24 hours a day to take it away from you.”
“There is no luck, you work hard and study things intently. If you do that for long and hard enough you're successful.”
“Skiing is a lot like life. It's a lot of hard work, and you get out of it what you put into it.”
“Success has a simple formula: do your best, and people may like it.”
“What is in us, we have no idea, until we start trying hard. It's not always meant to be fun. And that's when you know you're trying hard.”
“Whatever you do, do it well. Do it so well that when people see you do it, they will want to come back and see you do it again, and they will want to bring others and show them how well you do what you do.”
“If a man does his best, what else is there?”
“If you aren't going all the way, why go at all?”
“Hard work is a two-way street. You get back exactly what you put in.”
“Whenever you see a successful person, you only see the public glories, never the private sacrifices to reach them.”
“If you can't outplay them, outwork them.”
“You can't have a million-dollar dream on a minimum wage work ethic.”
“As much as talent counts, effort counts twice.”
“Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven't planted.”
“Unless you are willing to drench yourself in your work beyond the capacity of the average man, you are just not cut out for positions at the top.”
“Study while others are sleeping; work while others are loafing; prepare while others are playing; and dream while others are wishing.”
“Play like a champion today.”
“Whatever you do, do with all your might.”
“You don't need to be the smartest guy in the room, just the hardest working”
“It's very easy to be different but very difficult to be better.”
“The toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success.”
“The harder I work, the luckier I get.”
“Put your heart, mind, and soul into even your smallest acts. This is the secret of success.”
“No student ever attains very eminent success by simply doing what is required of him: it is the amount and excellence of what is over and above the required, that determines the greatness of ultimate distinction.”
“Success in life is founded upon attention to the small things rather than to the large things; to the every day things nearest to us rather than to the things that are remote and uncommon.”
“Hard work without talent is a shame, but talent without hard work is a tragedy.”
“I've always believed that if you're going to do something, you should do it as well as you can.”
“If you work really hard, and you're kind, amazing things will happen.”
“The harder you work for something, the greater you'll feel when you achieve it.”
“Anything in life worth having is worth working for.”
“All honest work is good work; it is capable of leading to self-development, provided the doer seeks to discover the inherent lessons and makes the most of the potentialities for such growth.”
“No great achiever, even those who made it seem easy, ever succeeded without hard work.”
“A man can make what he wants of himself if he truly believes that he must be ready for hard work and many heartbreaks.”
“The thing most people don't pick up when they become an entrepreneur is that it never ends. It's 24/7.”
“For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice.”
“If you have an hour, will you not improve that hour, instead of idling it away?”
“No one can make you work harder than you do.”
“It is easy to get to the top after you get through the crowd at the bottom.”
“Hard work and dedication can take you further than you think”
“Set thy heart upon thy work, but never on its reward. Work not for a reward, but never cease to do thy work.”
“There will be obstacles. There will be doubters. There will be mistakes. But with hard work, there are no limits.”
“Don't feel entitled to anything you didn't sweat and struggle for.”
“Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all.”
“If you want to be successful, you've got to be willing to do what others won't.”
“You don't set out to build a wall. You say, 'I'm going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid.' You do that every single day. And soon you have a wall.”
“The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work.”
“If you breathe it and sleep it and every single minute is your business, you will succeed. You will learn from any mistakes that you make and you will grow from those mistakes.”
“Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.”
“A genius is often merely a talented person who has done all of his or her homework.”
“Sweat equity is the most valuable equity there is.”
“Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all time thing. You don't win once in a while, you do things right all the time. Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.”
“There may be people who have more talent than you, but there's no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do - and I believe that.”
“Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.”
“Nobody cares. Work harder.”
“It's not about how many years of experience you have. It's about the quality of your years of experience.”
“Don't think what's the cheapest way to do it or what's the fastest way to do it. Think what's the most amazing way to do it.”
“Without hard work, nothing grows but weeds.”
“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.”
“Better is possible. It does not take genius. It takes diligence. It takes moral clarity. It takes ingenuity. And above all, it takes a willingness to try.”
“The man who has done his best has done everything.”
“When you feel like giving up, just remember that there are a lot of people you still have to prove wrong.”
“Talent means nothing, while experience, acquired in humility and with hard work, means everything.”
“Dreams are lovely. But they are just dreams. Fleeting, ephemeral. Pretty. But dreams do not come true just because you dream them. It's hard work that makes things happen. It's hard work that creates change.”
“Don't dream of winning, train for it!”
“Always work hard. Intensity clarifies. It creates not only momentum, but also the pressure you need to feel either friction, or fulfillment.”
“Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect.”
