60 Career Quotes to Know if You’re on the Right Path

Pursuing your passions is one of the surest ways of finding fulfillment in life, so read these career quotes to realize the importance of choosing the right job!

One of the most crucial decisions we will make in our life is planning and choosing our career as it leaves a lasting impact on our lives.

After all, our careers can either lead us to fulfillment or disappointment. So, to make sure we find happiness, we must be more discerning of our career choices.

Pick a career that’ll give you excitement and a reason to keep going every day. Remember that if you are passionate about what you’re doing, your job will not feel like a job!

If you need encouragement to pursue the career that works best for you, read through the quotes we’ve gathered below.

Find meaningful life lessons that’ll guide you to success!

Let’s begin.

And don’t forget to check out these new job quotes and funny work quotes.

Best Career Quotes

1. “Nothing is written in stone, as a career is an unpredictable journey.” – Zlatan Ibrahimović

2. “My career is a journey for me, and any journey is incomplete without the struggle.” – Yami Gautam

3. “A career is like a house. It’s made of many bricks, and each brick has the same value because, without any one of them, the house would collapse.” – Andrea Bocelli

4. “It’s not what you achieve; it’s what you overcome. That’s what defines your career.” – Carlton Fisk

5. “The biggest mistake that you can make is to believe that you are working for somebody else. Job security is gone. The driving force of a career must come from the individual. Remember, jobs are owned by the company; you own your career!” – Earl Nightingale

6. “If the career you have chosen has some unexpected inconvenience, console yourself by reflecting that no career is without them.“ – Jane Fonda

7. “Do what you love, and success will follow. Passion is the fuel behind a successful career.” – Meg Whitman

8. “A career path is rarely a path at all. A more interesting life is usually a more crooked, winding path of missteps, luck, and vigorous work. It is almost always a clumsy balance between the things you try to make happen and the things that happen to you.” – Tom Freston

9. “Your career is like a garden. It can hold an assortment of life’s energy that yields a bounty for you. You do not need to grow just one thing in your garden. You do not need to do just one thing in your career.” – Jennifer Ritchie Payette

10. “What is the recipe for successful achievement? To my mind, there are just four essential ingredients. Choose a career you love, give it the best there is in you, seize your opportunities, and be a member of the team.” – Benjamin Franklin Fairless

Inspirational Career Quotes

11. “You will always have ups and downs in your life and your career, but just stay positive and go for it.” – Angelique Kerber

12. “Life has been kind to me. I am happy with the love and appreciation that I have been getting throughout my career. I feel blessed.” – Vidya Balan

13. “Looking back, I’m really happy with the choices I’ve made in my career. I know for a fact I could be wealthier. Who knows, maybe I could be more successful, maybe not. I don’t know. But just about every single thing I’ve ever done I’ve gone into with the right intentions, and that goes a long way.” – Paul Rudd

14. “I want to look back on my career and be proud of the work, and be proud that I tried everything.” – Jon Stewart

15. “A career is a series of ups and downs, of comebacks.” – Steve Guttenberg

16. “Even though your time on the job is temporary, if you do a good enough job, your work there will last forever.” – Idowu Koyenikan

17. “It’s a long journey, filled with highs and lows, but if we find something we love doing and are able to create a way to do it for the rest of our lives, it’s all worth it.” – Kio Briggs

18. “Be true to what naturally interests you—and be brave enough to turn an obsession into a profession.” – Shelly Branch

Also read: Inspirational Quotes for Work

Career Quotes for Those Who Need Encouragement at Work

19. “Do the best you can in every task, no matter how unimportant it may seem at the time. No one learns more about a problem than the person at the bottom.” – Sandra Day O’Connor

20. “If you don’t feel it, flee from it. Go where you are celebrated, not merely tolerated.” – Paul F. Davis

21. “Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs.” – Farrah Gray

22. “Whatever you decide to do, make sure it makes you happy.” – Paulo Coelho

23. “Opportunities don’t happen; you create them.” – Chris Grosser

24. “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” – Confucius

25. “Many people don’t make the conscious decision to navigate their career options and the opportunities to run parallel careers. Don’t be the many people. Take charge of your power to consciously choose a career path, or paths, that fits with the life you are creating for yourself.” – Katherine Ann Byam

Also read: Encouragement Quotes

Career Quotes That’ll Drive You to Success

26. “Career-wise, consistency is one of the keys to longevity. When you are consistent, people know what they are going to get, and that’s the foundation for having a long career.” – Jamal Crawford

27. “Being genuinely humble and being myself has helped me succeed in my career.” – Poo Bear

28. “Continuous learning is the minimum requirement for success in any field.” – Dennis Waitley

29. “Your career will be defined by successes and failures—and your perseverance to succeed.” – Katharine Whitehorn

30. “How you earn your money and build your career is how you earn your destiny and build your legacy.” – Robert T. Kiyosaki

31. “Ambition is the steam that drives men forward on the road to success. Only the engine under full steam can make the grade.” – Maxi Foreman

Also read: Success Quotes

Wise Career Quotes for an Improved Mindset

32. “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

33. “It is just the start of your professional career, and you have to handle it properly and realize that it is not always like that. There will be ups and downs. It is important that you keep humble, keep working hard, and see it as the first step on a long journey.” – Hector Bellerin

34. “Working with great people makes you great. You learn a lot, and it also gives you the experience and confidence to move on with your own career.” – Nasir Jones

35. “Getting fired is nature’s way of telling you that you had the wrong job in the first place.” – Hal Lancaster

36. “Knowledge is power. You can’t begin a career, for that matter even a relationship, unless you know everything there is to know about it.” – Randeep Hooda

37. “If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it.” – Olin Miller

38. “Virtually any career might be a worthwhile way to spend a working life if it makes things slightly better for those it serves.” – Anonymous

Career Quotes That’ll Impact Your Thoughts

39. “Find out what you like doing best, and get someone to pay you for doing it.” – Katharine Whitehorn

40. “The minute you decide to do what you love to do, you have made a life plan for yourself and a career choice.” – Huda Kattan

41. “Desire! That’s the one secret of every man’s career. Not education. Not being born with hidden talents. Desire.” – Bobby Unser

42. “One has to be fully committed to one’s career. Otherwise, there’s no point.” – Lata Mangeshkar

43. “I think everyone should experience defeat at least once during their career. You learn a lot from it.” – Lou Holtz

44. “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.

45. “Be careful what you get good at doing because you’ll be doing it for the rest of your life.” – Anonymous

46. “Great teamwork is the only way we create the breakthroughs that define our careers.” – Pat Riley

Career Quotes to Strengthen Your Resolve

47. “Climbing to the top demands strength, whether it is to the top of Mount Everest or to the top of your career.” – A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

48. “The best career advice I’ve gotten is to stay focused, keep moving forward.” – Tyga

49. “Work hard and have patience. Because no matter who you are, you’re going to get hurt in your career, and you have to be patient to get through the injuries.” – Randy Johnson

50. “I learned during all my career to enjoy suffering.” – Rafael Nadal

51. “I think it’s no secret that I’ve tried to take chances in my career and also in my life, and I believe to not live in fear.” – Nicolas Cage

52. “Believe in yourself and back yourself to come out on top. A fulfilling career is waiting for those brave enough to find it.” – Richard Branson

53. “Only those who decline to scramble up the career ladder are interesting as human beings. Nothing is more boring than a man with a career.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Interesting Career Quotes That You Need to Read Today

54. “Don’t confuse having a career with having a life.” – Hillary Clinton

55. “I wouldn’t count it out, but right now, I feel like my career is still just starting. The best years are yet to come.” – Phil Ivey

56. “A career is wonderful, but you can’t curl up with it on a cold night.” – Marilyn Monroe

57. “I have never shied away from taking risks in my career, and I would not do that in the future either.” – Rubina Dilaik

58. “The moral is that a career can be gone in an instant. And all you have in this world are the people you love.” – Ice Cube

59. “I think there’s no higher calling in terms of a career than public service, which is a chance to make a difference in people’s lives and improve the world.” – Jack Lew

60. “Your career is not your epitaph.” – Anonymous

Did This Collection Help You Know if you’ve found the right job?

The more happiness we gain at work, the more opportunities we have to grow in our careers. Additionally, finding a job we love gives us the satisfaction we crave in our professional lives.

So, at the end of the day, when all is said and done, choosing a career that makes you happy is one of the most significant decisions we’ll make.

When we choose the right career path, there will be more work-life balance. Additionally, we can be sure we won’t burn ourselves out because we’re working on things that keep our passions burning. 

Our careers are our driving force in life, and it brings us closer to our best possible selves. It also allows us to enjoy more of what life has to offer.

So, follow your heart and do the things you love! If you stay true to your heart’s desires, we’re sure you’ll find a job that speaks to your soul.

With that, we hope you were able to gather meaningful life lessons from these career quotes we’ve compiled. Don’t drown yourself in work that you don’t enjoy doing. Instead, find a career that will bring out your very best self!

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Karen Danao

Hi, I’m Karen, a content curator and writer for Quote Ambition; I’m also a marketing and advertising professional. Beyond the keyboard and the screen, I’m someone who’s out to enjoy every bit that life has to offer!

Poetry, philosophy, history, and movies are all topics I love writing about! However, my true passion is in traveling, photography, and finding common ground to which everyone from different cultures can relate.

With the many places I’ve been to, I found that love, inspiration, and happiness are some things that bring people together. No matter how different we are on the outside, I’m a true believer that our emotions don’t lie; if you dig deep into our psyche, we’re all the same inside.

This belief was further amplified when I joined Quote Ambition. Through the quotes I’ve read, collected, organized, and written about, I found that humans are resilient, creative, and compassionate.

We take from each others’ hearts and courage, and it’s through our individual experiences that we learn how to rise above our challenges and pain. In so many ways, Quote Ambition is a platform that allows people from all over the world to gain the inspiration they need anytime, anywhere!

You can find me on MuckRack and LinkedIn.