Let's honor all your hard work—and the work of those around you—with these powerful Labor Day quotes
63 Labor Day Quotes to Honor All Your Hard Work
Updated on Jul. 25, 2025
Labor Day is when we honor and celebrate hardworking Americans with a day of rest. Maybe you’re spending the Labor Day weekend at the beach for one last summer hurrah. Or maybe you’re just spending the day catching up on sleep. Regardless of how you celebrate, give yourself a pat on the back with inspiring Labor Day quotes.
We rounded up some of the best Labor Day quotes to commemorate your success and the success of those around you. They’re motivational, relatable and a perfect addition to Labor Day memes. Hopefully, they’ll inspire you to work hard and chase your dreams, all while taking those needed moments to rest, recharge and home in on personal goals. Overall, they’ll remind you what hard work means and why raising a glass to all you do is so important.
So keep reading, and celebrate Labor Day with our roundup of the best Labor Day quotes.
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Best Labor Day quotes
1. “I cannot imagine anything nobler or more national than that for, say, one hour in the day we should all do the labor the poor must do, and thus identify ourselves with them and through them, with all mankind.” —Mahatma Gandhi
2. “As soon as you establish concrete intention, you begin to notice all kinds of things in your world that relate to that intention. Ideas and opportunities seem to appear from nowhere, almost as though by magic.” —Tim Hurson
3. “Procrastination can be driven from your personality through the simple technique of constantly commanding yourself to get into action … and then obeying that command immediately.” —Og Mandino
4. “Labor Day symbolizes our determination to achieve an economic freedom for the average man, which will give his political freedom reality.” —Franklin D. Roosevelt
5. “Work has indeed been my best beauty treatment. I believe in hard work. It keeps the wrinkles out of the mind and the spirit.” —Helena Rubinstein
6. “Hard work makes easy reading or, at least, easier reading.” —M.H. Abrams
7. “Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.” —Newt Gingrich
8. “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 overcome while trying to succeed.” —Booker T. Washington
9. “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure.” —Colin Powell
10. “In the end, the most important thing is to be true to yourself and those you love and work hard. I mean, work like there’s no tomorrow. Train. Strive. I mean, really train and cultivate your talent to the highest degree.” —Michael Jackson
11. “The distance between dreams and reality is called action.” —Ben Francia
12. “As is the case in all branches of art, success depends in a very large measure upon individual initiative and exertion, and cannot be achieved except by dint of hard work.” —Anna Pavlova
13. “You see, if you take pains and learn in order to get a reward, the work will seem hard; but when you work … if you love your work, you will find your reward in that.” —Leo Tolstoy
14. “It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up.” —Vince Lombardi
15. “I have no use for those—regardless of their political party—who hold some foolish dream of spinning the clock back to days when unorganized labor was a huddled, almost helpless mass.” —Dwight D. Eisenhower
16. “Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.” —Alexander Graham Bell
17. “Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” —Abraham Lincoln
18. “The greater the obstacle, the greater the glory in overcoming it.” —Molière
19. “Goals allow you to control the direction of change in your favor.” —Brian Tracy
20. “The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity.” —Amelia Earhart
21. “He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin!” —Horace
22. “The only thing that is ultimately real about your journey is the step you are taking at this moment. That’s all there ever is.” —Eckhart Tolle
23. “Be the best at what you do. Get to know more about your field than anybody alive. Use the tools of your trade, if it’s books or a floor to dance on or a body of water to swim in. Whatever it is, it’s yours.” —Michael Jackson
Inspiring Labor Day quotes
24. “We have to make the choice—every single day—to exemplify the truth, the respect and the grace that we wish for this world.” —Oprah Winfrey
25. “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling but in rising every time you fall.” —Nelson Mandela
26. “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” —Viktor Frankl
27. “Passion is the log that keeps the fire of purpose blazing.” —Oprah Winfrey
28. “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds.” —Bob Marley
29. “When you’re open to receiving them, the possibilities just keep on coming.” —Oprah Winfrey
30. “Do not judge me by my successes; judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.” —Nelson Mandela
31. “The only thing that stands between you and grand success in living are these two things: getting started and never quitting!” —Robert H. Schuller
32. “The phoenix must burn to emerge.” —Janet Fitch
33. “You can either waltz boldly onto the stage of life and live the way you know your spirit is nudging you to, or you can sit quietly by the wall, receding into the shadows of fear and self-doubt.” —Oprah Winfrey
34. “A bright future beckons. The onus is on us, through hard work, honesty and integrity, to reach for the stars.” —Nelson Mandela
35. “Life, as I see it, is not a location, but a journey. Life flows.” —Henry Ford
36. “When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm is all about.” —Haruki Murakami
37. “The future of life as we know it is being determined by everything we’re doing—and not doing. Now.” —Oprah Winfrey
38. “In every human endeavor, persistence is everything.” —Joan Rivers
39. “Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.” —Gilda Radner
40. “Begin, be bold and venture to be wise.” —Abraham Cowley
41. “One of the most important habits of successful people is, simply, starting. Start before you are ready. Stop thinking and start doing. Make a move. Any move. Send the email. Register for the class. Pick up the phone. Schedule the meeting. Have the conversation.” —Marie Forleo
42. “Appreciation empowers not just money transactions, but all interactions. Gratitude is one of the greatest meditations of a lifetime, the fastest attitude uplifter I know. Be grateful for all the good in your life and your good will only increase, along with your happiness.” —Alan Cohen
43. “The failure of one thing is repaired by the success of another.” —Thomas Jefferson
44. “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.” —Mother Teresa
Presidential Labor Day quotes
45. “Folks, on this Labor Day, let me tell you what we’re celebrating. We’re celebrating jobs—good-paying jobs, jobs you can raise a family on, union jobs.” —Joe Biden
46. “America cannot have a strong, growing economy without a strong, growing middle class and the chance for everybody, no matter how humble their beginnings, to join that middle class—a middle class built on the idea that if you work hard, if you live up to your responsibilities, you can get ahead, and enjoy some basic guarantees in life.” —Barack Obama
47. “The history of the United States is in vital respects the history of labor. Free men and women, working for a better life for themselves and their children, settled a continent, built a society, and created and diffused an abundance hitherto unknown to history.” —John F. Kennedy
48. “Each life matters. Everybody counts, everybody has got purpose, everybody is important in life.” —George W. Bush
49. “Every man among us is more fit to meet the duties and responsibilities of citizenship because of the perils over which, in the past, the nation has triumphed; because of the blood and sweat and tears, the labor and the anguish, through which, in the days that have gone, our forefathers moved on to triumph.” —Theodore Roosevelt
50. “We must continually strive to create more opportunity for work for those who are willing to take the responsibility to make better lives for themselves and their families.” —Bill Clinton
51. “Let us give thanks to those who came before us and who strived to improve working conditions and create fair labor laws. They risked their livelihoods and often their very lives to ensure that children could go to school instead of to work in mines and factories, that laborers could work without risking injury and that Americans who toiled throughout the week would be rewarded with a decent living and could spend more time raising their families.” —Bill Clinton
52. “Wall Street didn’t build America. The middle class built America, and unions built the middle class.” —Joe Biden
53. “I want America to have the best infrastructure in the world. We used to have the best infrastructure in the world. We can have it again.” —Barack Obama
54. “As we celebrate Labor Day, we can find strength and renewed inspiration in the Dream—the idea that we can be good workers as well as good parents and that, through our individual efforts, we can build better lives for our children.” —Bill Clinton
55. “We want everybody in America to own their own home. That’s what we want. … An ownership society is a compassionate society.” —George W. Bush
56. “A job is about a lot more than a paycheck. For real. It’s about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity. It’s about respect. It’s about being able to look your kid in the eye and say, ‘Honey, it’s going to be OK,’ and mean it when you say it.” —Joe Biden
57. “Labor Day stands for America’s greatest natural resource—not its minerals, its timber or its farmland, but its people: Americans who get up early every day and go home tired every night, quietly creating a better life for their families and fellow citizens.” —Gerald Ford
58. “We all know what that American Dream is. It’s the idea that in America, we can make of our lives what we will. It’s the idea that if you work hard and live up to your responsibilities, you can get ahead and enjoy some of the basic guarantees in life: a good job that pays a good wage, health care that will be there when you get sick, a secure retirement even if you’re not rich, an education that will give our kids a better life than we had. They’re very simple ideas, but they’re the ideas that are at the heart of our middle class, the middle class that made the 20th century the American century.” —Barack Obama
59. “Where is it written that we can’t be the manufacturing capital of the world? We are. We will.” —Joe Biden
60. “We salute working people because they have built our land with skill, energy and resourcefulness, transforming raw materials into a shining edifice of freedom and prosperity.” —Ronald Reagan
61. “We must continue our efforts to create further job growth and new opportunities, enabling more of our citizens to realize the American Dream.” —Bill Clinton
62. “I believe Americans willing to work hard should be able to get a job no matter where they live—in the Heartland, small towns, the Northeast, big cities—to raise their kids on a good paycheck and keep their roots where they grew up.” —Joe Biden
63. “Our labors ensure that the blessings of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness will benefit generations to come.” —Bill Clinton
Why trust us
At Reader’s Digest, we’ve been sharing our favorite quotes for over 100 years. The sayings and quips that appear in the magazine’s “Quotable Quotes” (formerly “Remarkable Remarks”) are curated from interviews and essays originally published in the magazine, reprints from trusted titles and other verified sources. For this piece on Labor Day quotes, writer Emma Taubenfeld tapped her experience as the former assistant editor for Reader’s Digest, covering quotes, memes and more, to ensure that all information is accurate. We’ve gone the extra step and had Marcy Lovitch, a fact-checker with 20-plus years of experience researching for national publications including Marie Claire, Good Housekeeping, Family Circle, Glamour, Seventeen, Real Simple, Forbes and InStyle magazine, verify that all the quotes are attributed correctly and have credible sourcing. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.
