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Home > Blog: Work/Life > 10 Inspiring Quotations for the Discouraged Job Seeker

10 Inspiring Quotations for the Discouraged Job Seeker

Never continue in a job you don't enjoyWhen you're mired in the frustrations that so often accompany a job search, sometimes it helps to step back and regain perspective from great thinkers throughout history.

OK, there's that, and there's also the fact that my brain's not fully back up to speed since the long Labor Day weekend.

So I thought this would be an excellent time to rely on the collective brain power of others who have spoken profound words on the subject of job qualifications, job success, job performance, or job loss.

I hope you'll find these 10 work-related quotations – from personalities as divergent as Aristotle and Steve Jobs – amusing and motivating.

On Being Qualified
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it. Theodore Roosevelt, (1858-1919) 26th President of the United States

There are very few jobs that actually require a penis or vagina. All other jobs should be open to everybody. Florynce Kennedy, (1918-2000) Lawyer, Activist, Civil Rights Advocate, Feminist

On True Success
One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation. Arthur Ashe, (1943-1993) Prominent Tennis Player, Civil Rights Activist

When you leave college, there are thousands of people out there with the same degree you have; when you get a job, there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. – Anna Quindlen, (1952- ) Author, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist

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, (1925-2005) Comedian and Television Host 

Fall seven times, stand up eight. – Japanese Proverb

On Doing Your Job Well
Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work. – Aristotle, (384 BC to 322 BC), Greek Philosopher

People forget how fast you did a job – but they remember how well you did it. Howard Newton, a guy who, though credited with this quote, doesn't show up in a Google search. Anyone? Anyone? (Please leave a comment below if you know who he is or was.)

On Losing Your Job
Getting fired is nature's way of telling you that you had the wrong job in the first place. Hal Lancaster, in The Wall Street Journal

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. Steve Jobs, (1955- ) Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc. (fired in 1986; re-hired in 1996), and former CEO of Pixar.

That's all for now. Hope this post has made you laugh, made you think, and/or made you feel a little more hopeful about your next career move.

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