As summer winds down, and more and more of us slip back into the office, it may be a little hard to trade beaches for cubicles, and plane tickets for Excel spreadsheets. 

But if you're looking for motivation or a mere reminder of what makes you love your job or hard work, look no further. Here are some wise words that will have you re-energized and excited for your workplace return:

  1. "The fruit of your own hard work is the sweetest." -- Deepika Padukone
  2. "Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart." -- Rumi
  3. "...pursue the things you love doing and then do them so well that people can't take their eyes off of you." -- Maya Angelou
  4. "I'm a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it." -- Thomas Jefferson
  5. "There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure." -- Colin Powell
  6. "Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it." -- Buddha
  7. "The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand." -- Vince Lombardi
  8. "The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra." -- Jimmy Johnson
  9. "Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do." -- Steve Jobs
  10. "Winners embrace hard work. They love the discipline of it, the trade-off they're making to win. Losers, on the other hand, see it as punishment. And that's the difference." -- Lou Holtz
  11. "If you're offered a seat on a rocket ship, don't ask what seat! Just get on." -- Sheryl Sandberg
  12. "I have written because it fulfilled me. Maybe it paid off the mortgage on the house and got the kids through college, but those things were on the side -- I did it for the buzz. I did it for the pure joy of the thing. And if you can do it for the joy, you can do it forever." -- Stephen King
  13. "No one ever drowned in sweat." -- U.S. Marine Corps
  14. "There comes a time when you ought to start doing what you want. Take a job that you love. You will jump out of bed in the morning. I think you are out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you don't like because you think it will look good on your resume." -- Warren Buffet
  15. "It doesn't matter how great your shoes are if you don't accomplish anything in them." -- Martina Boone
  16. "To be successful, the first thing to do is fall in love with your work." -- Sister Mary Lauretta
  17. "Passion will move men beyond themselves, beyond their shortcomings, beyond their failures." -- Joseph Campbell
  18. "Success isn't always about greatness. It's about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come." -- Dwayne Johnson 
  19. "Power means happiness; power means hard work and sacrifice." -- Beyonce Knowles
  20. "Hard work without talent is a shame, but talent without hard work is a tragedy." -- Robert Half
  21. "Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goals: my strength lies solely in my tenacity." -- Louis Pasteur
  22. "We live in the kind of society where, in almost all cases, hard work is rewarded." -- Neil deGrasse Tyson
  23. "When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bounds. Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties, and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be." -- Patanjali