Great Quotes for Kids About Hard Work and Doing Your Best

Sometimes, doing your best work or trying your hardest at something is difficult.  It may have to do with trying to do something new for the first time, like a new sport or activity at school.  It may have to do with doing homework for a subject that is not your favorite or is not your best.

As Hunter S. Thompson once said, “anything worth doing, is worth doing right.”  And as Albert Einstein added, “we have to do the best we can.  This is our sacred human responsibility”.

Developing the habit of trying your hardest and doing your best work is something that will help you succeed throughout your life.  If you look at the quotes below, you will see that many of them come from people who have made a big difference in the world.  This is not a coincidence.  It was not only their cleverness that helped them stand out and change the world, but their ability to, try their hardest and do their best in whatever they were doing.  If you can work develop this same habit – to do your best in any situation – it will be a great benefit to your family, career, school and community.  The choice is yours.

• “Little by little one walks far” – Peruvian Proverb
• “You should always be well and bright, for so you do your best work; and you have so much beautiful work to do. The world needs it, and you must give it!” – Marie Correlli
• If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have the time to do it over?” – John Wooden
• “I hope you will simply do what you can do in the best way you know. If you do so, you will witness miracles come to pass.” –  Gordon B. Hinckley
• “We have to do the best we can.  This is our sacred human responsibility”  Albert Einstein
• “Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.” – Booker T. Washington
• “I do the very best I know, the very best I can, and I mean to keep on doing so until the end” – Abraham Lincoln
• “Do your best when no one is looking.  If you do that, then you can be successful at anything you put your mind to – Bob Cousy
• “A problem is a chance for you to do your best” – Duke Ellington
• “If you try to do your best, there is no failure – Mike Farrell
• “Whatever you are, be a good one.” – Abraham Lincoln
• “Doing your best means never stop trying.” – Benjamin Franklin
• “Just Do It”  – Nike
• “The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today.” – H. Jackson Brown
• “Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs.  Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger.  If you do little jobs well, the big one will tend to take care of themselves”  Dale Carnegie
• “If you do things well, do them better. Be daring, be first, be different, be just.” – Anita Roddick
• “Doing your best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment” – Oprah Winfrey
• “You must do the thing you think you cannot do” – Eleanor Roosevelt
• “Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
• “Do right.  Do your best.  Treat others the way you want to be treated” –
• Lou Holtz
• “The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little difference” – Jimmy Johnson
• “No effort that we take to attain something beautiful is ever lost” – Helen Keller
• “People pretend not to like grapes when the vines are too high for them to reach”  – Margueritte de Navarre
• “So early in my life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise”  Malcolm X
• “If your not going to go all the way, why go at all?”  Joe Namath
• “Do the best you can in every task, no matter how unimportant it may seem at the time”  – Sandra Day O’Connor
• “Advancement only come with habitually doing more than you are asked” – Gary Ryan
• “When you reach the top, keep climbing” – Proverb
• “When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.” – Helen Keller
• “Do more than is required. What is the distance between someone who achieves their goals consistently and those who spend their lives and careers merely following? The extra mile.” – Gary Ryan Blair

Note:  Special thanks to my 10 year old son, Ryan, for his valuable contributions and editing for this first post of his!  Now, go do your best, Ryan!  🙂

Additional Resources:

• Click here to see many InspireMyKids stories and videos about people that demonstrate what hard work and doing your best is all about
• Click here for other great quotes for kids

Topics for Discussion:

• What are your top 3 favorite quotes above?  Why?
• Talk about a time when you tried your hardest at something?  What was the result?  How did you feel after you did it?
• Talk about a person you know that always tries their best.  Is there anything you can learn from them?
• Can you remember a story that you have read where the characters benefited from their hard work?  Or how about a story where a character did not work hard?

Take Action:

• Choose one thing in your life where you are not doing your best and make a commitment to change this.  Start doing it and see how it makes you feel.
• Work hard at something that matters to you.  Find a cause that you care about, such as animals, and find something you can do to help.  Click here for a great list of ideas to help animals from the ASPCA or here for ways to help the environment.

Teacher Features:

• Here is a link to a Critical Reading Skills worksheet that you can use for elementary school students.
• Here is a link to a Critical Reading Skills worksheet that you can use for middle school students.