Teamwork quotes: 100 real quotes about working together
Quotes about teamwork from coaches, founders, scientists and artists, each with a copy button. Every one checked against its source.
Search for team work quotes and many of the lines you find were never said by the people named under them. These 100 quotes on teamwork were. We checked each one against its source: the speaker's book, speech, letter or interview, or the sourced section of their Wikiquote page. Where the popular wording differs from what the person actually said, we used their words. They're grouped by who said them and by the moment you need one for, with ideas for using them at work, eight meeting openers and 12 team slogans we wrote ourselves.
Short teamwork quotes for slides and signatures
Short team quotes, under 12 words each: sized for a kickoff slide, an email signature or a channel topic.
Quotes about teamwork from coaches, founders, scientists and artists
Inspirational quotes about teamwork, sorted by who said them, so you can match the voice to your audience: a coach for the sales floor, a scientist for the lab, a writer for the creative team.
Teamwork quotes from coaches and athletes
Sports people talk about teams more plainly than anyone, so start here for motivational quotes for teamwork before a big push. These come from their books, interviews and speeches.
From business leaders and founders
What people who built companies said about the people they built them with.
From scientists, inventors and explorers
Discovery is rarely a solo act, and the people who made the discoveries say so.
From artists and writers
Orchestras, film sets, writers' rooms and studios run on collaboration too.
Quotes about working together: collaboration, trust and leading a team
Working together quotes for the harder conversations. If trust is the real issue on your team, our guide to building trust in the workplace goes further than any quote can.
Quotes on collaboration and trust
For a retro, a team charter or the week after a hard disagreement.
Leadership and teamwork quotes
For new managers, team leads and anyone about to run their first big project.
Teamwork quotes for the moment: funny, launch day and remote
The right line for a specific day: when the team needs a laugh, when something just went live, and when half of you are on a screen.
Funny teamwork quotes that are also true
Light enough to make a room smile, safe enough to post in the team channel. Meetings and deadlines get it worst.
For a team that just shipped something
Post one of these in the launch thread, next to an actual thank-you.
For remote and hybrid teams
About trust, listening and staying in touch, the hard parts of working apart.
How to use a teamwork quote at work
A quote on its own is a poster. A quote with one sentence from you is a message. Four places it works, with wording you can borrow.
- On a kickoff slide. Put one short quote alone on the slide with the speaker's name, then say in one sentence why you picked it for this project. The sentence is what people remember.“I picked Brooks's Law for today because we're adding three people mid-project, and I'd rather plan the handoffs than hope for them.”
- As the first line of a team charter. A quote works as the why above your working agreements. Keep it to one, and make every agreement under it something you can check.Under Covey's line about listening: “In our meetings, we repeat the last point back before we disagree with it.”
- In a weekly shout-out. Pair the quote with a specific thank-you, so it reads as recognition and not as a poster. Name the person and the thing they did.“Wooden said the main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team. This week that was [name], who rebuilt the test data at 6 p.m. so the demo could happen.”
- As a quote-and-question meeting opener. Read one quote, ask one question, give it five minutes. One answer per person, no debate. The questions below are written to go with quotes on this page.“Quick round before we start: Hemingway's line on trust. What's one thing you'd hand off today if you trusted the handoff completely?”
Eight quote-and-question meeting openers
Each pairs a quote from this page with a question we wrote. Read the quote, ask the question, one answer each. Want a longer warm-up? Pick one of our team building games.
Helen Keller: “Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much.”
What did this team do this quarter that none of us could have done alone?
Temple Grandin: “Complementary skills are the key to successful teams.”
If we staffed the next project from scratch, what skill would we add that nobody here has yet?
Stephen Covey: “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”
When did someone on this team last change your mind, and what did they do that worked?
John Wooden: “A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player.”
Who made your work better this month, and how?
Fred Brooks: “Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.”
Where do we lose the most time when someone new joins the team?
Voltaire: “The best is the enemy of the good.”
What are we still polishing that is already good enough to ship?
Tom Peters: “'Soft' skills will be 10X more important in a virtual/work-at-home world.”
What's one habit that makes working apart easier on this team, and one that makes it harder?
Ernest Hemingway: “The way to learn whether a person is trustworthy is to trust him.”
What's one decision this team could make without asking a manager first?
12 team slogans we wrote
Some teams want their own words rather than a famous name. We wrote these, so they carry no attribution: put them on a slide, a sticker or the channel topic. For 200 more, see our team mottos.
Famous teamwork quotes we left out
These show up on most teamwork quote lists. We left them off because the name under them doesn't hold up.
“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.” (usually credited to Henry Ford)
Researcher Barry Popik found no evidence that Ford said it. The earliest use he found, a 1927 speech by Calvin Coolidge, credited it to the writer Edward Everett Hale, and nobody knows where Hale wrote it either.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.” (usually credited to Margaret Mead)
Wikiquote lists it as disputed. No source from her lifetime is known; the earliest printing it cites is a 1984 book, six years after she died.
“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” (usually credited to Harry S. Truman)
Wikiquote lists it as misattributed: a similar saying was in print as early as 1863.
“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” (usually credited to Benjamin Franklin)
It was first printed as an anecdote in 1840, half a century after Franklin died, and an earlier book gave the line to Richard Penn.
“Teamwork makes the dream work.”
A slogan, not a famous quote. It is best known as the title of John C. Maxwell's 2002 book. Use it as a slogan, without a name under it.
“The way a team plays as a whole determines its success.” (usually credited to Babe Ruth)
A reworded version of a passage in Babe Ruth's Own Book of Baseball (1928). We used the book's actual words in the coaches and athletes list.
Need a line for every working day instead? Our quote of the day for work picks one each morning from all our checked quotes, and the hard work quotes cover effort, grit and rest.
Put the quote into practice
Want someone to turn the quote into an hour your team spends together? A live host runs it on your video call, on Zoom by default (Teams, Google Meet or Webex on request). Supercharge Your Squad is a workshop for managers on building a team that has your back; a hosted game show gets everyone playing on the same side. Book about 2 weeks ahead. For more ideas you can run yourself, see our team bonding activities.
Two hosted sessions for teams, with today's prices. See every virtual game show or get a free quote.
