Work-life balance quotes: 60 real quotes and 25 lines for your team
Quotes about rest, time off and saying no, plus lines for your own sign-offs, each with a copy button. Every quote checked against its source.
KraftyLab TeamUpdated 11 min read
Good work life balance quotes are oddly hard to find: the popular ones are often credited to the wrong person, and the rest read like a wellness poster. These 60 were checked one by one against the speaker's own book, essay, speech or interview, or the sourced section of their Wikiquote page, and we kept their published wording. They're sorted by the moment: a Friday message, a vacation reminder, a team that needs to hear no is allowed. After the quotes you'll find 25 lines we wrote for out-of-office notes, Friday sign-offs and managers telling the team to log off.
Work life balance quotes about rest and time off
For the person who hasn't taken a day off since spring, and the manager who should tell them to.
On rest
Rest as part of the work, not a reward for finishing it. Writers and scientists have been saying so for more than two centuries.
1
Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets.
Tim Kreider, essayist and cartoonist
2
I love a broad margin to my life.
Henry David Thoreau, essayist
3
In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow.
Pico Iyer, travel writer
4
When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.
Ursula K. Le Guin, novelist
5
Those who are wise won't be busy, and those who are too busy can't be wise.
Lin Yutang, writer and philosopher
6
Extreme busyness, whether at school or college, kirk or market, is a symptom of deficient vitality.
Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist and essayist
7
A man is not idle, because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labour and there is an invisible labour.
Victor Hugo, novelist
8
But not enough has been thought about idleness. It is the foundation of all happiness and the end of all philosophy.
Erich Maria Remarque, novelist
9
If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle.
Samuel Johnson, writer and lexicographer
10
When we have done our best, we should wait the result in peace.
John Lubbock, scientist and writer
11
Employers will give time to eat, time to sleep; they are in terror of a time to think.
G. K. Chesterton, essayist and novelist
On time off
For the vacation reminder, the long weekend and the person saving up days they will never use.
12
Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home.
John Muir, naturalist
13
Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life.
Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist and essayist
14
I have a theory that “holidays” evolved from the medieval pilgrimage, and are essentially a kind of penance for being so happy and comfortable in our daily lives.
Philip Larkin, poet
15
Life is too short to be busy.
Tim Kreider, essayist and cartoonist
16
The family is always the family but during vacations it is an extended family and that is exhausting.
Gertrude Stein, writer
17
By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, aviator and author
18
Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing, absolute nothing, half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.
Kenneth Grahame, children's author
19
What are men to rocks and mountains? Oh, what hours of transport we shall spend!
Jane Austen, novelist
20
I have done all that I came into this world to do. I have worked task work, and have the rest of the day to myself.
Charles Lamb, essayist
21
Have regular hours for work and play, make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well.
Louisa May Alcott, novelist
Quotes about saying no
Every yes spends time from somewhere else. For the planning meeting, the overloaded quarter and anyone learning to protect their calendar.
22
Time is the coin of your life. You spend it. Do not allow others to spend it for you.
Carl Sandburg, poet
23
The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
William James, psychologist
24
If you don't prioritize your life, someone else will.
Greg McKeown, author
25
One haff the trubbles ov this life kan be traced to saying “Yes” too quick, and not saying “No” soon enuff.
Josh Billings, humorist
26
I'm actually as proud of many of the things we haven't done as the things we have done.
Steve Jobs, Apple co-founder
27
A life spent chasing the mythical state of being able to do everything is less meaningful than a life of focusing on a few things that count.
Oliver Burkeman, author and journalist
28
I would prefer not to.
Herman Melville, novelist
29
You wake up in the morning, and lo! your purse is magically filled with twenty-four hours of the unmanufactured tissue of the universe of your life! It is yours.
Arnold Bennett, novelist
30
We must reserve a backshop, wholly our own and entirely free, wherein to settle our true liberty, our principal solitude and retreat.
Michel de Montaigne, essayist
31
There are, in fact, certain roads that one may follow. Simplification of life is one of them.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, aviator and author
Work and life balance quotes: presence, family and the long game
Balance isn't a weekly score. It's what a career looks like from the end. For the pressure that pushes the other way, read our explainer on hustle culture.
On presence and family
For noticing the life that happens outside the calendar invites.
32
Do human beings ever realize life while they live it? Every, every minute?
Thornton Wilder, playwright
33
Remember then: there is only one time that is important, Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power.
Leo Tolstoy, novelist
34
I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'
Kurt Vonnegut, novelist
35
In an age of distraction, nothing is so luxurious as paying attention.
Pico Iyer, travel writer
36
All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.
Bronnie Ware, palliative care nurse
37
Get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house.
Anna Quindlen, journalist and novelist
38
The thing you can always rely on, your core person, comes from your family's attention and love.
Martin Short, comedian and actor
39
Having kids showed me how to convert a continuous quantity, time, into discrete quantities. You only get 52 weekends with your 2 year old.
Paul Graham, Y Combinator co-founder
40
Don't ever confuse the two, your life and your work.
Anna Quindlen, journalist and novelist
41
After all, I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.
L. M. Montgomery, novelist
On the long game
A career is long. These positive life balance quotes are for keeping it that way.
42
It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough.
Seneca, Stoic philosopher
43
Live all you can; it's a mistake not to.
Henry James, novelist
44
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
Mary Oliver, poet
45
Life's meaning has always eluded me and I guess it always will. But I love it just the same.
E. B. White, essayist
46
I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
Bronnie Ware, palliative care nurse
47
Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle.
Bertrand Russell, philosopher
48
If a man makes two-thirds of his existence subservient to one-third, for which admittedly he has no absolutely feverish zest, how can he hope to live fully and completely? He cannot.
Arnold Bennett, novelist
49
I like living. I have sometimes been wildly despairing, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.
Agatha Christie, mystery novelist
50
Even when I was just starting out, I knew that tennis could show me the world... but tennis could never be the world.
Roger Federer, tennis champion
Funny work life balance quotes
Funny but true, and every one of them sourced. Safe for the team channel.
51
Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do ... Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.
Mark Twain, humorist
52
I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.
Jerome K. Jerome, humorist
53
Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.
Robert Benchley, humorist
54
If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be: 'meetings.'
Dave Barry, humor columnist
55
If you don't want to work you have to work to earn enough money so that you won't have to work.
Ogden Nash, poet
56
Go to bed; tired is stupid.
Ursula K. Le Guin, novelist
57
Hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing whatever to do.
Oscar Wilde, playwright
58
A man can never have too much Time to himself, nor too little to do. Had I a little son, I would christen him NOTHING-TO-DO; he should do nothing.
Charles Lamb, essayist
59
There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want.
Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes creator
60
Such meetings are more than a substitute for action. They are widely regarded as action.
John Kenneth Galbraith, economist
25 work-life balance lines for your team
Sometimes you want your own words instead of a famous name. We wrote these, so they carry no attribution. Square brackets mark what to fill in.
For an out-of-office note
1
I'm out until [date] and fully offline. Your email will still be here when I'm back, and so will I.
2
I'm taking a real break this week. For anything urgent, [name] has the details at [email].
3
Away until [date], resting on purpose. I'll reply when I'm back, and faster for the break.
4
Out of the office until [date]. I'm doing what we keep telling everyone else to do: taking the time off.
5
I'm on vacation until [date] and the laptop stayed home. [Name] at [email] can help in the meantime.
6
Out for a long weekend. Back on [day] with a clear head.
7
I'm away until [date] spending time with family. I'll read every message, in order, when I return.
8
Offline until [date]. Nothing you send will be ignored, only postponed.
9
I'm on leave until [date] and not checking messages. If it can wait, it will be in good hands when I'm back.
For a Friday sign-off
10
That's a wrap on the week. Log off, and leave this channel alone until Monday.
11
Great week, team. Whatever is left on the list will keep until Monday.
12
Signing off for the weekend. I hope yours has nothing urgent in it.
13
Week done. Go do something that has nothing to do with work.
14
Thanks for a strong week. The best thing you can do for Monday is rest this weekend.
15
Closing the laptop now. See you Monday, rested.
16
Have a proper weekend: no inbox, no channel, no quick questions.
17
The work will still be here on Monday. You deserve two days away from it.
For a manager telling the team to log off
18
It's 6. Whatever you're working on can wait until tomorrow. Please log off.
19
I sometimes send messages at odd hours. Please answer them in your working hours, not mine.
20
If you're still online, this is your sign to stop. You'll do it better tomorrow.
21
Please book your vacation days. I'd much rather plan around your time off than around your burnout.
22
Tomorrow is meeting-free. Use it for focused work or a long lunch. Both count.
23
I noticed some late nights this week. Thank you, and please don't make it a habit. Rest is part of the job.
24
When you're off, be off. I won't expect replies, and nobody else should either.
25
Sick days are for getting better. Close the laptop; we have it covered.
A quote about rest only works if the message around it makes rest safe. Three moments where it helps, with wording you can borrow.
The Friday message. One quote, one thank-you for something specific, and a plain permission to stop. Send it early enough on Friday that people can act on it.“Thanks for this week, everyone, and special thanks to [name] for [specific thing]. Carl Sandburg put it well: time is the coin of your life, so don't let anyone else spend it for you. Log off when you're done. See you Monday.”
The vacation reminder. People save their days off when nobody models taking them. Post the quote, say when you're taking your own time off, and ask everyone to book theirs before the rush.“John Muir wrote that going to the mountains is going home. Wherever your mountains are, book your days off before [month] fills up. I'm out [dates] and won't be checking messages.”
The meeting-free day announcement. Say what the day is for, what's allowed (focus work, a walk, an early finish) and what isn't (moving meetings to the evening). A quote about time makes the point without a lecture.“From [date], Wednesdays are meeting-free. William James wrote that the art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook, so overlook the calendar: use the day for focus work, a long lunch or an early finish.”
Famous work-life quotes we left out
Search for work-life balance quotes and these come up first. Each one carries a name that is wrong or can't be proven, so it isn't in our list.
“The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.” (usually credited to Bertrand Russell or John Lennon)
Wikiquote lists it under Russell's misattributed lines. It comes from Marthe Troly-Curtin's novel Phrynette Married (1912); a 1977 quotation book put it next to Russell's name.
“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” (usually credited to Confucius)
Wikiquote lists it under misattributed. Nothing like it is in the Analects, and the earliest English match Quote Investigator found is from a 1982 issue of the Princeton Alumni Weekly.
“Nobody on his deathbed ever said, 'I wish I had spent more time at the office.'” (usually credited to Paul Tsongas)
Tsongas made it famous, but Quote Investigator traces it to a letter his friend Arnold Zack wrote him, quoted in Tsongas's 1984 memoir Heading Home.
“Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.” (usually credited to John Lennon)
Lennon sang it in “Beautiful Boy” in 1980, but a close version, “Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans,” ran in Reader's Digest in 1957, credited to the comic strip writer Allen Saunders.
A quote reminds people to log off. A session shows them how. Time to Reclaim Your Life is a 60-minute live workshop on switching off, recharging and building resilience. How To Avoid Burnout is a 60-minute talk by psychiatrist Dr. Ellen Vora on the signs of burnout and strategies to prevent it, at work and at home. Both run live on your video call, on Zoom by default (Teams, Google Meet or Webex on request), and teams split across time zones can book two sessions. Book about 2 weeks ahead.
Carl Sandburg's “Time is the coin of your life. You spend it. Do not allow others to spend it for you.” is our pick for a team. It comes from remarks he made on his 85th birthday in 1963. For a team that never stops, Lin Yutang's “Those who are wise won't be busy, and those who are too busy can't be wise” makes the point gently.
What are some short work-life balance quotes?
Try “Life is too short to be busy.” (Tim Kreider), “I love a broad margin to my life.” (Henry David Thoreau), “Live all you can; it's a mistake not to.” (Henry James) or “Go to bed; tired is stupid.” (Ursula K. Le Guin). Each one fits an email signature or a Slack status.
Who said nobody on their deathbed wishes they'd spent more time at the office?
Paul Tsongas made it famous after a cancer diagnosis led him to leave the US Senate, but it wasn't his line. Quote Investigator traces it to a letter his friend Arnold Zack wrote him, which Tsongas quoted in his 1984 memoir Heading Home. Zack's wording ended “more time on my business.” For a sourced line on the same idea, Bronnie Ware, a palliative care nurse, heard “I wish I hadn't worked so hard” from every male patient she nursed.
Did John Lennon say “Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans”?
He sang it in “Beautiful Boy” in 1980, but he didn't coin it. A close version ran in Reader's Digest in 1957, credited to the comic strip writer Allen Saunders. We left it off our list for that reason.
What are some funny work-life balance quotes?
Jerome K. Jerome's “I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.” is from Three Men in a Boat (1889), and Dave Barry named the one word that explains why the human race will never reach its full potential: meetings. For away messages that make people smile, see our funny out-of-office messages.
How do you encourage work-life balance on a team?
Model it first: take your own time off, log off visibly and don't send late-night messages that look urgent. Then make it structural, with a meeting-free day or a Friday cut-off. Our guide to hustle culture covers the warning signs, and our employee wellness program guide covers the bigger picture.
Give your team an hour to switch off
A professional host runs a 60-minute live workshop on switching off and recharging, on your video call. Send your date and headcount for a plan within 24 hours.
