Like a certain lasagna-loving orange cat, many of us are less than fond of Mondays.
After a relaxing weekend, it can be tough to get out of bed and pour ourselves a cup of ambition, as Dolly Parton aptly put it.
For those on the 9-to-5 grind, you're not alone in your aversion to Mondays.
In a 2023 workplace study from Zety, 41 percent of respondents voted Monday as their least favorite day, and 80 percent of respondents said that Monday was more stressful than the other days of the week.
However, Monday isn't all bad. With the right mindset, Monday provides an opportunity to reflect on your goals for the week ahead. Additionally, if you struggle with living in the moment, Monday is a great time to practice being present.
As you get ready to reenter the rat race, keep your spirits and energy high with some words of wisdom.
From Beyoncé to Charlie Brown, these powerfully positive quotes will give you a much-needed boost of energy on those bleary Monday mornings.
Here are 75 Monday motivation quotes to remind you to enjoy each and every moment that a new week brings.
Monday motivation quotes for a positive attitude
- “You do not find the happy life. You make it.” — Camilla Eyring Kimball
- “What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Essays and Addresses”
- “There is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.” — Amanda Gorman
- “Your talent determines what you can do. Your motivation determines how much you are willing to do. Your attitude determines how well you do it.” — Lou Holtz
- “Either you run the day or the day runs you.” — Jim Rohn
- “It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent.” — Madeleine Albright
- “The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” ― Michael Altshuler
- “Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.” ― Toni Morrison, “Beloved”
- “However, the Sun himself is weak when he first rises, and gathers strength and courage as the day gets on.” ― Charles Dickens, “The Old Curiosity Shop”
- “I don’t like to gamble, but if there’s one thing I’m willing to bet on, it’s myself.” — Beyoncé
- “I have learned not to allow rejection to move me.” ― Cicely Tyson, “Just as I Am”
- “Always believe that something wonderful is about to happen.” ― Dr. Sukhraj Dhillon
- “Your calm mind is the ultimate weapon against your challenges. So relax.” ― Bryant McGill, “Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life”
- “Remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” — Henry Ford
- “Try to be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.” — Maya Angelou
- “My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.” — Jack Layton
- “Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results.” — Willie Nelson
- “If you know anything about me, you know that my life’s taken a few unexpected curves and crashes along the way. But hey, at least I can say I took the scenic route!” — Naomi Judd
- “Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and true progress.” — Nicholas Murray Butler
- “Do not allow negative thoughts to enter your mind for they are the weeds that strangle confidence.” — Bruce Lee
- “If you want the rainbow, you have to put up with the rain.” — Dolly Parton
- “Whatever you give out in life is what you receive back in life. Give positivity, you receive back positivity; give negativity, you receive back negativity.” — Rhonda Byrne
- “Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” — Helen Keller
- “We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.” — Joseph Campbell
- “Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind. — Daphne du Maurier, “Rebecca”
Monday motivation quotes for making an effort
- “So. Monday. We meet again. We will never be friends — but maybe we can move past our mutual enmity toward a more-positive partnership.” ― Julio-Alexi Genao
- “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” — Arthur Ashe
- “Change your thoughts and you change your world.” — Norman Vincent Peale
- “If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it.” — Olin Miller
- “Courage is very important. Like a muscle, it is strengthened by use.” — Ruth Gordon
- “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” — Albert Einstein
- “When you have a dream, you’ve got to grab it and never let go.” — Carol Burnett
- “Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” — Maria Robinson
- “Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible!’” ― Audrey Hepburn
- “Every morning you have two choices: continue to sleep with your dreams or wake up and chase them.” — Arnold Schwarzenegger
- “If Joan of Arc could turn the tide of an entire war before her eighteenth birthday, you can get out of bed.” ― E. Jean Carroll
- "I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious effort." — Henry David Thoreau
- “Someday is not a day of the week.” — Denise Brennan-Nelson, “Someday Is Not a Day of the Week”
- “Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time.” — Ruth Bader Ginsburg
- “You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
- “Don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.” — Ella Fitzgerald
- “Action is the foundational key to all success.” — Pablo Picasso
- “I believe in hard work. It keeps the wrinkles out of the mind and the spirit.” — Helena Rubenstein
- “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” — Zig Ziglar
- “A goal is not always meant to be reached; it often serves simply as something to aim at.” — Bruce Lee
- “All you need is the plan, the road map and the courage to press on to your destination.” ― Earl Nightingale
- “I have always thought the only genius that’s worth anything is the genius for hard work.” — Kathleen Winsor
- “Done is better than perfect.” ― Sheryl Sandberg, “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead”
- “That’s what keeps me going: dreaming, inventing, then hoping and dreaming some more in order to keep dreaming.” — Joseph Barbera
- “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure.” — Colin Powell
Monday motivation quotes for living in the moment
- “You have to be where you are to get where you need to go.” ― Amy Poehler, “Yes Please”
- “Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.” — Will Rogers
- “You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.” ― Henry David Thoreau
- “Forever is composed of nows.” ― Emily Dickinson
- “Live today. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Just today. Inhabit your moments. Don’t rent them out to tomorrow.” ― Jerry Spinelli, “Love, Stargirl”
- “Every day brings new choices.” — Martha Beck
- “Learn from yesterday, live for today, look to tomorrow, rest this afternoon.” ― Charles M. Schulz, “Charlie Brown’s Little Book of Wisdom”
- “The beginning is always today.” — Mary Shelley
- “The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt
- “Happiness, not in another place but this place ... not for another hour, but this hour.” ― Walt Whitman
- “It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.” ― Lewis Carroll, “Alice’s Adventure In Wonderland”
- “Don’t count the days. Make the days count.” — Muhammad Ali
- “The here and now is all we have, and if we play it right it’s all we’ll need.” ― Ann Richards
- “Look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time: Thus is your time on earth filled with glory.” ― Betty Smith, “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”
- “I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart: I am, I am, I am.” — Sylvia Plath, “The Bell Jar”
- “I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present.” — Mahatma Gandhi
- “The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us.” — Ashley Montagu
- “In this world, all — men, women, and kings — must live for the present.” — Alexandre Dumas, “The Man in the Iron Mask”
- “While we are living in the present, we must celebrate life every day, knowing that we are becoming history with every work, every action, every deed.” — Mattie Stepanek
- “There is no other day. All days are present now. This moment contains all moments.” — C.S. Lewis
- “In every moment the past is born and the present flows into the future, taking the moment that already passed.” — Dejan Stojanovic
- “Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” — Melody Beattie
- “There is something about the present which we would not exchange, though we were offered a choice of all past ages to live in.” — Virginia Woolf
- “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.” — Theodore Roosevelt
- “Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.” — Emily Dickinson
