95 motivational teamwork quotes you’ll actually like

Teamwork is amazing. But it’s also challenging, and it takes hard work to get right. It’s definitely not summed up by platitudes like, “Teamwork makes the dream work” (even if the origin story behind the phrase is quite fascinating 😉).

How can we think about teamwork differently? How can we honor the challenge that working with others provides, and motivate our teams around the powerful opportunity of working together?

Here’s a list of teamwork quotes that we’ve sourced over the years that don’t bathe teamwork in the glow of senseless platitudes, but instead provide real insight, motivation, and inspiration.

Teamwork quotes about the essence of teamwork

“It’s better to be alone than in bad company.” 

– George Washington, first president of the United States

“The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” – Phil Jackson, former American basketball player and coach

“Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life forever.”

– Amy Poehler, American actress and comedian

“To be good, and to do good, is all we have to do.” 

– John Adams, second president of the United States

“If you take out the team in teamwork, it’s just work. Now who wants that?” 

– Matthew Woodring Stover, American novelist

“I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.” 

– Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the United States

“You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.” 

– Indira Gandhi, former prime minister of India

“Understand this if you understand nothing: it is a powerful thing to be seen.” 

– Akwaeke Emezi, Nigerian writer

“It takes two flints to make a fire.”
– Louisa May Alcott, American novelist

“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.”

– Spock, fictional character in the Star Trek series

“Individually we are one drop. Together we are an ocean.”

– Ryunosuke Satoro, Japanese writer

“The whole is other than the sum of the parts.”

– Kurt Koffka, German psychologist

“In union there is strength.”

– Aesop, ancient Greek fabulist 

“None of us is as good as all of us.”

– Ray Kroc, American businessman

“I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team, I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion.”

– Mia Hamm, professional soccer player

“When was ever honey made with one bee in a hive?”

– Thomas Hood, English poet and writer

Teamwork quotes about collaboration

“There is no such thing as a self-made man. You will reach your goals only with the help of others.” 

– George Shinn, American businessman 

“Never confuse movement with action.” 

– Ernest Hemingway, American novelist

“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”

– Harry S Truman, 33rd president of the United States

“Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is a success.”

– Henry Ford, American industrialist and business magnate

“I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot; together we can do great things.”

– Mother Teresa, Catholic nun and saint

“The people you work with are people you were just thrown together with. I mean, you don’t know them, it wasn’t your choice. And yet you spend more time with them than you do with your friends or your family.” 

– Tim Canterbury, fictional character in the British version of The Office

“Working together, we will.”

– Ronald Reagan, 40th president of the United States

“No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.”

– H.E. Luccock, American minister and professor

“Teamwork: work together as if your life depends on it…it does!”

– Ron Swanson’s Pyramid of Greatness, fictional character in Parks and Recreation

“Gettin’ good players is easy. Gettin’ ‘em to play together is the hard part.”

– Casey Stengel, American baseball manager

“No individual can win a game by himself.”

– Pelé, professional soccer player

“To be aware and present with each other at work is to create an environment where everyone can thrive.”

– Dalai Lama

“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”

– Proverbs 27:17 

“I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow.”

– Woodrow Wilson, 28th president of the United States

“One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team.”

– Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, American basketball player

“Collaboration is multiplication.”

– John C. Maxwell, American author and speaker

“A major reason capable people fail to advance is that they don’t work well with their colleagues.”

– Lee Iacocca, American author and automobile executive

“The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.”

– Bertrand Russell, British philosopher and logician

“I’d rather have 1% of the effort of 100 men than 100% of my own effort.”

– J. Paul Getty, American industrialist

Teamwork quotes about unity and togetherness

“What divides us pales in comparison to what unites us.”

– Ted Kennedy, lawyer and former member of the United States Senate

“Sticks in a bundle are unbreakable.”

– Kenyan proverb

“Every once in a while you hear an expert that says team chemistry is overrated. You just write that person off.” 

– Tony La Russa, former American baseball player and coach

“We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.”

– Albus Dumbledore, fictional character in Harry Potter

“Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.”

– Helen Keller, American author

“If you can laugh together, you can work together.”
– Robert Orben, American comedy writer

“We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

– Ben Franklin, American polymath

“It is better to have a great team than a team of greats.”

– Simon Sinek, American author and inspirational speaker

“We may all have come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.”

– Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights activist

“Remember upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all.”

– Alexander the Great, King of Macedonia 

“To me, teamwork is a lot like being part of a family. It comes with obligations, entanglements, headaches, and quarrels. But the rewards are worth the cost.”

– Pat Summitt, American basketball coach

“Intellect is the power tool of our separateness. The intuitive, compassionate heart is the doorway to our unity.” 

– Ram Dass, American spiritual leader and guru

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

– African proverb

Teamwork quotes about shared goals

“Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision.” 

– Andrew Carnegie, Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist

“Cooperation is the thorough conviction that nobody can get there unless everybody gets there.” – Virginia Burden, American author

“Go find your team. Get to work. Whatever that work is that you find worth doing. Do it, and find some people to love who’ll do it with you.”

– Leslie Knope, fictional character in Parks and Recreation

“Individual commitment to a group effort — that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.” 

– Vince Lombardi, American football coach

“Each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity.”

– Marie Curie, Polish-French physicist and chemist

“No member of a crew is praised for the rugged individuality of his rowing.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist

Teamwork quotes about leadership and influence

“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

– Isaac Newton, English polymath

“The opposite of courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow.” 

– Jim Hightower, columnist and former Commissioner of Agriculture of Texas

“Let me explain something about business. It’s a dance. And sometimes you lead. And sometimes you follow.” 

– Johnny Rose, fictional character in Schitt’s Creek

“A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say.”

– Michael Winner, British filmmaker

“I am not so enamored of my own opinions that I disregard what others may think of them.”

– Nicolaus Copernicus, Polish astronomer and mathematician 

“He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader.”

– Aristotle, Greek philosopher and polymath

“It is better to have one person working with you than three people working for you.”

– Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th president of the United States

“The secret is to work less as individuals and more as a team. As a coach, I play not my eleven best, but my best eleven.”

– Knute Rockne, football coach

“Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.”

– Ruth Bader Ginsburg, former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Teamwork quotes about resilience and growth

“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity” 

– Sun Tzu, Chinese military general

“Iteration is the fundamental basis of all improvement.” 

– Mark Manson, American author

“The worst walls are never the ones you find in your way. The worst walls are the ones you put there.” 

– Ursula K. Le Guin, American author

“I’m no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I’m changing the things I cannot accept.” 

– Angela Davis, American political activist and philanthropist

“The power of one, if fearless and focused, is formidable, but the power of many working together is better.”

– Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, former president of the Philippines

“Teams do not seek consensus; they seek the best answer.”

– Jon Katzenbach, American author and consultant

Teamwork quotes about character and integrity

“We rise by lifting others” 

– Robert Ingersoll, American politician and orator

“There is nothing more beautiful than someone who goes out of their way to make life beautiful for others.” 

– Mandy Hale, American author and speaker

“You are not the work you do; you are the person you are.” 

– Toni Morrison, American novelist

“Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future.” 

– Deepak Chopra, Indian-American author

“Decency is avoiding disrespect, not avoiding disagreement. Integrity is trying to get it right, not being right.” 

– Adam Grant, American author and professor

“Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are.” 

– John Wooden, American basketball coach

“If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.”

– Booker T. Washington, American educator and author

“A little consideration, a little thought for others, makes all the difference.”

– Eeyore, fictional character in Winnie the Pooh

“To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.” 

– Eleanor Roosevelt, activist and former First Lady of the United States

“We are stronger when we listen, and smarter when we share.”

– Rania Al-Abdullah, Queen of Jordan

Teamwork quotes about innovation and achievement

“When you hand good people possibility, they do great things.” 

– Biz Stone, American entrepreneur and co-founder of Twitter

“The way to achieve your own success is to be willing to help somebody else get it first.” 

– Iyanla Vanzant, inspirational speaker and lawyer

“Our destiny is not written for us, it’s written by us.” 

– Barack Obama, 44th president of the United States

“Create an environment where people can take risks. If everything has to be brilliant from the word go, you’re never gonna get off the ground.” 

– Paul Hewson (aka Bono), Irish singer-songwriter

“Failure and invention are inseparable twins. To invent, you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it’s going to work, it’s not an experiment.” 

– Scott Galloway, American orator and academic

“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing—together.”

– Walt Disney, American animator and producer

“Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than the one where they sprang up.”

– Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., American physician and poet

“Great teamwork is the only way we create the breakthroughs that define our careers.”

– Pat Riley, president of the Miami Heat

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

– Margaret Mead, American cultural anthropologist and author

“The way a team plays as a whole determines its success.”

– Babe Ruth, American baseball pitcher

“Teamwork divides the task and multiplies the success.”

– Unknown

“Teamwork is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.”

– Andrew Carnegie, Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist

“The path to greatness is along with others.”

– Baltasar Gracian, Spanish priest

“With an enthusiastic team, you can achieve almost anything.”

– Tahir Shah, British author and journalist

“Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.” 

– Steve Jobs, American businessman and former CEO of Apple

“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.”

– Michael Jordan, American basketball player