Professional Quotes to Elevate Your LinkedIn Cover Photo

Your LinkedIn profile plays a key role in shaping how others perceive you in the professional world. Over 1 billion professionals worldwide use this platform to network, find opportunities, recruit talent, and advance their careers.

The cover photo, which is also known as the banner or background image, sits at the very top of your profile along with the profile picture. Your profile picture is relatively small, and, what’s more important, should clearly communicate who the profile belongs to. So, you can’t experiment with it all that much – it should show either your face or your brand logo.

Fortunately, your cover photo allows more room for experimentation. You can use it to tell people more about your brand and yourself, while also showing off some creativity. Moreover, when someone visits your profile, it’s the first thing that tends to grab the attention.

And yet, many people either ignore it or use a generic, default background.

That’s a missed opportunity.

Adding a professional quote to your LinkedIn cover photo is one of the simplest yet most effective ways to communicate your personality, purpose, and professional ethos at a glance. Even company accounts can benefit greatly from it!

Luckily for you, in this in-depth guide you’ll find out:

Why you should add a professional quote to your cover photo
A curated selection of powerful quotes
The correct pixel dimensions for a LinkedIn cover photo
How to add text to an image
What you should consider when designing your cover photo.

Let’s dive in!

Why You Should Add a Quote to Your LinkedIn Cover Photo

Adding a quote to your banner isn’t just about aesthetics – it’s about strategic communication.

Here’s why you should consider it:

1. Showcase Your Professional Identity

Before people read your About section or scroll through your experience, they see your profile pic and banner. Both of them – but especially the banner – can help people understand who you are, what drives you, and what value you bring to the table.

2. Grab Attention

In today’s digital world, our attention span is shorter than ever. The right design with the right quote can capture attention and spark curiosity. It can be that visual “hook” that makes someone say, “Wait, who is this?”

3. Make Yourself Memorable

A banner with a quote is a subtle but effective way to differentiate yourself from thousands of others in your industry. It signals effort and intention, which are the qualities that every employer, client, or customer tends to appreciate.

4. Make Yourself More Human

Let’s face it. Professional bios can feel a bit rigid or overly formal. In your cover photo quote, you can show a bit of heart in a way that feels authentic. That’s exactly how you can humanize yourself while staying professional.

5. Encourage Engagement

A nicely chosen quote can prompt visitors to like and comment. It’s a great conversation starter with your future employers, clients, or collaborators. It can also serve as a filter, attracting only like-minded people.

Professional Quotes for LinkedIn Cover Photos

When choosing a quote, aim for something that feels authentic, inspiring, and aligned with your professional path. Keep in mind that a quote should resonate not only with you, but also with people who you want to attract to your LinkedIn profile – people who you want to work with or work for.

Here’s our curated list of powerful quotes.

Well-Known Classics

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Peter Drucker
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” – Steve Jobs
“Opportunities don’t happen. You create them.”– Chris Grosser
“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” – Albert Einstein
“Change is the only constant in life.”– Heraclitus

Motivational

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” – Arthur Ashe
“Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.” – Sam Levenson
“Do something today that your future self will thank you for.” – Unknown
“Opportunities multiply as they are seized.” – Sun Tzu
“The only limit to our realization of tomorrow is our doubts of today.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

Thought-Provoking

“Clarity precedes success.” – Robin Sharma
“Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life.” – Susan David
“The expert in anything was once a beginner.” – Helen Hayes
“You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.” – John C. Maxwell
“Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” – Jeff Bezos
“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” – Bill Gates

Mindset & Resilience

“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” – Henry Ford
“Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most.” – Abraham Lincoln
“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” – Tim Notke
“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.” – Jim Rohn
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney

For Leaders and Innovators

“Leadership is not about being in charge. It is about taking care of those in your charge.” – Simon Sinek
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” – Steve Jobs
“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” – John C. Maxwell
“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” – Warren Bennis

For Creatives

“Creativity takes courage.” – Henri Matisse
“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.” – Stephen King
“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” – Thomas Merton
“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.” – Pablo Picasso
“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” – Edgar Degas
“Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” – Banksy

Career & Professional Growth

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do.”– Steve Jobs
“You become what you believe, not what you think or what you want.”– Oprah Winfrey
“Invest in yourself. Your career is the engine of your wealth.” – Paul Clitheroe
“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” – Zig Ziglar

Photography-Specific Quotes

“Photography is the story I fail to put into words.” – Destin Sparks
“Photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place.” – Elliott Erwitt
“Great photography is about depth of feeling, not depth of field.” – Peter Adams
“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.” – Dorothea Lange
“Photography is the only language that can be understood anywhere in the world.” – Bruno Barbey
“A portrait is not made in the camera but on either side of it.” – Edward Steichen

Needless to say, if you have a favorite quote that aligns with your brand, go ahead and add it to your cover photo. And if you don’t have a favorite quote, yet nothing from our list resonated with you, feel free to do some more digging and online searching.

There’s one thing to keep in mind, though. Your LinkedIn profile needs to stand out and make people stop scrolling. For this reason, going for an overused quote is not a good idea – some people might roll their eyes at a cliché, but most will simply scroll past. And that’s not what you want, right?

Image Size for LinkedIn Cover Photo

Your choice of a quote is important. But so is the image quality of your banner. After all, a blurry, pixelated cover photo of low resolution doesn’t exactly strike as professional.

Yes, if the image size is wrong, your cover photo might end up looking unsharp and even pixelated. The incorrect aspect ratio might lead to your photo getting distorted or cropped in an undesirable way. It’s always better to do the resizing and cropping yourself before uploading – this way, you’ll be able to make sure that all the key elements are exactly where you want them to be and the image quality doesn’t get butchered.

Here are the LinkedIn cover photo specs:

Here’s a tip

If there’s a photo that would be perfect for your LinkedIn banner, but it doesn’t have the right size, you can change that with the help of Visual Watermark! For instance, you can use our online image cropper to crop your image and change both its aspect ratio and pixel dimensions. All you need to do is upload your image into the app, click on No Constraints and enter 1584 x 396 px, then adjust the cropping area and export your cropped image. Incredibly easy, right?

If your image already has the necessary aspect ratio, but its image size is too big, you can use Visual Watermark’s image resizer to change its pixel dimensions. This process is even simpler – import the image, choose the necessary resizing option, enter new pixel dimensions and export the resized copy.

What to Keep in Mind When Designing a LinkedIn Cover Photo with a Quote

Your goal is to create a visually appealing, well-balanced, and professional-looking banner that communicates your message clearly and confidently. Here are the most important things to take into account:

1. Keep It Simple

Less is more. Avoid cluttering your banner with too many design elements. A single quote paired with a clean background is often more impactful than busy visuals or layered graphics. The quote should be the focal point, so give it room to breathe.

Tips:

Stick to one or two fonts maximum.
Avoid overly decorative elements or distracting icons.
Don’t include too many lines of text – 1–2 short sentences max.

2. Design Within the Safe Zone

Remember that your profile picture sits on top of the banner, so the bottom left part of your banner will be hidden. For this reason, it’s better to keep all the key elements and your text away from the left side.

Tips:

Best quote placement: center-right or top-right.
Always take a look at your banner on both desktop and mobile after uploading.

3. Make Sure the Contrast is Strong

Readability is key. No matter how beautiful the background image is, it won’t matter if your quote is hard to read.

Best practices:

Use light-color text on dark-colored backgrounds or vice versa.
Separate your text from the background by adding a shadow or a glow effect
Stick to clean, professional fonts like Lato, Open Sans, Montserrat, or Roboto.

4. Make It Brand-Aligned

If you’re building a personal or business brand, make sure the visual style of your banner aligns with the rest of your LinkedIn profile and digital presence.

Ask yourself:

Does this banner match the tone of my content and voice?
Are the colors consistent with my personal branding (e.g. website, logo, business cards)?
Would this design appeal to the types of clients, employers, or collaborators I want to attract?

5. Use the Right Image Sources

It’s never a good idea to simply grab an image from Google Images or social media and use it as your cover photo. Just because something is online doesn’t mean you can’t use it for free. You don’t want to accidentally steal someone’s photo and violate copyright laws, do you?

Instead, opt for trusted sources of royalty-free, high-resolution images. Here the most popular free photo stock websites:

Unsplash.com
Pexels.com
Pixabay.com

If you are not sure what photo to choose for your banner, check out this blog post - Top 10 Ideas for LinkedIn Background Photo.

How to Add a Quote to Your LinkedIn Cover Photo

You don’t need to be a designer to create a stunning LinkedIn banner with a quote. You don’t need to master any complex image editing software, either. You can easily add whatever text you want to a photo using Visual Watermark.

Here’s how it works:

Open Visual Watermark’s Add Text to Photo app and import your cover photo. Please note that your image should already have the right aspect ratio and pixel dimensions because there is no cropping or resizing feature in this app.
Click on Add Text.
Erase the words Your Text in the text input area and enter your quote.
Reposition the text using your cursor.
Customize your text. You can choose from hundreds of fonts. The selection of colors is great, as well. You can even enter the necessary HEX code.
Adjust the size and the level of transparency.
Rotate your text and add an effect, if needed.
If you want to add an image as an overlay or add your logo as a watermark on a photo, click on Add Logo and import your image. Including your logo in your LinkedIn banner can actually be great for raising brand awareness.
Make the necessary adjustments to the image.
Are you ready to export? Click on Save Image. Your cover photo with the quote will be downloaded to your device.

Just a couple of minutes and your image is ready to be uploaded onto LinkedIn! Everything is effortless and intuitive. No designer skills are needed at all.

Final Thoughts

Your LinkedIn cover photo is your chance to make a bold, memorable statement the moment someone lands on your profile. A well-chosen quote, paired with thoughtful design and strategic placement, can instantly convey your values, personality, and what kind of opportunities you’re ready to embrace. It can show that you’ve put thought into your profile.

So, take a few minutes to choose a quote that resonates with you and your brand. Use Visual Watermark to crop your image and add your text to it. Keep in mind that your cover photo needs to have the right image size and your quote should be easily readable. Then upload your newly designed banner to LinkedIn and make your profile work for you.