Audible logo, go to homepage
Audible main site link

70+ quotes for whenever you need a little encouragement

We all have bad days and dry spells. We all experience moments of disappointment, sadness, and self-doubt. And occasionally, we all need an encouraging word—or several—to lift our spirits, boost our confidence, and fill us with hope. From an assortment of authors, icons, and experts, here are 70+ quotes for those days when you need a little encouragement—or maybe a lot!

Words of encouragement for rebounding from setbacks and blows

Words of encouragement for persevering

  • "You have to hold out to see how your life unfolds, because it is most likely beyond what you can imagine. It is not a question of if you will survive this, but what beautiful things await you when you do." -Chanel Miller, Know My Name

  • "We're all rough drafts of the people we're still becoming." -Bob Goff, Everybody, Always

  • "We are all a little broken. But last time I checked, broken crayons still color the same." -Trent Shelton, The Greatest You

  • "She decided long ago that life was a long journey. She would be strong, and she would be weak, and both would be okay." -Tahereh Mafi, Furthermore

  • "Actually spending ten minutes clearing off one shelf is better than fantasizing about spending a weekend cleaning out the basement." -Victor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

  • "A river is made drop by drop." -Pete Buttigieg, Shortest Way Home

  • "The work you put in when no one is watching will matter far more than the work you do when the cameras are rolling." -Leslie Odom Jr., Failing Up

  • "Wherever you are in your journey, I hope you, too, will keep encountering challenges. It is a blessing to be able to survive them, to be able to keep putting one foot in front of the other—to be in a position to make the climb up life’s mountain, knowing that the summit still lies ahead. And every experience is a valuable teacher." -Oprah Winfrey, What I Know for Sure

  • "When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it—but all that had gone before." -James Clear, Atomic Habits

  • "The merit of all things lies in their difficulty." -Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers

  • "The notion that our lives are like the eternal cycle of the seasons does not deny the struggle or the joy, the loss or the gain, the darkness or the light, but encourages us to embrace it all-and to find in all of it opportunities for growth." -Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak

  • "Crossing the starting line, where nobody cheering for you, and nobody believes in you, is always a bigger deal than crossing the finish line where everybody cheers you on." -Shaun T, T Is for Transformation

  • "If patience wasn't so easily tested, then it would hardly be a virtue." -Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

  • "You stay safe, you love. You survive. You laugh and cry and struggle and sometimes you fail and sometimes you succeed. You push." -Carrie Ryan, The Dead-Tossed Waves

  • "Each morning, despite the unknowns, they made their legs move." -Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

Words of encouragment for giving yourself a break and a boost

Words of encouragment for reaching out to and caring for others

  • "Sometimes you simply needed someone kind to sit with you while you dealt with things." -Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

  • "Being chosen is the greatest gift you can give to another human being." -Trevor Noah, Born a Crime

  • "It’s good to be kind to people, especially the people you love, because you never know what it’s like to walk in their shoes until one day you do. And by then, it’s often too late to make a real difference." -Sara Nisha Adams, The Reading List

  • "One light feeds another. One strong family lends strength to more. One engaged community can ignite those around it. This is the power of the light we carry." -Michelle Obama, The Light We Carry

  • "You only need one ray of light to chase all the shadows away." -Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

  • "Acts of kindness change people." -Catherine Ryan Hyde, Pay It Forward

  • "She encouraged them, allowed them to encourage her. She needed them. Because she was still not sure she could do what she had set out to do." -David Bradley, The Chaneysville Incident

  • "Change is hard, that's why we can't do it alone and why it is vital that we have a foundation of hope." -Russell Brand, Recovery

  • "It's easy to complain about your life—how tough it is, how unfair it is, how stressful it is, how everyone else has it much better. But if you step into the life of someone you envy for just a day, you'll discover that everyone has their own problems, and they're usually worse than yours. Because your problems are designed specifically for you, with the specific purpose of helping you grow." -Kevin Hart, I Can't Make This Up

  • "A friend may be waiting behind a stranger's face." -Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter

  • "People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite ... Man's goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished." -Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

  • "Everyone, everywhere, needs encouragement on a regular basis." -Tony Dungy, The One Year Uncommon Life Daily Challenge

Words of encouragement for taking control and taking chances

  • "Don't just sit there. Do something. The answers will follow." -Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

  • "Never stunt your own growth by dismissing something just because it doesn't feel familiar." -Charlamagne Tha God, Black Privilege

  • "The only way to learn is to live." -Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

  • "I think a lot of people dream. And while they are busy dreaming, the really happy people, the really successful people, the really interesting, powerful, engaged people? Are busy doing." -Shonda Rhimes, Year of Yes

  • "If you feel something calling you to dance or write or paint or sing, please refuse to worry about whether you’re good enough. Just do it. Be generous. Offer a gift to the world that no one else can offer: yourself." -Glennon Doyle, Carry On, Warrior

  • "You may not control life's circumstances, but getting to be the author of your life means getting to control what you do with them." -Atul Gawande, Being Mortal

  • "Look at the world around you. It may seem like an immovable, implacable place. It is not. With the slightest push—in just the right place—it can be tipped." -Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point

  • "Though the word may suggest otherwise, recovery is not about salvaging the old at all. It’s about accepting that you must forsake a familiar self forever, in favor of one that is being newly born. It is an act of brute, terrifying discovery." -Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms

  • "Sometimes you need to scorch everything to the ground, and start over. After the burning the soil is richer, and new things can grow. People are like that, too. They start over. They find a way." -Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere

  • "I thought: I cannot bear this world a moment longer. Then, child, make another." -Madeline Miller, Circe

  • "The only way you can allow a kid to truly dream is if you expand their idea of what is currently possible. A kid who has nothing, sees nothing, and is taught nothing can only dream of breakfast. They can only hope to get to the next moment successfully. I want more than that for my kids...just like my mom wanted more than that for me. And I want them to want more than that too." -W. Kamau Bell, The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell

  • "We all need small sparks, small accomplishments in our lives to fuel the big ones." -David Goggins, Can't Hurt Me