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
"It's not a question of whether you will hurt, or of how much you will hurt; it's a question of what you will do, and how well you will do it, while pain has her wanton way with you." -Daniel James Brown, The Boys in the Boat
"You can forever remember the wrongs done to you as long as you live ... But if you forget ’em and go on living, it’s almost as good as forgiving." -James McBride, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
"Don't let the bastards grind you down." -Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale: Special Edition
"We stand in shit but let us not drown in it." -Heather Morris, The Tattooist of Auschwitz
"I don’t believe in luck. I believe in resilience." -Danzy Senna, Colored Television
"No matter how bad things go, no matter how dark your life is, there is a reason for it. You can find beauty in it, and you can get better. I know, because I've done it ... In my life, and I hope in yours, I want us to grow roses out of the poop." -Tiffany Haddish, The Last Black Unicorn
"Hardship can humble you, but it cannot break you unless you let it. -T. D. Jakes, INSTINCT
"Hope is the most powerful force in the universe." -William H. McRaven, Make Your Bed
“I suspect that God’s plan, whatever it is, works on a scale too large to admit our mortal tribulations; that in a single lifetime, accidents and happenstance determine more than we care to admit; and that the best we can do is to try to align ourselves with what we feel is right and construct some meaning out of our confusion, and with grace and nerve play at each moment the hand that we’re dealt.” -Barack Obama, A Promised Land
"Human beings are wired for survival." -Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile, The Road Back to You
"I suppose one of the reasons we're all able to continue to exist for our allotted span in this green and blue vale of tears is that there is always, however remote it might seem, the possibility of change." -Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
"Things are never as bad as they seem." -Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
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 encouragement for giving yourself a break and a boost
"After all, the only thing that hurts more than tears shed is tears unshed." -Catherine Ryan Hyde, Have You Seen Luis Velez?
"Shame is a bad thing, you know. It keeps you down." -Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street
"We should always make time for the things we like. If we don't, we might forget how to be happy." -TJ Klune, The House in the Cerulean Sea
"Whatever teaches us to talk to ourselves is important: whatever teaches us to sing ourselves out of despair." -Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch
"How can you change who you are and learn what it takes to get up, over and over, if you can't allow yourself to feel how much it hurts to be knocked down?" -Sally Field, In Pieces
"Feeling the pain is the first step toward healing the pain." -Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way
"Suffering is humbling. It pays to know how to get your butt kicked." -Christopher McDougall, Born to Run
"One must forgive oneself the past or else the journey into the future becomes unbearable." -Kate Morton, The Clockmaker's Daughter
"On a bad day you also don’t need a lot of advice. You just need a little empathy and affirmation. You need to feel once again that other people have confidence in you." -Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
"A woman's past need not predict her future. She can dance to new music if she chooses. Her own music. To hear the tune, she must only stop talking. To herself, I mean." -Lisa Wingate, Before We Were Yours
"We are constantly trying to hold it all together. If you really want to see why you do things, then don't do them and see what happens." -Michael A. Singer, The Untethered Soul
"None of us ever want to fail. None of us want to be unworthy, to not measure up.” -Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Beautiful Struggle
"You have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy." -Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
"'There's always a sunrise and always a sunset and it's up to you to choose to be there for it,' said my mother. 'Put yourself in the way of beauty.'" -Cheryl Strayed, Wild
“Whomever you become, whatever you make yourself into, that is who you always were.” -Tara Westover, Educated
"I crossed the street to walk in the sunshine." -Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
"Vulnerability is not weakness; it's our greatest measure of courage." -Brené Brown, Rising Strong
"Sometimes you just have to put on lip gloss and pretend to be psyched." -Mindy Kaling, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?
"You’re going to be strong and beautiful and brilliant, and you’re going to live forever. You’re going to change the world." -Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies
"Take care of yourself as if you're the most awesome person you've ever met." -Jen Sincero, You Are a Badass
"You are beautiful, and worthy of good things, and if you don't believe that, nobody will." -Rachel Hollis, Girl, Stop Apologizing
Words of encouragement 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 charge 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
