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 55+ quotes for those days when you need a little encouragement—or maybe a lot!
1. "We're all rough drafts of the people we're still becoming." -,
2. "We are all a little broken. But last time I checked, broken crayons still color the same." -,
3. "Whatever teaches us to talk to ourselves is important: whatever teaches us to sing ourselves out of despair." -,
4. "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." -,
5. "Never stunt your own growth by dismissing something just because it doesn't feel familiar." -,
6. "Actually spending ten minutes clearing off one shelf is better than fantasizing about spending a weekend cleaning out the basement." -,
7. "A river is made drop by drop." -,
8. "The work you put in when no one is watching will matter far more than the work you do when the cameras are rolling." -,
9. "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." -,
10. "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." -,
11. "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." -,
12."The merit of all things lies in their difficulty." -,
13. "Truthbomb: 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." -,
14. "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." -,
15. "Don't just sit there. Do something. The answers will follow." -,
16. "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." -,
17. "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." -,
18. "Change is hard, that's why we can't do it alone and why it is vital that we have a foundation of hope." -,
19. "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." -,
20. "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?" -,
21. "Feeling the pain is the first step toward healing the pain." -,
22. "Suffering is humbling. It pays to know how to get your butt kicked." -,
23. "Hardship can humble you, but it cannot break you unless you let it. -,
24. "Don't let the bastards grind you down." -,
25. "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." -,
26. "We stand in shit but let us not drown in it." -,
27. "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." -,
28. "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." -,
29. "'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.'" -,
30. "Things are never as bad as they seem." -,
31. "If patience wasn't so easily tested, then it would hardly be a virtue." -,
32. "One must forgive oneself the past or else the journey into the future becomes unbearable." -,
33. "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. We're always trying to persuade ourselves of things." -,
34. "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." -,
35. "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." -,
36. "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." -,
37. "I crossed the street to walk in the sunshine." -,
38. "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." -,
39. "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." -,
40. "I thought: I cannot bear this world a moment longer. Then, child, make another." -,
41. "If you don't get out there and define yourself, you'll be quickly and inaccurately defined by others." -,
42. "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." -,
43. 'You stay safe, you love. You survive. You laugh and cry and struggle and sometimes you fail and sometimes you succeed. You push." -,
44. "Each morning, despite the unknowns, they made their legs move." -,
45. "We all need small sparks, small accomplishments in our lives to fuel the big ones." -,
46. “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.” -,
47. "Human beings are wired for survival." - and ,
48. "Vulnerability is not weakness; it's our greatest measure of courage." -,
49. "Sometimes you just have to put on lip gloss and pretend to be psyched." -,
50. "Whomever you become, whatever you make yourself into, that is who you always were." -,
51. "She decided long ago that life was a long journey. She would be strong, and she would be weak, and both would be okay." -,
52. "Take care of yourself as if you're the most awesome person you've ever met." -,
53. "You are beautiful, and worthy of good things, and if you don't believe that, nobody will." -,
54. "Everyone, everywhere, needs encouragement on a regular basis." -,
55. "A friend may be waiting behind a stranger's face." -,