175 inspirational quotes to lift you up during life's toughest moments (2024)

The path to success isn't always smooth.

When you come across inevitable bumps in the road, it's easy to lose sight of your destination. Luckily, you're far from the first person to experience those tough moments in which you struggle to see a clear path forward.

From poets to presidents, every successful person has endured challenges to get where they are today, and many of these luminaries continue to inspire others to persevere during the toughest of times.

Whether you need a few words of affirmation, a boost to keep going, or a nudge to cherish the little things in life, these quotes from great leaders, thinkers, and artists will uplift you on your journey.

Here is a list of inspirational quotes that serve as powerful reminders to keep on keeping on.

Best overall inspiring quotes

• “Be the best of whatever you are.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
• “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” ― Unknown
• “I don’t like to gamble, but if there’s one thing I’m willing to bet on, it’s myself.” — Beyoncé
• “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.”— Walt Disney
• “Do anything, but let it produce joy.” — Henry Miller
• “A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it’s in hot water.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt

• “We need to take risks. We need to go broke. We need to prove them wrong, simply by not giving up.” — Awkwafina
• “Be courageous. Challenge orthodoxy. Stand up for what you believe in. When you are in your rocking chair talking to your grandchildren many years from now, be sure you have a good story to tell.” — Amal Clooney
• “It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent.” — Madeleine Albright
• “Stay close to anything that makes you glad you are alive.” — Hafez
• “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” ― Unknown
• “The soul is stronger than its surroundings.” — William James

• “I really think a champion is defined not by their wins but by how they can recover when they fall.” — Serena Williams
• “Your worth consists in what you are, and not in what you have. What you are will show in what you do.” —Thomas Davidson
• “How wild it was, to let it be.” — Cheryl Strayed, “Wild”
• “You have to be where you are to get where you need to go.” ― Amy Poehler, “Yes Please”
• “Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.” ― Ella Fitzgerald
• “Forever is composed of nows.” —Emily Dickinson

• “So many things are possible just as long as you don’t know they’re impossible.” — Norton Juster, “The Phantom Tollbooth”
• “You define your own life. Don’t let other people write your script.” — Oprah Winfrey
• “It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.” — Paulo Coehlo
• “I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow; but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.” ― Agatha Christie
• “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” ― Albert Einstein
• “To bring about change, you must not be afraid to take the first step.We will fail when we fail to try.” — Rosa Parks

• “All serious daring starts from within.” — Eudora Welty
• “You do not find the happy life. You make it.” — Camilla Eyring Kimball
• “With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
• “The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” ― Michael Altshuler
• “If you own this story you get to write the ending.” — Brené Brown
• “With each passing day, I didn’t lose hope. I fought to have more.” — Amy Tan

Inspiring quotes about change

• “One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.” — Malala Yousafzai
• “We need not wait to see what others do.” — Mahatma Gandhi
• “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.” ― Unknown
• “They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” ― Andy Warhol, “The Philosophy of Andy Warhol”
• “I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.” — Booker T Washington
• “I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.” ― Angela Y. Davis

• “Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don’t fight them. Just find a new way to stand.” ― Oprah Winfrey
• “Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time.” — Ruth Bader Ginsburg
• “One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.” — André Gide
• “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” — Barack Obama
• “We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” — Maya Angelou
• “One must be something to do something.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

• “It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.” ― Lewis Carroll, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”
• “For me, becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn’t end.” — Michelle Obama
• “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” ― Unknown
• “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” — Steve Jobs
• “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt
• “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” — Maya Angelou

• “It’s not about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change.” ― Miles Davis
• “The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.” — Franklin Delano Roosevelt
• “The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” ― Alan Wilson Watts
• “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.” ― Helen Keller
• “I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.” — Rosa Parks
• “In any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or step back into safety.” — Abraham Maslow

• ​​“To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” ― Henri Bergson
• “No matter who you are, no matter what you did, no matter where you’ve come from, you can always change, become a better version of yourself.” — Madonna
• “We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” — Walt Disney.
• “You never change your life until you step out of your comfort zone; change begins at the end of your comfort zone.” ― Roy T. Bennett
• “Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.” ― Unknown
• “Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it and to work for it and to fight for it.”— Barack Obama

• “We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.” — Joseph Campbell
• “If you don’t know what your passion is, realize that one reason for your existence on earth is to find it.” — Oprah Winfrey
• “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” ― Margaret Mead
• “Bravery is acknowledging your fear and doing it anyway.” — Cheryl Strayed
• “There is only one road to human greatness: through the school of hard knocks.” — Albert Einstein
• “The future depends entirely on what each of us does every day. After all, a movement is only people moving.” — Gloria Steinem

• “Running water never grows stale. So you just have to keep on flowing.” — Bruce Lee
• “The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
• “I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship.” — Louisa May Alcott, “Little Women”
• “Things are always different than what they might be. If you wait for them to change, you will never do anything.” — Henry James
• “Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.” — Arnold Bennett
• “I was taught that the way of progress was neither swift nor easy.” — Marie Curie

Inspiring quotes about ambition

• “Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.” ― Mark Twain
• “High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.” — Charles Kettering
• “I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious effort.” — Henry David Thoreau
• “It requires a better type of mind to seek out and to support or to create the new than to follow the worn paths of accepted success.” — John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
• “All dreams are within reach. All you have to do is keep moving towards them.” — Viola Davis
• “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” ― Robert Louis Stevenson

• “If my life is going to mean anything, I have to live it myself.” ― Rick Riordan, “The Lightning Thief”
• “I want to be in the arena. I want to be brave with my life. And when we make the choice to dare greatly, we sign up to get our asses kicked. We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can’t have both. Not at the same time.” — Brené Brown, “Rising Strong”
• “One day in retrospect the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.” — Sigmund Freud
• “Everyone who’s ever taken a shower has an idea. It’s the person who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it who makes a difference.” — Nolan Bushnell
• “I believe that if you’ll just stand up and go, life will open up for you. Something just motivates you to keep moving.” — Tina Turner
• “Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” ― Neil Gaiman, “Coraline”

• “I never dreamed about success. I worked for it.” — Esteé Lauder
• “If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.” — Booker T. Washington
• “Every morning you have two choices: continue to sleep with your dreams or wake up and chase them.” — Arnold Schwarzenegger
• “He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” — Muhammad Ali
• “The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics, whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities.We need men who can dream of things that never were, and ask why not.” — John F. Kennedy
• “Action is the foundational key to all success.” — Pablo Picasso

• “You must find the place inside yourself where nothing is impossible.” ― Deepak Chopra
• “If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.” — Dolly Parton
• “Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible!’” ― Audrey Hepburn
• “We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.” — Ray Bradbury
• “Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.” — Maya Angelou
• “Always work hard and have fun in what you do because I think that’s when you’re more successful. You have to choose to do it.” — Simone Biles

• “I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” — Henry David Thoreau
• “Once you face your fear, nothing is ever as hard as you think.” — Olivia Newton-John
• “Everyone’s dream can come true if you just stick to it and work hard.” — Serena Williams
• “Thinking always ahead, thinking always of trying to do more, brings a state of mind in which nothing isimpossible.” — Henry Ford
• “If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it — then I can achieve it.” ― Muhammad Ali, “The Soul of a Butterfly: Reflections on Life’s Journey”
• “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us. And the world will live as one.” ― John Lennon
• “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” ― Thomas Edison
• “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” — Walt Disney
• “If something stands between you and your success, move it.” —Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
• I scorched the earth with my talent and I let my light shine.” — André Leon Talley
• “When you have a dream, you’ve got to grab it and never let go.” — Carol Burnett
• “Every twist and turn in life is an opportunity to learn something new about yourself, your interests, your talents, and how to set and then achieve goals.” — Jameela Jamil

• “I have been seriously afraid at times but have used my fear as a stimulating factor rather than allowing it to paralyse me. My abilities have not been outstanding, but I have had sufficient strength and determination to meet my challenges and have usually managed to succeed with them.” — Sir Edmund Hillary
• “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” — Unknown
• “All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination.” ― Earl Nightingale
• “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” — Zig Ziglar
• “Nothing venture, nothing gain.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• “People respond well to those that are sure of what they want.” — Anna Wintour

• “Believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when itleadsyou off the well-worn path and that will make all the difference.” — Steve Jobs
• “Dreams do not come true just because you dream them. It’s hard work that makes things happen. It’s hard work that creates change.” — Shonda Rhimes
• “Fear is an illusion. You think something is standing in your way, but nothing is really there. What is there is an opportunity to do your best and gain some success.” — Michael Jordan

• “The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly — that is what each of us is here for.” — Oscar Wilde
• “I have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can.” — Oliver Sacks

Inspirational quotes about life and love

• “For the secret of human existence lies not only in living but in knowing what to live for.”— Fyodor Dostoevsky
• You change the world by being yourself.” ― Yoko Ono
• “You can only become accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead pursue the things you love doing and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off you.” — Maya Angelou
• “The purpose of life is a life of purpose.” — Robert Byrne
• “When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world.” — George Washington Carver
• “Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.” — William Shakespeare, “All’s Well That Ends Well”

• “Keep your face always toward the sunshine — and shadows will fall behind you.”―Unknown
• “There are two types of people: The ones who give you 50 reasons it can’t be done ... and the ones who just do it.”― Hoda Kotb
• “True nobility is being superior to your former self.” ― W.L. Sheldon
• “I’ve learned it’s important not to limit yourself. You can do whatever you really love to do, no matter what it is.” — Ryan Gosling
• “Let us make our future now, and let us make our dreams tomorrow’s reality.” — Malala Yousafzai
• “Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” ― Dale Carnegie

• “Difficulties increase the nearer we come to our aim.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” — Unknown
• “You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” —​ Maya Angelou
• “You must do the things you think you cannot do.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
• “No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.” ― Robin Williams, “Dead Poets Society”
• “I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life — and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.” — Georgia O’Keeffe
• “A #2 pencil and a dream can take you anywhere.” — Joyce Meyer

• “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” — Anne Frank
• “Just believe in yourself. Even if you don’t, pretend that you do and, at some point, you will.” — Venus Williams
• “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” ― Unknown
• “You only live once. You don’t want your tombstone to read: played it safe.” ― Rosario Dawson
• “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”― Martin Luther King, Jr.
• “There is no failure except failure to serve one’s purpose.” — Henry Ford

• “Turn your wounds into wisdom.”― Oprah Winfrey
• "Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
• “Even if we don’t have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there.” — Stephen Chbosky
• “None but ourselves can free our minds.”― Bob Marley, "Redemption Song"
• “One person can make a difference, and everyone should try.” ― John F. Kennedy
• “I’d rather regret the risks that didn’t work out than the chances I didn’t take at all.” — Simone Biles

• “If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress.” ― Barack Obama
• “There is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.” — Amanda Gorman
• “The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.” — Arthur C. Clarke
• “I had to make my own living and my own opportunity. But I made it!Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them.” ―Madam C.J. Walker
• “A strong and wise people will study its own failures no less than its triumphs, for there is wisdom to be learned from the study of both, of the mistake as well as of the success.” — Theodore Roosevelt
• “Perfect is boring. Human is beautiful.” — Tyra Banks

• “Life is very interesting … In the end, some of your greatest pains become your greatest strengths.” — Drew Barrymore
• “It’s the choice. You have to wake up every day and say, 'There’s no reason today can’t be the best day of my life.’” — Blake Lively
• “Life is tough my darling, but so are you.” — ​Stephanie Bennett Henry
• “Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.” — Toni Morrison, “Beloved”
• “Passion first and everything will fall into place.” — Holly Holm
• “Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?” — L.M. Montgomery

• “Do not ignore your intuition. There is an infinite intelligence within you; let it be your guiding light.” — Cleo Wade, “Heart Talk: Poetic Wisdom for a Better Life”
• “May you always be the one / Who notices the little things / That make the light pour through / And may they always remind you/ There is more to life and there is more to you.” — Morgan Harper Nichols
• “I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.” — Abraham Lincoln
• “To me, fearless doesn’t mean you’re completely unafraid, and it doesn’t mean that you’re bulletproof. It means that you have a lot of fears, but you jump anyway.” — Taylor Swift
• “As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being.” — Carl Jung
• “One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing, is what we do for others.” — Lewis Carroll

• “There isn’t time—so brief is life—for bickerings, apologies, heartburnings, callings to account. There is only time for loving—and but an instant, so to speak, for that.” — Mark Twain
• “There’s love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look.” — Kurt Vonnegut, “Cat’s Cradle”
• “Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.” — Emily Dickinson
• “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” — J. R. R. Tolkien
• “Let us think only of the good days that are to come.” — Agatha Christie
• “I have learned not to worry about love; but to honor its coming with all my heart.” — Alice Walker
• “Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.” — Henry James