80 Encouragement Quotes For The Ups And Downs Of Life

It's perfectly normal to need a dose of positivity here and there when life gets you down. Sometimes just the right quote of encouragement is all you need to turn things around. Between personal and professional obstacles, it's easy to feel like nothing is going right and we have all been there. Thankfully, writers, philosophers, poets, and others have shared countless uplifting quotes for centuries.

These words of encouragement don't have to be reserved for only the bad days, though. Feel free to add one to a card and send it to a friend, text one to a co-worker, or use it as an Instagram caption. Whether you're looking for something to uplift yourself or seeking a gentle reminder to send to a friend, let this collection of encouragement quotes lead the way.

Short Encouragement Quotes

• “We will fail when we fail to try.” ― Rosa Parks
• “If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.” ― Booker T. Washington
• “Encouraging someone to be entirely themself is the loudest way to love them.” ― Kalen Dion
• "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." ― Winston Churchill
• “Through discipline comes freedom.” — Aristotle
• “Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.” ― John D. Rockefeller
• “Encouragement is like water to the soul, it makes everything grow.” ― Chris Burkmenn
• "It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light." — Aristotle
• “Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
• “Stones and sticks are thrown only at fruit-bearing trees.” ― Sumi
  
• “You cannot expect victory and plan for defeat.” ― Joel Osteen
• “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” — Nelson Mandela
  
• "When you have a dream, you've got to grab it and never let go." — Carol Burnett
• "Nothing is impossible. The word itself says 'I'm possible!'" — Audrey Hepburn
• "To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance." — Oscar Wilde
• “Bet on me? Bet I will.” — Lizzo
• "Let's be great." — Terry Drake
• “Make each day your masterpiece.” — John Wooden
• “Don’t count the days, make the days count.” — Muhammad Ali
• “Light tomorrow with today.” — Elizabeth Barrett Browning
• "Believe you can and you're halfway there." — Theodore Roosevelt
• “Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them.” — Madam C.J Walker
• “Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.” — Truman Capote
• “Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald
• “Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
• “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” — e.e. cummings
  
• “There is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.” — Amanda Gorman
• “Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” — Warren Buffett
• “The individual who says it is not possible should move out of the way of those doing it.” — Tricia Cunningham
• “Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out.” — Robert Collier

Encouragement Quotes From Literature

• "When your dreams are bigger than the places you find yourself in, sometimes you need to seek out your own reminders that there is more. And there is always more waiting for you on the other side of fear." — Elaine Welteroth, More Than Enough: Claiming Space for Who You Are
• "Whatever happens to you belongs to you. Make it yours. Feed it to yourself even if it feels impossible to swallow. Let it nurture you, because it will." — Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar
• "The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun." — Chris McCandless, Into the Wild
• "If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden." — Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
• "Instead of worrying about what you cannot control, shift your energy to what you can create." — Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
• “Everything is within your power, and your power is within you.” ― Janice Trachtman, Catching What Life Throws at You: Inspiring True Stories of Healing
• "It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection." — Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love
• “The harder you fall, the heavier your heart; the heavier your heart, the stronger you climb; the stronger you climb, the higher your pedestal.” ― Criss Jami, Killosophy
• “Encourage yourself, believe in yourself, and love yourself. Never doubt who you are.” ― Stephanie Lahart, Overcoming Life's Obstacles: Enlighten-Encourage-Empower
• “There are moments when troubles enter our lives and we can do nothing to avoid them. But they are there for a reason. Only when we have overcome them will we understand why they were there.” ― Paulo Coelho, The Fifth Mountain
•  "The sun himself is weak when he first rises, and gathers strength and courage as the day gets on." — Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop
• "There's power in allowing yourself to be known and heard, in owning your unique story, in using your authentic voice. And there's grace in being willing to know and hear others." — Michelle Obama, Becoming
• "You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose." — Dr. Seuss, Oh, The Places You'll Go
• "Being a successful person is not necessarily defined by what you have achieved, but by what you have overcome." — Fannie Flagg, The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion
• "Life is short, but it is wide. This too shall pass." — Rebecca Wells, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
• "It's your life; you don't need someone's permission to live the life you want. Be brave to live from your heart." ― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
• “It’s important to think of what it means to powerfully and successfully rise to challenges, and all that it requires: determination, clarity, and steering clear of victim mentality” ― Emma R. Wilson, Not a Statistic: Emma Wilson's Story of Determination Through Tragedy
• “Cultivate an optimistic mind, use your imagination, always consider alternatives, and dare to believe that you can make possible what others think is impossible.” ― Rodolfo Costa, Advice My Parents Gave Me: and Other Lessons I Learned from My Mistakes
• “Opportunity may knock only once but temptation leans on the door bell” ― Oprah Winfrey, Oprah Winfrey Speaks: Insights from the World's Most Influential Voice
• “Just pick a goal and stick to it―no big complicated secret.” ― Richelle Goodrich, Smile Anyway: Quotes, Verse, and Grumblings for Every Day of the Year
  
• “And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.” — John Steinbeck, East of Eden
• “Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.” ― Toni Morrison, Beloved
  

Positive Thinking Quotes

• “I don't harp on the negative because if you do, then there's no progression. There's no forward movement. You got to always look on the bright side of things, and we are in control. Like, you have control over the choices you make.” — Taraji P. Henson
• “Each day comes bearing its gifts. Untie the ribbon.” —Ann Ruth Schabacker
• "In every day, there are 1,440 minutes. That means we have 1,440 daily opportunities to make a positive impact." — Les Brown
• "You and you alone are the only person that can live the life that writes the story that you were meant to tell. And the world needs your story because the world needs your voice." — Kerry Washington
• "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." — Brene Brown
• “Do not fear failure. Dare to fail in order to find ways to succeed.” ― Lailah Gifty Akita
  
• "There is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it." — Amanda Gorman
• "It’s a wonderful thing to be optimistic. It keeps you healthy and it keeps you resilient." — Daniel Kahneman
• "Just for the record darling, not all positive change feels positive in the beginning." — S.C. Lourie
• “Once you face your fear, nothing is ever as hard as you think.” — Olivia Newton-John
• “Believe in yourself. Stay in your own lane. There’s only one you.” —Queen Latifah
• "I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination." — Jimmy Dean
• “Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you.” — Aldous Huxley
• "The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience." — Eleanor Roosevelt
• "You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream." — Malala Yousafzai
• "Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths."— Etty Hillesum
• “You need to be buried deep in the dirt before you can find your bloom.” ― Roz Inga
• “Who do you spend time with? Criticizers or encouragers? Surround yourself with those who believe in you. Your life is too important for anything less.” ― Steve Goodier
• “Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.” ― Marilyn Monroe
• “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” ― Thomas A. Edison
• “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” ― George Eliot
  
• “Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What's important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow.” — Carrie Fisher
• “When someone tells me ‘no,’ it doesn’t mean I can’t do it, it simply means I can’t do it with them.” — Karen E. Quinones Miller
• “The most important step a man can take. It's not the first one, is it? It's the next one. Always the next step.” ― Brandon Sanderson
• “You can’t make decisions based on fear and the possibility of what might happen.” — Michelle Obama
• “Even if I don’t reach all my goals, I’ve gone higher than I would have if I hadn’t set any.” — Danielle Fotopoulis
• “Optimism is a huge asset. We can always use more of it. But optimism isn’t a belief that things will automatically get better; it’s a conviction that we can make things better.” — Melinda French Gates