50+ Inspirational Quotes to Empower and Uplift Those Living with Chronic Pain

"To anyone living in persistent pain: it is possible to overcome chronic pain. You do not have to learn to live with it, or manage it. You can treat it and change it. No matter how out of reach this may seem, know that it is true. ‘You can if you think you can.’"

- Bec

"Chronic pain is no joke. And it's every day waking up not knowing how you're going to feel."

- Lady Gaga

"Tough times never last, but tough people do."

- Robert Schuller

"Happiness is not the absence of problems, it's the ability to deal with them."

- Steve Maraboli

"Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming it."

- Helen Keller

"Everyone has a doctor in him or her; we just have to help it in its work. The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well."

- Hippocrates

"You can’t stop the waves but you can learn to surf."

- Jon Kabat-Zinn

"You are the sky – everything else is just weather."

- Pema Chödrön

"I am disabled. I fall sometimes. I drop things. My memory is foggy. And my left side is asking for directions from a broken GPS. But we are doing it. And I laugh and I don't know exactly what I will do precisely but I will do my best."

- Selma Blair

"I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship."

- Louisa May Alcott

"Life is amazing. And then it's awful. And then it's amazing again. And in between the amazing and awful it's ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary. That's just living heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life. And it's breathtakingly beautiful."

- L.R. Knost

"If you have made mistakes, even serious mistakes, you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call "failure" is not the falling down, but the staying down."

- Mary Pickford

"Sit with it. Sit with it. Sit with it. Sit with it. Even though you want to run. Even when it’s heavy and difficult. Even though you’re not quite sure of the way through. Healing happens by feeling."

- Rebecca Ray

"Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional."

- Buddhist Proverb

"You are stronger than you seem, braver than you believe, and smarter than you think you are."

- A.A. Milne

"I don’t believe in pain management anymore, I believe in trying to cure persistent pain."

- Dr. Moskowitz

"100% of the time, pain is a construct of the brain."

- Lorimer Moseley

"Upon getting up each morning, we can reflect on how we can’t be certain if the day will unfold as we think it will and then resolve to greet it nonetheless with curiosity and wisdom. Greeting the day with curiosity means being interested in what each moment has to offer. And greeting it with wisdom means not turning away in aversion from our experience, even if it’s unpleasant and even if it’s not what we had hoped for."

- Toni Bernhard

"You can change your brain. This is not wishful thinking, it is science, and we know people can do it even in the most difficult times, when pain is at its most severe."

- Dr. Neil Pearson

"With determination, it is possible to block out the negative things and enjoy the positive ones, despite the cons. Most importantly, it is possible to dance through everything pernicious."

- Sarah Todd Hammer

"Pain is always accompanied by emotion and meaning so that each pain is unique to the individual. The word pain is used to group together a class of combined sensory-emotional events. The class contains many different types of pain, each of which is a personal, unique experience for the person who suffers."

- Patrick Wall

"Waking up daily in pain is a constant reminder that you are alive. It’s not something you asked for, nor wanted to happen to you. Instead of letting it win and push you down, use it as a base to build up. Build up your positive morning routine, build up your daily exercise routine, build up your healthy eating routine and build up your overall mental & personal growth. Use this pain as a launching pad to better yourself."

- Paul Marlow

"Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise."

- Victor Hugo

"You don’t have to get through until morning. You only have to get through the present moment."

- Vidyamala Burch

"As long as you are breathing, there is more right with you than there is wrong, no matter how ill or how hopeless you may feel."

- Jon Kabat-Zinn

"You might tell yourself: Just this moment or Just these few moments. Or you might set a short limit: Just these next 10 breaths, being with sensations. Then, if it’s still tolerable, move on to the next 10 breaths, and so on."

- Tara Brach

"Soften, soothe and allow. You can use these three words like a mantra, reminding yourself to incline with tenderness toward your suffering."

- Kristin Neff & Chris Germer

"We are bigger than our pain; we are also the love holding the pain."

- Kristin Neff

"Bring your attention to the pain as if you were gently comforting a child, holding it all in a loving and soothing attention."

- Jack Kornfield

"When painful sensations arise and we can simply meet them with clarity and presence, we can see that pain is just pain. We can listen to pain’s message and respond appropriately—taking good care."

- Tara Brach

"The pain cannot be ignored or wished away. But underneath the clanging noise of the pain there is a deep wholeness that can be re-inhabited if, just for a moment, we could approach willingly, sense precisely and befriend tenderly the body that seems to be letting us down so badly."

- Mark Williams

"Accepting pain can be difficult. It’s just better than the alternative, which is to live in a state of perpetual suffering."

- Vidyamala Burch & Danny Penman

"Our experience of pain, in fact any unpleasant experience, is strongly influenced by our state of mind. It simply feels worse when we fight it"

- Gary Hennessey

"if you resist the messages that your mind and body are sending you, those messages will keep on being dispatched (and felt) until you accept them [...] If you mindfully accept (or feel) these messages, they will have done their job and will tend to melt away of their own accord."

- Vidyamala Burch & Danny Penman

"Pain x Resistance = Suffering"

- Shinzen Young

"I am not the weather. I am the wide and open sky."

- Josie George

"I am not the weather. I am the wide and open sky, and so I can let pain move through me and out of me."

- Josie George

"You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather."

- Pema Chödrön

"When we trust that we are the ocean, we are not afraid of the waves. We have confidence that whatever arises is workable. We don’t have to lose our life in preparation. We don’t have to defend against what’s next. We are free to live fully with what is here, and to respond wisely"

- Sayadaw U. Pandita

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"This too shall pass."

- Pinterest

"Take care of your body, it’s the only place you have to live."

- Jim Rohn

"Hoping for the best, preparing for the worst, and unsurprised for anything in between."

- Maya Angelou

"Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying 'I will try again tomorrow.'"

- Mary Anne Radmacher

"Maybe life isn’t about avoiding the bruises. Maybe it’s about collecting the scars to prove that we showed up for it."

- Hannah Brencher

"Acceptance doesn’t mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there’s got to be a way through it."

- Michael J. Fox

"Chronic pain is not all about the body, and it’s not all about the brain – it’s everything. Target everything. Take back your life."

- Sean Mackey, MD, PhD

"There is an element and a very strong piece of me that believes pain is a microphone. My pain does me no good unless I transform it into something that is [good]... I hope that people watching it that do struggle with chronic pain know that they are not alone... I want people that watch it that think there's no way I live that way because they see me dance and sing, to know I struggle with things like them and that I work through it and that it can be done."

- Lady Gaga

"There is a point to changes like these. I have to move on to other things, to other conceptions of myself. I play golf. I still work. And I can be pretty happy just walking the land."

- Morgan Freeman

"If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way."

- Napoleon Hill

"You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have."

- Cayla Mills

"I will not rescue you. For you are not powerless. I will not fix you. For you are not broken. I will not heal you. For I see you, in your wholeness. I will walk with you through the darkness. As you remember your light."

- Sheree Bliss Tilsley

"Don't speak negatively about yourself, even as a joke. Your body doesn't know the difference. Words are energy and they cast spells, that's why it's called spelling. Change the way you speak about yourself, and you can change your life."

- Bruce Lee

"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

- Viktor E. Frankl

"You can't calm the storm, so stop trying. Calm yourself. The storm will pass."

- Timber Hawkeye

"Within you, there is stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself."

- Hermann Hesse

"In resisting pain and trying to block it out, I’d also blocked out beauty and in opening to the pain I opened the door to a wealth of emotions such as love, tenderness and sensitivity."

- Vidyamala Burch

"When pain brings you down, don't be silly, don't close your eyes and cry, you just might be in the best position to see the sunshine."

- Alanis Morissette

"And here you are living despite it all."

- Rupi Kaur

"Do not resist your pain. Surrender to the grief, despair, fear, loneliness or what form the suffering takes. Witness it without labelling it mentally. Allow it to be there. Embrace it. Then see how the miracle of surrender transmutes deep suffering into deep peace."

- Eckhart Tolle

"Positive self-talk is to emotional pain as a pain pill is to physical pain."

- Edmond Mbiaka

"Healing severe or chronic pain, I believe, includes transforming our relationship to the pain, and, ultimately, it is about transforming our relationship to who we are and to life."

- Sarah Anne Shockley

"Suffering equals pain times resistance."

- Shinzen Young

"The longer you have pain, the better your spinal cord gets at producing danger messages to the brain, even if there is no danger in the tissue."

- Lorimer Moseley

"Pain is a construct of the brain – 100% of the time."

- Lorimer Moseley

"People can learn to control and change their behavior, but only if they feel safe enough to experiment with new solutions. The body keeps the score: If trauma is encoded in heartbreaking and gut-wrenching sensations, then our first priority is to help people move out of fight-or-flight states, reorganize their perception of danger, and manage relationships. ….Once you start approaching your body with curiosity rather than fear, everything shifts."

- Bessel A. van der Kolk

"In the sea of life, pain is a tide that will ebb and weave, continually. We need to learn how to let it wash over us, without drowning in it. Our life doesn’t have to end where the pain begins, but rather, it is where we start to mend."

- Jaeda DeWalt

"The attempt to escape from pain, is what creates more pain."

- Gabor Maté

"Developing agency for where we place our attention is the first step to empowerment and transformation - if we can’t choose where we place our attention, someone else is choosing it for us or we are being dragged around by our habits!"

- Jay Oren Sofen

"Sometimes things fall apart so that better things can fall together."

- Marilyn Monroe

"The body does not give up on us, so we can't give up on it. My goal is always to work with my body, not against it so that it can function efficiently… I also try to remember that there have been pain-free days—which means that this difficult time will be over and give way to a better time… That's where gratitude is so important. Writing gratitude lists to remember all the wonderful things I've experienced has also been really helpful for me."

- Paula Abdul

"The emotional side of MS is the toughest part. Depression is one of the most common symptoms that people with MS share… There are times it just comes out of nowhere and really kicks me in the ass."

- Jack Osbourne

"You can't go through life allowing pain to dictate how you behave. It's easy to sit here in your bedroom and wallow in your hurt feelings. It's hard to rise above it."

- Adam Braverman

"Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional."

- Buddhist Proverb

"Time is not a cure for chronic pain, but it can be crucial for improvement. It takes time to change, to recover and to make progress."

- Dr. Mel Pohl

"[Diabetes] is a disease I was diagnosed with when I was 13. It was a moment in my life when I was just getting ready to start making music with my brothers and touring and it was something I thought would slow me down before I even got started."

- Nick Jonas

"I'm not a ‘Vitiligo Sufferer.' I'm not a ‘Vitiligo model.' I am Winnie. I am a model. And [I] happen to have Vitiligo. Stop putting these titles on me or anyone else. I am not suffering! If anything I'm succeeding at showing people that their differences don’t make them who they are!"

- Winnie Harlow

"I don't believe in pain management anymore, I believe in trying to cure persistent pain."

- Dr. Moskowitz

"Now, when I see someone in pain I can’t look away. I’m in pain too. Now, I’m in problem-solving mode. I’ve got my suit on and my heels and I’m ready to go."

- Lady Gaga

"Now it just hurts. Like, in the morning when I wake up, I immediately start crying because it hurts, everything."

- Selena Gomez

"Acceptance doesn’t mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there's got to be a way through it."

- Michael J. Fox

"Basically, the idea is, you try to reset your pain threshold. Because a lot of times what happens with pain is you‘re constantly mourning for how it used to feel."

- George Clooney

"Healing severe or chronic pain, I believe, includes transforming our relationship to the pain and ultimately, it is about transforming our relationship to who we are and to life."

- Sarah Anne Shockley

"I thought I was going to die [but] I've gone from where I can't function, where ‘I just can't live like this' to ‘I've got a bad headache.'"

- George Clooney

"Chronic pain is not all about the body and it's not all about the brain—it's everything. Target everything. Take back your life."

- Sean Mackey, MD, PhD

"There is an element and a very strong piece of me that believes pain is a microphone. My pain does me no good unless I transform it into something that is [good]… I hope that people watching it that do struggle with chronic pain know that they are not alone… I want people that watch it that think there's no way I live that way because they see me dance and sing, to know I struggle with things like them and that I work through it and that it can be done."

- Lady Gaga

"And once the storm is over, you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about."

- Haruki Murakami

"I'm not looking for sympathy or anyone to care about it. This is my life and I've moved forward. It doesn't stop me from being anywhere I want to be."

- Frankie Muniz

"It's not about getting over things, it's about making room for them. It’s about painting the picture with contrast."

- Brianna Wiest

"It's been a long recovery … You can't mourn for how you used to feel … You have to come to terms with it."

- George Clooney

"Our strength grows out of our weaknesses."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I will always have pain. But I exercise as much as I can, and I find that makes a huge difference. And if my body does seize up, I have a pain plan in place. I go back to my doctor."

- Jennifer Grey

"Laughter truly is medicine. Though this won't fix everything, finding ways to smile and laugh more will change your body’s chemistry in many positive ways. This is not just a distraction: It is an effective way to find some respite from your pain. It's okay to have fun when you’re in pain. Smiling and laughing may be difficult, but it's both okay and possible. Keep trying!"

- Dr. Neil Pearson

"Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength."

- Arnold Schwarzenegger

"I have lost the ability to read, write or even watch TV, because I can't process information or any stimulation for that matter. It feels like someone came in and confiscated my brain and tied my hands behind my back to just watch and see life go by without me participating in it."

- Yolanda Hadid

"You are not defeated when you lose. You are defeated when you quit."

- Paulo Coelho

"Endometriosis is not life-threatening. I know I'm lucky in the grand health scheme, but I also know that I am one of many women who grasp for a sense of consistent well-being, fight against the betrayals of their bodies and who are often met with skepticism by doctors trained to view painful periods as a lot of women who should learn to grin and bear it."

- Lena Dunham

"You just do it. You force yourself to get up. You force yourself to put one foot before the other, and God damn it; you refuse to let it get to you. You fight. You cry. You curse. Then you go about your business of living. That's how I have done it. There's no other way."

- Elizabeth Taylor

"It starts with brain fog; for a while I couldn’t put sentences together. I'm really tired a lot. A few weeks ago I had a big campaign shoot that I had to reschedule. It's hard, but I push through, because at the end of the day, if you're not working, somebody else is."

- Bella Hadid

"The fatigue is hard to explain unless you have it. Some mornings I feel really sick, like when you don't get a lot of sleep or you have the flu or cold. I always have some level of tiredness. And the more I tried to push through it, the tougher it got."

- Venus Williams

"The journey of recovery from chronic disease is a long and winding road of small victories."

- Yolanda Hadid

"Maybe I wasn't necessarily really good at knowing what that meant so it actually got to a point where it was life-or-death."

- Selena Gomez

"When I was diagnosed, my doctor said, ‘I don't want you to think you can't do anything that you don't want to do in this life.' MS is part of me, but it's not who I am."

- Jamie-Lynn Sigler

"I had no idea what was going on and I didn't have any way of solving it. Very recently I was diagnosed with PCOS, polycystic ovary syndrome, [a] hormone imbalance. And finally, I knew why this was happening to me."

- Sasha Pieterse

"It's about taking it seriously first and foremost and getting real and being diligent about what you need to do to manage the disease. It takes time and it takes a plan but once you have a plan in order it's about making healthier choices, getting active, and staying diligent on the program your doctors put you on."

- Anthony Anderson

"Even to this day, I don't subscribe—like, Lupus doesn't have me. Some doctor said this. But I'm going to do everything I can do to maintain my physical, mental and spiritual health."

- Nick Cannon

"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places."

- Ernest Hemingway

"I've always thought that if you work really hard at something, you can get it. But I was faced with the reality that this just wasn't happening. Especially given my celiac disease, my body tends to shut down when I'm under stress, like when I'm training for a marathon or when I was starving in Australia. So I decided to be kinder to my body."

- Elisabeth Hasselbeck

"Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you."

- Anne Lamott

"I believe we must press on while giving ourselves permission to feel disheartened at times. Living with chronic diseases is hard enough–there’s no need to pressure ourselves to be strong all the time. It’s not an easy situation, so it’s OK to feel overwhelmed."

- Emily Orwell

"Instead of asking 'have I worked hard enough to deserve a rest?', I've started asking, 'Have I rested enough to do my most loving, meaningful work?'"

- Nicola Jane Hobbs

"The mind is like tofu. It tastes like whatever you marinate it in."

- Sylvia Boorstei

"Learning's a gift, even when pain’s your teacher."

- Michael Jordan

"I've had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened."

- Mark Twain

"My therapist keeps telling me to stop comparing myself to other people – that life’s not a competition. Which, to be fair, is exactly what I’d say to someone I was trying to beat, too."

- Emily Murnane

"You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take."

- Wayne Gretzky

"There is literally nothing in nature that blooms all year long, so do not expect yourself to do so."

- liryae

"What matters most is how well you walk through the fire."

- Charles Bukowski

"You just do it. You force yourself to get up. You force yourself to put one foot before the other and you refuse to let it get to you. You fight. You cry. Then you go about the business of living. That’s how I’ve done it. There’s no other way."

- Elizabeth Taylor

"What you resist, persists"

- Carl Jung

"On days when the sky is grey, the sun has not disappeared forever."

- Arnaud Desjardins

"Water is fluid, soft and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong."

- Lao Tzu

"People don't often associate chronic illness with grief but the realization that life will never be what it was and the future is not what you thought it would be, is a major loss."

- Dr. Ingela Thune-boyle

"Laughter truly is medicine. Though this won’t fix everything, finding ways to smile and laugh more will change your body’s chemistry in many positive ways. This is not just distraction: it is an effective way to find some respite from your pain. It’s okay to have fun when you’re in pain. Smiling and laughing may be difficult, but it’s both okay and possible. Keep trying!"

- Dr. Neil Pearson

"That was exactly what Molly’s arthritis was like: as if some big old cow had got into her house and wouldn’t go away. It just sat there, taking up space in her life and making everything more difficult, mooing loudly from time to time and making cow pies."

- Alison Lurie

"From 1936 on, I have taken more falls than any other 20 comedians put together. You do that, and you're gonna have problems. I had pain during the last eight films; I've had pain in 37 straight telethons. I've never had a day without pain, since March 20, 1965."

- Jerry Lewis

"I've had it for so many years…that rebellion of not taking care of myself can't exist anymore."

- Gina Rodriguez

"I'm ready for new experiences that I don't need to heal from."

- Ehime Ora

"There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep."

- Homer

"For those who are chronically ill and in chronic pain: Have you had the experience of doctors not listening to you? If so, how do you not tear their heads off with your bare hands?"

- Sarah Hyland

"Sometimes I think I shouldn’t feel the way I do. When I start thinking this way I tell myself that feelings are neither good nor bad—they simply are. In the midst of intense negative feelings, whether fear, anger, depression, etc., it can feel as though they will last forever, like they will never end. It promotes emotional balance to maintain an awareness that all feelings are temporary and that they always change."

"Don't fight your pain; you can't win. The paradox of recovery is that you have to surrender to win. Accepting what you cannot change makes the difference."

"Since chronic pain frequently cannot be seen or measured, unlike acute pain, doctors, colleagues, friends or family may question or doubt your pain. In effect, it doesn’t matter if anyone believes you, but it is extremely important for you to acknowledge that all pain is real."

"The strongest people are not those who show strength in front of us, but those who win battles we know nothing about."

"I can easily forget that I’m in control of my life and return to feeling like a victim of my chronic pain. I may start asking myself again why this has happened to me, what I did to deserve this, etc. However, one of the gifts of pain recovery has been freedom from victim-thinking. This comes about overtime, but it does come."

"I can easily forget that I’m in control of my life and return to feeling like a victim of my chronic pain. I may start asking myself again why this has happened to me, what I did to deserve this, etc. However, one of the gifts of pain recovery has been freedom from victim-thinking. This comes about over time, but it does come."

- Unknown

"Some people think that to be strong is to never feel pain. In reality, the strongest people are the ones who feel it, understand it, and accept it."

"You have survived 100% of your worst days."

"If I woke up in the morning and nothing hurt, I would worry I was dead."

"I remember being able to get up without making sound effects…good times."

"I’m not an early bird or a night owl, I’m a permanently exhausted pigeon."

"I'm not an early bird or a night owl, I’m a permanently exhausted pigeon."

"Some days, I amaze myself. Other days, I put the keys in the fridge."

"All my spoons must be in the dishwasher."

"Living with chronic pain is like trying to get comfortable on a cactus sofa."

"This too shall pass"

"I'm not an early bird or a night owl, I'm a permanently exhausted pigeon."