50 Inspirational Occupational Therapy Quotes to Motivate and Empower

"Occupational therapy is the only profession that helps people across the lifespan to do the things they want and need to do through the therapeutic use of daily activities (occupations). Occupational therapy practitioners enable people of all ages to live life to its fullest by helping them promote health, and prevent—or live better with—injury, illness, or disability."

- American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA)

"Occupational therapy practitioners ask, “what matters to you?” not, “what’s the matter with you?”"

- AOTA President, Virginia “Ginny” Stoffel, Ph.D., OT, BCMH, FAOTA

"Occupational therapy practitioners help people live life to its fullest-no matter what. They provide practical solutions for success in everyday living and help people alter how they arrange their daily activities to maximize function, vitality, and productivity."

- Florence Clark, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA

"Occupational therapy practitioners ask, “What matters to you?” not, “What’s the matter with you?”"

- Virginia “Ginny” Stoffel, PhD, OT, BCMH, FAOTA

"It’s not enough to give a patient something to do with their hands. You must reach for the heart as well as the hands. It’s the heart that really does the healing."

- Ora Ruggles

"Occupational therapy combines science, art and a creative spirit, and I truly feel that occupational therapy changes lives."

- Mandy Chamberlain, OTR/L

"Occupational Therapy. Hopeless into hope. Can’t into can. Impossible into possible."

- Valerie Pena, OTR

"Man, through the use of his hands, as they are energized by mind and will, can influence the state of his own health."

- Mary Reilly, OTR, Ed.D.

"The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance."

- Nathaniel Branden

"Don’t just visualize success at the end. Visualize the process. Don’t just picture yourself winning. Picture the steps it takes to get there."

- Dean Bokhari

"You treat a disease: you win, you lose. You treat a person, I guarantee you win-no matter what the outcome."

- Patch Adams

"I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

- Maya Angelou

"Rest and self-care are so important. When you take time to replenish your spirit, it allows you to serve others from the overflow. You cannot serve from an empty vessel."

- Eleanor Brownn

"Our potential is one thing. What we do with it is quite another."

- Angela Duckworth

"It always seems impossible until it's done."

- Nelson Mandela

"I long to accomplish a great and noble task; but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble."

- Helen Keller

"Our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change."

- Martin Luther King Jr.

"Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it."

- Michael Jordan

"When you keep searching for ways to change your situation for the better, you stand a chance of finding them. When you stop searching, assuming they can’t be found, you guarantee they won’t."

- Angela Duckworth

"As someone goes through the difficulty of cancer, remember (as an OT) you’re able to be a light and provide hope and comfort that will make a difference."

- Vanessa Monique Yanez, MSOT, OTR/L

"In your chosen field, a part of the noblest work of man– the care and relief of weak and suffering humanity– may you realize in increasing measure the value of certain spiritual things which are the making of life, but which we call by many common names. Kindness, humanity, decency, honor, good faith– to give these up under any circumstances would be a greater loss than any defeat, or even death itself."

- Thomas Bessell Kidner

"As long as you keep going, you’ll keep getting better. As you get better, you gain more confidence. That alone is success."

- Tamara Taylor

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."

- Winston S. Churchill

"When you take time to replenish your spirit, it allows you to serve others from the overflow. You cannot serve from an empty vessel."

- Eleanor Brownn

"We don’t develop courage by being happy every day. We develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity."

- Barbara De Angelis

"Occupational therapy. Hopeless into hope. Can’t into can. Impossible into possible."

- Valerie Pena, OTR

"Occupational therapy is more than a job. For many it is a calling. We felt drawn to it."

- Amy Lamb, OTD, OT/L, FAOTA

"Occupational therapy. Arguably the most empowering, creative, holistic and meaning-enhancing healthcare profession. We are proud to put on that uniform, follow models of practice, client-centered outcome measures and prioritize active engagement in self-care, productivity and leisure. We are occupational therapists. Adding life to days."

- Jamie Grant, OT

"Occupational Therapy is where science, creativity, and compassion collide."

- Jessica Kensky

"Occupational therapy is where science, creativity and compassion collide."

- Jessica Kensky

"Life takes on meaning in the minute-by-minute reality in which we experience ourselves achieving ordinary things."

- Gary Kielhofner, DrPH, OTR, FAOTA

"In the future, I would love to see OTs in mental health help to design the systems, programs and environments that support occupational health and well being."

- Lauren Jones, MS, OTR/L

"I learned to find equal meaning in the repeated rituals of domestic life. Setting the table. Lighting the candles. Building the fire. Cooking. All those soufflés, all that crème caramel, all those daubes and albóndigas and gumbos. Clean sheets, stacks of clean towels, hurricane lamps for storms, enough water and food to see us through whatever geological event came our way. These fragments I have shored against my ruins, were the words that came to mind then. These fragments mattered to me. I believed in them. That I could find meaning in the intensely personal nature of life as a wife and mother did not seem inconsistent with finding meaning in the vast indifference of geology and the test shots."

- Joan Didion

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."

- Anne Dillard

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking down complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one."

- Mark Twain

"You need to be content with small steps. That’s all life is. Small steps that you take every day so when you look back down the road it all adds up and you know you covered some distance."

- Katie Kacvinsky

"We don’t use nature for therapy. We co-facilitate therapy with nature."

- Laura Park Figueroa, MS, OTR/L

"You are the detective of your own body and I’m just here to help you find the map."

- Lindsey Vestal, MS, OTR/L

"The most important time with parents is when they’re present and actively participating in the session—not so much about what I’m doing, but what I’m teaching the parents and what they’re able to do with their child."

- Michelle DeJesus, MS, OTR/L

"I know if I can change somebody’s heart, I can help change their head."

- Dr. Victoria Wilburn, State Representative, Indiana House District 32

"As pediatric occupational therapists, you are supporting mental health."

- Tiffany Northrop, OTR/L

"Play is really the work of childhood."

- Fred Rogers

"Being challenged in life is inevitable, being defeated is optional."

- Roger Crawford

"It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes. It is inevitable."

- Maya Angelou

"Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape."

- Bell Hooks

"You teach people how to treat you by what you allow, what you stop, and what you reinforce."

- Tony Gaskins Jr.

"I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change is they are to get better."

- Georg C. Lichtenberg

"We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty."

- Maya Angelou

"None of us can know what we are capable of until we are tested."

- Elizabeth Blackwell

"Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records."

- William Arthur Ward

"One step at a time is all it takes to get you there."

- Emily Dickinson

"Watching a child makes it obvious that the development of his mind comes through his movements."

- Maria Montessori

"Care asserts that as difficult and painful as life can be, it is worth something to be in the present, alive, and doing one’s daily bit."

- Kathleen Norris

"I long to accomplish a great a noble task; but it is my chief responsibility to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble."

- Helen Keller

"Artificial intelligence is the partner OT needs to shift healthcare towards prevention."

- Alyson Stover, MOT, JD, OTR/L, BCP

"How are we (as OTs) decreasing barriers and increasing access?"

- Arameh Anvarizadeh, OTD, OTR/L, FAOTA

"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn."

- Benjamin Franklin

"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."

- African Proverb

"You can discover more about a person in a hour of play than a year of conversation."

- Plato

"It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness."

- Thomas Jefferson

"As the years pass, I am coming more and more to understand that it is the common, everyday blessings of our common everyday lives for which we should be particularly grateful. They are the things that fill our lives with comfort and our hearts with gladness — just the pure air to breathe and the strength to breathe it; just warmth and shelter and home folks; just plain food that gives us strength; the bright sunshine on a cold day; and a cool breeze when the day is warm."

- Laura Ingalls Wilder

"I think we live in a world where the most important thing is daily life: sharing a space with your family, making meals, being with your people. It’s not only the idea of privacy, it’s the beauty of the moment, at a time in the world when everything goes really fast – too fast."

- Ana Tijoux

"A man’s motive in the small actions of daily life, like resting a moment on his pitchfork in the sun and listening intently, may be the most important thing about that man."

- Haniel Long

"Medicine adds days to lives, occupational therapy adds life to days."

- Unknown

"Medicine adds days to life, occupational therapy adds life to days."

"Occupational therapy practitioners know that hope still glimmers in the darkest hour."