100 Inspirational Quotes to Empower You Through Tough Times

"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity."

- Albert Einstein

"You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated."

- Maya Angelou

"However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up."

- Stephen Hawking

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

- Ernest Hemingway

"Energy and persistence conquers all things."

- Benjamin Franklin

"Courage isn't having the strength to go on. It is going on when you don't have strength."

- Napoleon Bonaparte

"Tough times never last, but tough people do"

- Robert Schuller

"What does not kill me makes me stronger."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

"We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."

- Confucius

"Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving. We get stronger and more resilient."

- Steve Maraboli

"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

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

- Bob Marley

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.'"

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."

- Oliver Goldsmith

"Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again."

- Nelson Mandela

"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.

"You never know how strong you are, until being strong is your only choice."

- Bob Marley

"I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it."

- Maya Angelou

"It’s not whether you get knocked down. It’s whether you get up."

- Vince Lombardi

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

- Ernest Hemingway

"Courage isn't having the strength to go on, it is going on when you don't have the strength."

- Napoleon Bonaparte

"You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength."

- Marcus Aurelius

"We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"The human capacity for burden is like bamboo – far more flexible than you'd ever believe at first glance."

- Jodi Picoult

"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

"Where there is no struggle, there is no strength."

- Oprah Winfrey

"Rock bottom became the solid foundation in which I rebuilt my life."

- J.K. Rowling

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

"Remember: Every champion was once a contender that refused to give up."

- Rocky Balboa

"Persistence and resilience only come from having been given the chance to work through difficult problems."

- Gever Tulley

"A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles."

- Christopher Reeve

"And one has to understand that braveness is not the absence of fear but rather the strength to keep on going forward despite the fear."

- Paulo Coelho

"Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and, above all, confidence in ourselves. We must believe we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained."

- Marie Curie

"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"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

"The human capacity for burden is like bamboo - far more flexible than you'd ever believe at first glance."

- Jodi Picoult

"My scars remind me that I did indeed survive my deepest wounds. That in itself is an accomplishment. And they bring to mind something else, too. They remind me that the damage life has inflicted on me has, in many places, left me stronger and more resilient. What hurt me in the past has actually made me better equipped to face the present."

- Steve Goodier

"Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it's less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you've lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that's good."

- Elizabeth Edwards

"Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - and sings the tunes without the words - and never stops at all."

- Emily Dickinson

"We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world's problems at once but don't ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own."

- Michelle Obama

"You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength."

- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

"If you're going through hell, keep going."

- Winston Churchill

"If you can’t fly, run. If you can’t run, walk. If you can’t walk, crawl. But by all means, keep going"

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny."

- C.S. Lewis

"The best way out is always through."

- Robert Frost

"It's your reaction to adversity, not adversity itself that determines how your life's story will develop."

- Dieter F. Uchtdorf

"Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm."

- Winston Churchill

"It's hard to beat a person who never gives up."

- Babe Ruth

"She stood in the storm, & and when the wind did not blow her away, she adjusted her sails."

- Elizabeth Edwards

"The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived."

- Robert Jordan

"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."

- Viktor Frankl

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved."

- Helen Keller

"Courage is an inner resolution to go forward in spite of obstacles and frightening situations."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Be strong. Live honorably and with dignity. When you don't think you can, hold on."

- James Frey

"Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently."

- Maya Angelou

"Perhaps one day it will be pleasing to recall even such hardships."

- Virgil

"With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions."

- Stephen R. Covey

"The only failure is not to try"

- George Clooney

"Don’t wish it were easier. Wish you were better."

- Jim Rohn

"I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse."

- Florence Nightingale

"Hard times don’t create heroes. It is during the hard times when the ‘hero’ within us is revealed."

- Bob Riley

"We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained."

- Marie Curie

"Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor."

- Truman Capote

"It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure."

- Joseph Campbell

"Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it."

- Charles R. Swindoll

"You be greater than your feelings. I don’t demand this of you—life does. Otherwise, you’ll be washed away by feelings. You’ll be washed out to sea and never seen again."

- Philip Roth

"Burdens are for shoulders strong enough to carry them."

- Margaret Mitchell

"Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats."

- Voltaire

"In every battle, there comes a time when both sides consider themselves beaten. Then he who continues the attack wins."

- Ulysses S. Grant

"Nobody can hurt me without my permission."

- Mahatma Gandhi

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

- Louisa May Alcott

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life."

- Steve Jobs

"Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others."

- Robert Louis Stevenson

"Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you."

- George R.R. Martin

"The struggles we endure today will be the ‘good old days’ we laugh about tomorrow."

- Aaron Nimzowitsch

"There are two ways of meeting difficulties: You alter the difficulties, or you alter yourself to meet them."

- Phyllis Bottome

"Most great people have attained their greatest success one step beyond their greatest failure."

- Napoleon Hill

"It isn't the mountains ahead that wear you down. It's the pebble in your shoe."

- Muhammad Ali

"You can't get to courage without walking through vulnerability."

- Brené Brown

"The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity."

- Amelia Earhart

"Always do what you are afraid to do."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"If you believe it will work out, you’ll see opportunities. If you believe it won’t, you will see obstacles."

- Wayne Dyer

"One word of encouragement can be enough to spark someone’s motivation to continue with a difficult challenge."

- Roy T. Bennett

"Ring the bells that still can ring forget your perfect offering there is a crack in everything that's how the light gets in"

- Leonard Cohen

"A good half of the art of living is resilience."

- Alain de Botton

"Never say that you can't do something, or that something seems impossible, or that something can't be done, no matter how discouraging or harrowing it may be; human beings are limited only by what we allow ourselves to be limited by: our own minds. We are each the masters of our own reality; when we become self-aware to this: absolutely anything in the world is possible."

- Mike Norton

"Resilience is based on compassion for ourselves as well as compassion for others."

- Sharon Salzberg

"Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength."

- Corrie ten Boom

"Every adversity, every failure, and every heartache, carries with it the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit."

- Napoleon Hill

"Confidence, courage and determined spirit are vital for surviving hard times."

- Lailah Gifty Akita

"Life is very interesting…in the end, some of your greatest pains become your greatest strengths."

- Drew Barrymore

"No matter how much falls on us, we keep plowing ahead. That's the only way to keep the roads clear."

- Greg Kincaid

"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars."

- Kahlil Gibran

"Be strong enough to stand alone, smart enough to know when you need help, and brave enough to ask for it."

- Ziad K. Abdelnour

"When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure."

- Peter Marshall

"When things are bad, we take comfort in the thought that they could always get worse. And when they are, we find hope in the thought that things are so bad they have to get better."

- Malcolm S. Forbes

"Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy."

- Leo Buscaglia

"When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this: you haven't."

- Thomas A. Edison

"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage."

- Lao Tzu

"The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials."

- Chinese Proverb

"It is really wonderful how much resilience there is in human nature. Let any obstructing cause, no matter what, be removed in any way, even by death, and we fly back to first principles of hope and enjoyment."

- Bram Stoker

"We don't even know how strong we are until we are forced to bring that hidden strength forward."

- Isabel Allende

"We are stronger, gentler, more resilient, and more beautiful than any of us imagine."

- Mark Nepo

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear."

- Ambrose Redmoon

"I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles."

- Audrey Hepburn

"Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat."

- Ralph Ellison

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer."

- Albert Camus

"And hard times are good in their own way, too. Because the only way you can achieve true happiness is if you experience true sadness as well. It's all about light and shade. Balance."

- Gabrielle Williams

"This is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure."

- Winston Churchill

"When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it."

- Henry Ford

"We will either find a way, or make one."

- Anibal Barca

"Grief and resilience live together."

- Michelle Obama

"It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves."

- Edmund Hillary

"Mastering others is strength, mastering yourself is true power."

- Lao Tzu

"Courage is found in unlikely places."

- J.R.R. Tolkien

"Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm."

- Abraham Lincoln

"Nothing is more beautiful than the smile that has struggled through the tears."

- Demi Lovato

"I survived because the fire inside burned brighter than the fire around me. I fell down into that dark chasm, but the flame burned on and on."

- Joshua Graham

"If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint’, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced."

- Vincent van Gogh

"Inside of a ring or out, ain’t nothing wrong with going down. It’s staying down that’s wrong."

- Muhammad Ali

"You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it."

- Dieter F. Uchtdorf

"If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it."

- Michael Jordan

"On the other side of a storm is the strength that comes from having navigated through it. Raise your sail and begin."

- Gregory S. Williams

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

- Helen Keller

"Turn your wounds into wisdom."

- Oprah Winfrey

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"What makes you different or weird, that's your strength."

- Meryl Streep

"We need women who are so strong they can be gentle, so educated they can be humble, so fierce they can be compassionate, so passionate they can be rational, and so disciplined they can be free."

- Kavita Ramdas

"A brave man acknowledges the strength of others."

- Veronica Roth

"Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before, how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever."

- Zahid Abas

"Going through challenging things can teach you a lot, and they also make you appreciate the times that aren't so challenging."

- Carrie Fisher

"Pride is not the opposite of shame, but it's source. True humility is the only antidote to shame"

- Uncle Iroh to Zukko

"Only those who dare to fail greatly, can ever achieve greatly."

- Robert F. Kennedy

"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness, that is life."

- Jean-Luc Picard

"Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time."

- Maya Angelou

"Don't despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don't – surrender to events with hope."

- Alain de Botton

"Out of difficulties grow miracles."

- Jean de La Bruyère

"There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast."

- Charles Dickens

"We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided."

- J.K. Rowling

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"There are certain life lessons that you can only learn in the struggle."

- Idowu Koyenikan

"I knew that, when needed, mountains would move for me."

- Norman Maclean

"He knows not his own strength who hath not met adversity."

- William Samuel Johnson

"Whether it is the best of times or the worst of times, it is the only time we have."

- Art Buchwald

"Don’t let the bastards grind you down."

- Margaret Atwood

"It's not always necessary to be strong, but to feel strong."

- Jon Krakauer

"It is never too late to be what you might have been."

- George Eliot

"It's good to do uncomfortable things. It's weight training for life."

- Anne Lamott

"It is not the strength but the duration of great sentiments that makes great men."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

"Keep your face always toward the sunshine―and shadows will fall behind you."

- Walt Whitman

"Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere… Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind, spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies."

- Robert Louis Stevenson

"You can't put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the farther you get."

- Michael Phelps

"Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it."

- Anne Lamott

"We must always deal from strength and insist on verification of every agreement. In my meetings with the General Secretary I repeated several times a Russian proverb: ‘Doveryai no proveryai’—'Trust but verify.’"

- Ronald Reagan

"The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty."

- Jean Jacques Rousseau

"Rule your mind or it will rule you."

- Gautama Buddha

"My strength is as the strength of 10, / Because my heart is pure."

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

"It is our attitude toward events, not events themselves, which we can control. Nothing is by its own nature calamitous – even death is terrible only if we fear it."

- Epictetus

"It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done."

- Vincent van Gogh

"If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it."

- Toni Morrison

"Should I, after tea and cakes and ices / Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?"

- T.S. Eliot

"Once you’ve accepted your flaws, no one can use them against you."

- George R.R. Martin

"Be undeniable."

- Ralphie May

"You can't really be strong until you can see a funny side to things."

- Ken Kesey

"If you light a lamp for someone else, it will also brighten your path."

- Buddha

"Someone I once loved gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift."

- Mary Oliver

"I am stronger than I am broken."

"He who conquers others is strong; he who conquers himself is mighty."

"So do I. And so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

"This too shall pass"

"Start where you are, Use what you have, Do what you can"

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about."

"It is what it is but it will become what you make it"

"Whenever you find yourself doubting how far you can go, just remember how far you have come. Remember everything you have faced, all the battles you have won, and all the fears you have overcome."