50 Inspirational Quotes on Letting Go: Embrace Freedom and Growth

"The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward."

- Steve Maraboli

"The only thing a person can ever really do is keep moving forward. Take that big leap forward without hesitation, without once looking back."

- Alyson Noel

"Don’t look for peace. Don’t look for any other state than the one you are in now; otherwise, you will set up inner conflict and unconscious resistance. Forgive yourself for not being at peace. The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace. Anything you accept fully will get you there and will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender."

- Eckhart Tolle

"Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness."

- Thich Nhat Hanh

"Let go of certainty. The opposite isn’t uncertainty. It’s openness, curiosity, and a willingness to embrace paradox rather than choose up sides. The ultimate challenge is to accept ourselves exactly as we are, but never stop trying to learn and grow."

- Tony Schwartz

"Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself."

- Suzanne Somers

"You can’t possibly embrace that new relationship, that new companion, that new career, that new friendship, or that new life you want, while you’re still holding on to the baggage of the last one. Let go… and allow yourself to embrace what is waiting for you right at your feet."

- Steve Maraboli

"One of the most courageous decisions you’ll ever make is to finally let go of what is hurting your heart and soul."

- Brigitte Nicole

"Once you realize you deserve a bright future, letting go of your dark past is the best choice you will ever make."

- Roy T. Bennett

"If you can’t do anything about it, then let it go. Don’t be a prisoner to things you can’t change."

- Tony Gaskins

"Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure."

- Oprah Winfrey

"The key in letting go is practice. Each time we let go, we disentangle ourselves from our expectations and begin to experience things as they are."

- Sharon Salzberg

"Accept yourself, love yourself, and keep moving forward. If you want to fly, you have to give up what weighs you down."

- Roy T. Bennett

"You don’t always need a plan. Sometimes you just need to breathe, trust, let go, and see what happens."

- Mandy Hale

"Whatever life takes away from you, let it go. When you surrender and let go of the past, you allow yourself to be fully alive in the moment. Letting go of the past means you can enjoy the dream that is happening right now."

- Don Miguel Ruiz

"The essence of our practice can be described as transforming suffering into happiness. It’s not a complicated practice, but it requires us to cultivate mindfulness, concentration, and insight. It requires first of all that we come home to ourselves, that we make peace with our suffering, treating it tenderly, and looking deeply at the roots of our pain. It requires that we let go of useless, unnecessary sufferings and take a closer look at our idea of happiness."

- Thich Nhat Hanh

"We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us."

- E.M. Forster

"To let go is to release the images and emotions, the grudges and fears, the clingings and disappointments of the past that bind our spirit."

- Jack Kornfield

"We must be willing to let go of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us."

- Joseph Campbell

"The truth is unless you let go—forgive yourself, forgive the situation, realize the past is over—you cannot move forward."

- Steve Maraboli

"Do everything with a mind that lets go. Don’t accept praise or gain or anything else. If you let go a little you a will have a little peace; if you let go a lot you will have a lot of peace; if you let go completely you will have complete peace."

- Ajahn Chah

"If you want to fly in the sky, you need to leave the earth. If you want to move forward, you need to let go of the past that drags you down."

- Amit Ray

"Letting go does not mean not caring about things. It means caring for them in a flexible and wise way. In meditation, we pay attention to our body with care and respect."

- Jack Kornfield

"Just try to keep your mind in the present. Whatever arises in the mind, just watch it and let go of it. Don't even wish to be rid of thoughts. Then the mind will return to its natural state."

- Ajahn Chah

"Six Words of Advice: Let go of what has passed. Let go of what may come. Let go of what is happening now. Don’t try to figure anything out. Don’t try to make anything happen. Relax, right now, and rest."

- Tilopa, translated by Ken McLeod

"Letting go means to come to the realization that some people are a part of your history, but not a part of your destiny."

- Steve Maraboli

"Let go of the battle. Breathe quietly and let it be. Let your body relax and your heart soften. Open to whatever you experience without fighting."

- Jack Kornfield

"Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything—anger, anxiety, or possessions—we cannot be free."

- Thich Nhat Hanh

"It's not a matter of letting go, you would if you could. Instead of ‘Let it go’ we should probably say ‘Let it be’."

- Jon Kabat-Zinn

"Some of us think holding on makes us strong but sometimes it is letting go."

- Hermann Hesse

"Surrender is like a fish finding the current and going with it."

- Mark Nepo

"As we close, you might sense to yourself that this is a life practice of learning to live. Surrender the thoughts and surrender into the feelings… and surrender into that larger loving space. And you can feel from your own intuitive wisdom that remembering your belonging to something larger IS a pathway to peace and to freedom. And just knowing that will keep calling you home over and over."

- Tara Brach

"If you didn’t love him, this never would have happened. But you did. And accepting that love and everything that followed it is part of letting it go."

- Sarah Dessen

"When things start to fall apart in your life, you feel as if your whole world is crumbling. But actually it’s your fixed identity that’s crumbling. And that’s cause for celebration."

- Pema Chödrön

"The sooner we let go of holding on, the sooner we can hold on to the beauty of what's unfolding before us. Nothing was ever meant to stay the same forever."

- Julieanne O'Connor

"Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life."

- Epictetus

"To let go does not mean to get rid of. To let go means to let be. When we let be with compassion, things come and go on their own."

- Jack Kornfield

"To resist change, to try to cling to life, is like holding your breath: if you persist you kill yourself."

- Alan Watts

"Surrender is a journey from outer turmoil to inner peace."

- Sri Chinmoy

"Growth is painful. Change is painful. But nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don’t belong."

- Mandy Hale

"Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like."

- Lao Tzu

"The ultimate act of power is surrender."

- Krishna Das

"When all is lost, when all is let go of, when all is abandoned, what you are left with is an ocean of bliss."

- Robert Thurman

"People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. They prefer suffering that is familiar to the unknown."

- Thich Nhat Hanh

"Something amazing happens when we surrender and just love. We melt into another world, a realm of power already within us. The world changes when we change. The world softens when we soften. The world loves us when we choose to love the world."

- Marianne Williamson

"By investigating both the grasping itself and the object of our grasping, it becomes possible to know which of these we need to let go of. If the object of grasping is harmful, then we let go of that. If the object of grasping is beneficial, then we can let go of the grasping so that what is beneficial remains."

- Gil Fronsdal

"We spend enormous energy trying to control what cannot be controlled. Is it possible to trust what remains when you let go of any attempt to control?"

- Gangaji

"The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance."

- Alan Watts

"The moment of surrender is not when life is over. It’s when it begins."

- Marianne Williamson

"What we don’t recognize is that holding onto resentment is like holding onto your breath. You’ll soon start to suffocate."

- Deepak Chopra

"Surrender is not a weakness, it is a strength. It takes tremendous strength to surrender life to the supreme – to the cosmic unfolding."

- Mooji

"Training in letting go helps us let go of those behaviors that interfere with the further deepening of mindfulness. At times the only action needed is letting go of all other actions."

- Gil Fronsdal

"Sometimes surrender means giving up trying to understand, and becoming comfortable with not knowing."

- Eckhart Tolle

"Forgiveness is the natural outcome of letting go of inner conflict."

- Amoda Maa

"The first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego, the second half is going inward and letting go of it."

- Carl Jung

"Letting go helps us to live in a more peaceful state of mind and helps restore our balance. It allows others to be responsible for themselves and for us to take our hands off situations that do not belong to us. This frees us from unnecessary stress."

- Melody Beattie

"Imagine holding on to a hot burning coal. You would not fear letting go of it. In fact, once you noticed that you were holding on, you would probably drop it quickly. But we often do not recognize how we hold on to suffering. It seems to hold on to us."

- Joseph Goldstein

"You are afraid of surrender because you don't want to lose control. But you never had control; all you had was anxiety."

- Elizabeth Gilbert

"And yet, letting go does not mean ‘getting rid of.’ It means ‘allowing it to be as it is. Let it come, and let it go.’"

- Kittisaro

"Letting go is the willingness to change your beliefs in order to bring more peace and joy into your life instead of holding onto beliefs that bring pain and suffering."

- Hal Tipper

"The only permanent solution to your problems is to go inside and let go of the part of you that seems to have so many problems with reality."

- Michael Singer

"By letting go of this long-held inner drama I become a little more liberated and useful. In essence it’s bad that it happened but it’s worse that I allow myself to be affected by it now. I cannot control the past but I can control the present through forgiveness."

- Russell Brand

"Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control."

- Jack Kornfield

"People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar."

- Thich Nhat Hanh

"Even as I hold you, I am letting you go."

- Alice Walker

"Let go of your story so the Universe can write a new one for you."

- Marianne Williamson

"Holding on is believing that there’s only a past; letting go is knowing that there’s a future."

- Daphne Rose Kingma

"If you want to forget something or someone, never hate it, or never hate him/her. Everything and everyone that you hate is engraved upon your heart; if you want to let go of something, if you want to forget, you cannot hate."

- C. JoyBell C.

"Some birds are not meant to be caged, that’s all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them, they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure."

- Stephen King

"Letting go doesn’t mean that you don’t care about someone anymore. It’s just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself."

- Deborah Reber

"Life moves forward. The old leaves wither, die, and fall away, and the new growth extends forward into the light."

- Bryant McGill

"Deep letting go can bring us to a place where we may feel the groundlessness of our being. This can be very terrifying, so we hold on. But if we can move beyond the fear, we may see that these feelings are really the precursor to freedom."

- Ruth King

"Open your arms to change but don't let go of your values."

- Dalai Lama XIV

"When I let go of trying to be everything to everyone, I had much more time, attention, love, and connection for the important people in my life."

- Brené Brown

"When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into its dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment, or awakening to our true nature, to our fundamental goodness."

- Pema Chödrön

"Put your thoughts to sleep, do not let them cast a shadow over the moon of your heart. Let go of thinking."

- Rumi

"Let go of your worries and be completely clear-hearted, like the face of a mirror that contains no images."

- Rumi

"We must be willing to let go of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us."

- Joseph Campbell

"There is a huge amount of freedom that comes to you when you take nothing personally."

- Don Miguel Ruiz

"You don’t have to let that one thing be the thing that defines you."

- Jojo Moyes

"The most difficult aspect of moving on is accepting that the other person already did."

- Faraaz Kazi

"When one door closes, another opens, but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."

- Alexander Graham Bell

"Some people believe holding on and hanging in there are signs of great strength. However, there are times when it takes much more strength to know when to let go and then do it."

- Ann Landers

"It is mental slavery to cling to things that have stopped serving its purpose in your life."

- Chinonye J. Chidolue

"You only struggle because you’re ready to grow but aren’t willing to let go."

- Drew Gerald

"Perhaps we never stop loving someone. We just learn to move forward. To live without them because of them. Perhaps we let go to hold on."

- Caroline George

"Sometimes feeling good isn’t about picking up more things to do, but about letting go of things that have nothing to do with you."

- Curtis Tyrone Jones

"You will find that it is necessary to let things go; simply for the reason that they are heavy. So let them go, let go of them. I tie no weights to my ankles."

- C. JoyBell C.

"Cry. Forgive. Learn. Move on. Let your tears water the seeds of your future happiness."

- Steve Maraboli

"We can't be afraid of change. You may feel very secure in the pond that you are in, but if you never venture out of it, you will never know that there is such a thing as an ocean, a sea. Holding onto something that is good for you now, may be the very reason why you don't have something better."

- C. JoyBell C.

"If you spend your time hoping someone will suffer the consequences for what they did to your heart, then you're allowing them to hurt you a second time in your mind."

- Shannon L. Alder

"Sometimes the hardest part isn't letting go but rather learning to start over."

- Nicole Sobon

"Every woman that finally figured out her worth, has picked up her suitcases of pride and boarded a flight to freedom, which landed in the valley of change."

- Shannon L. Alder

"It is important that we forgive ourselves for making mistakes. We need to learn from our errors and move on."

- Steve Maraboli

"When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free."

- Catherine Ponder

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be."

- Lao Tzu

"Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else."

- Paulo Coelho

"Letting go isn’t a one-time thing, it’s something you have to do every day, over and over again."

- Dawson's Creek

"If you want to fly in the sky, you need to leave the earth. If you want to move forward, you need to let go the past that drags you down."

- Amit Ray

"In the process of letting go you will lose many things from the past, but you will find yourself."

- Deepak Chopra

"Letting go may sound so simple, but rarely is it a one-time thing. Just keep letting go, until one day it’s gone for good."

- Eleanor Brownn

"Why let go of yesterday? Because yesterday has already let go of you."

- Steve Maraboli

"We keep ourselves so tied up in regretting the past and fearing the future that we don’t have any energy left to figure out who we are and what we want to create right now."

- Gay Hendrix

"The decision to let go of that which has completed its course in your experience is even more important than the decision to welcome new ideas. You cannot walk forward by looking backward. New wine cannot be put into old bottles, for the Bible states that the old bottles will break. You intuitively know what should depart from your life."

- Raymond Charles Barker

"Your past does not equal your future."

- Tony Robbins

"Nothing in the universe can stop you from letting go and starting over."

- Guy Finley

"Courage is the power to let go of the familiar."

- Raymond Lindquist

"...you fix what you can fix, and you let the rest go. If there ain’t nothin’ to be done about it, it ain’t even a problem. It’s just aggravation."

- Cormac McCarthy

"Sometimes the hardest part isn’t letting go but rather learning to start over."

- Nicole Sobon

"To love everyone unconditionally does not mean to give everyone your unconditional time. Sometimes, to love completely, we must never see someone again. This, too, is love. This is giving someone the freedom to exist and be happy, even if it must be without you."

- Vironika Tugaleva

"Let go of the thoughts that don’t make you strong."

- Karen Salmansohn

"You can’t reach for anything new if your hands are still full of yesterday’s junk."

- Louise Smith

"I suppose you can’t hold on to old things just for the sake of holding on."

- Jenny Han

"You’ve got to make a conscious choice every day to shed the old – whatever “the old” means for you."

- Sarah Ban Breathnach

"Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure."

- Stephen King

"We need to learn to let go as easily as we grasp and we will find our hands full and our minds empty."

- Leo F. Buscaglia

"If people refuse to look at you in a new light and they can only see you for what you were, only see you for the mistakes you've made, if they don't realize that you are not your mistakes, then they have to go."

- Steve Maraboli

"Incredible change happens in your life when you decide to take control of what you do have power over instead of craving control over what you don't."

- Steve Maraboli

"Don’t be afraid to let go of this acquired, invented identity; this false feeling of ‘I.’ That is like being afraid to let go of a headache. That is what the imaginary ‘I’ is—one great big headache."

- Vernon Howard

"If you truly want to be respected by people you love, you must prove to them that you can survive without them."

- Michael Bassey Johnson, The Infinity Sign

"Thank God I found the GOOD in goodbye."

- Beyonce Knowles

"Change can be good, but it’s always tough to let go of the past."

- Emily Giffin

"When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."

- Alexander Graham Bell

"I realize there’s something incredibly honest about trees in winter, how they’re experts at letting things go."

- Jeffrey McDaniel

"Forget what hurt you but never forget what it taught you."

- Shannon L. Alder

"Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die."

- Buddha

"If you let people’s perception of you dictate your behavior, you will never grow as a person."

- Mr. George Feeny

"I realized that there was no point or sense in chasing after happiness that had perished."

- Mikhail Lermontov

"The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength."

- Marcus Aurelius

"Enjoy what you can and ignore the rest. Let’s not waste any energy fighting things that are outside our control."

- Paulo Coelho

"If strength is love, then we weren't strong enough, But if strength is letting love go, we were."

- Joe Bolton

"The heart surrenders everything to the moment. The mind judges and holds back."

- Ram Dass

"In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it's wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices."

- Elizabeth Gilbert

"Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it, and then move on."

- Bob Newhart

"Let go of becoming but never let go of taking action. Stop expecting and start living."

- Maxime Lagacé

"You can only lose what you cling to."

- Buddha

"The creative process is a process of surrender, no control."

- Julia Cameron

"To listen entails a fundamental letting go of self-centeredness. We have to be willing to put down our own thoughts, views, and feelings temporarily to truly listen."

- Oren Jay Sofer

"Whatever comes, let it come, what stays let stay, what goes let go."

- Papaji

"Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over."

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

"There ain't no way you can hold onto something that wants to go, you understand? You can only love what you got while you got it."

- Kate DiCamillo

"I don't regret difficulties I experienced; I think they helped me to become the person I am today, I feel the way a warrior must feel after years of training; he doesn't remember the details of everything he learned, but he knows how to strike when the time is right."

- Paulo Coelho

"We are not making release happen, but rather we are creating the conditions for release to happen."

- Ruth King

"It is the same with people as it is with riding a bike. Only when moving can one comfortably maintain one’s balance."

- Albert Einstein

"A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone."

- Henry David Thoreau

"The best skill at cards is knowing when to discard."

- Baltasar Gracian

"Let go of your attachment to being right, and suddenly your mind is more open."

- Ralph Marston

"Anything I cannot transform into something marvelous, I let go."

- Anais Nin

"Life moves on and so should we."

- Spencer Johnson

"Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties."

- Erich Fromm

"In the process of letting go, you will lose many things from the past, but you will find yourself."

"The more anger towards the past you carry in your heart, the less capable you are of loving in the present."

"Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on."

"One of the happiest moments in life is when you find the courage to let go of what you cannot change."

- Unknown

"Let go, or be dragged."

"The day I understood everything, was the day I stopped trying to figure everything out. The day I knew peace was the day I let everything go."