100 Inspirational Quotes to Build Unshakable Mental Strength

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

- Oliver Goldsmith

"Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle."

- Christian D. Larson

"I gave myself permission to feel and experience all of my emotions. In order to do that, I had to stop being afraid to feel. In order to do that, I taught myself to believe that no matter what I felt or what happened when I felt it, I would be okay."

- Iyanla Vanzant

"You don’t have to control your thoughts; you just have to stop letting them control you."

- Dan Millman

"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

"You have within you right now, everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you."

- Brian Tracy

"Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow."

- Mary Anne Radmacher

"And still, I rise."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Winston Churchill

"The mind is everything. What you think you become."

- Buddha

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

- Marcus Aurelius

"You don’t have to see the whole staircase; just take the first step."

- Martin Luther King Jr.

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

- Nelson Mandela

"With depression, one of the most important things you could realize is that you’re not alone … Hold onto that fundamental quality of faith. Have faith that on the other side of your pain is something good."

- Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

"In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger — something better, pushing right back."

- Albert Camus

"There is hope, even when your brain tells you there isn’t."

- John Green

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but the mastery of it."

- Mark Twain

"Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles, and less than perfect conditions. So what? Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident, and more and more successful."

- Mark Victor Hansen

"Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy."

- Dale Carnegie

"Just pick a goal, a goal you truly want to achieve, and take a clear-eyed look at your weaknesses — not so you’ll feel less confident, but so you can determine exactly what you need to work on. Then get to work. Celebrate small successes. Analyze your weaknesses. Keep going. As you gain skill, you’ll also gain a feeling of genuine confidence, one that can never be taken away–because you’ve earned it."

- Jeff Haden

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

- Marcus Aurelius

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

- Mahatma Gandhi

"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude."

- Thomas Jefferson

"Success is falling nine times and getting up ten."

- Jon Bon Jovi

"When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways—either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits, or by using the challenge to find our inner strength."

- Dalai Lama

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

- Bob Marley

"With everything that has happened to you, you can either feel sorry for yourself or treat what has happened as a gift. Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose."

- Wayne Dyer

"Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sail. Explore. Dream. Discover."

- Mark Twain

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be?"

- Marianne Williamson

"Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong."

- Peter T. McIntyre

"The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable."

- Paul Tillich

"If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves."

- Thomas Alva Edison

"Talk to yourself like you would to someone you love."

- Brené Brown

"Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do."

- Benjamin Spock

"Successful people have fear, successful people have doubts, and successful people have worries. They just don’t let these feelings stop them."

- T. Harv Eker

"You can have anything you want if you are willing to give up the belief that you can’t have it."

- Dr. Robert Anthony

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

- Sir Edmund Hillary

"To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance."

- Oscar Wilde

"Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence."

- Helen Keller

"Confidence is a habit that can be developed by acting as if you already had the confidence you desire to have."

- Brian Tracy

"If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think."

- T. Harv Eker

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

- Christopher Robin

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it."

- J.M. Barrie

"I think that the power is the principle. The principle of moving forward, as though you have the confidence to move forward, eventually gives you confidence when you look back and see what you’ve done."

- Robert Downey Jr.

"Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth."

- Rumi

"We avoid the things that we’re afraid of because we think there will be dire consequences if we confront them. But the truly dire consequences in our lives come from avoiding things that we need to learn about or discover."

- Shakti Gawain

"Persons of high self-esteem are not driven to make themselves superior to others; they do not seek to prove their value by measuring themselves against a comparative standard. Their joy is being who they are, not in being better than someone else."

- Nathaniel Branden

"Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many — not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some."

- Charles Dickens

"Tension is who you think you should be, relaxation is who you are."

- Chinese proverb

"There are two ways of exerting one’s strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up."

- Booker T. Washington

"Life has many ways of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen all at once."

- Paulo Coelho

"If you can change your mind, you can change your life."

- William James

"Whatever is in me is stronger than what is out there to defeat me."

- Caroline Myss

"Go within every day and find the inner strength so that the world will not blow your candle out."

- Katherine Dunham

"The kind of beauty I want most is the hard-to-get kind that comes from within—strength, courage, dignity."

- Ruby Dee

"No matter what the situation, remind yourself ‘I have a choice.'"

- Deepak Chopra

"I do believe that when we face challenges in life that are far beyond our own power, it’s an opportunity to build on our faith, inner strength, and courage. I’ve learned that how we face challenges plays a big role in the outcome of them."

- Sasha Azevedo

"What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality."

- Plutarch

"Recognize that you have the courage within you to fulfill the purpose of your birth. Summon forth the power of your inner courage and live the life of your dreams."

- Gurumayi Chidvilasananda

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

- Oprah Winfrey

"Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look."

- Marcus Aurelius

"I’m here. I love you. I don’t care if you need to stay up crying all night long, I will stay with you… There’s nothing you can ever do to lose my love. I will protect you until you die, and after your death I will still protect you. I am stronger than Depression and I am braver than Loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me."

- Elizabeth Gilbert

"Faith gives you an inner strength and a sense of balance and perspective in life."

- Gregory Peck

"As soon as people decide to confront a problem, they realize that they are far more capable than they thought they were."

- Paulo Coelho

"True strength is delicate."

- Louise Berliawsky Nevelson

"Pride is holding your head up when everyone around you has theirs bowed. Courage is what makes you do it."

- Bryce Courtenay

"Always be yourself and have faith in yourself. Do not go out and look for a successful personality and try to duplicate it."

- Bruce Lee

"As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live."

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of successful experiences behind you."

- William Jennings Bryan

"Low self-confidence isn’t a life sentence. Self-confidence can be learned, practiced, and mastered — just like any other skill. Once you master it, everything in your life will change for the better."

- Barrie Davenport

"Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit."

- e e cummings

"Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement."

- Golda Meir

"One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation."

- Arthur Ashe

"It is confidence in our bodies, minds, and spirits that allows us to keep looking for new adventures."

- Oprah Winfrey

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"But failure has to be an option in art and in exploration — because it’s a leap of faith. And no important endeavor that required innovation was done without risk. You have to be willing to take those risks."

- James Cameron

"People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within."

- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

"This, too, shall pass."

- Persian proverb

"You are stronger than you know."

- Lori Osterman

"You are enough just as you are."

- Meghan Markle

"The only way out is through."

- Robert Frost

"Self-care is how you take your power back."

- Lalah Delia

"For there is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it."

- Amanda Gorman

"One small crack does not mean that you are broken, it means that you were put to the test and you didn’t fall apart."

- Linda Poindexter

"If you were born with / the weakness to fall / you were born with / the strength to rise."

- Rupi Kaur

"You are allowed to be both a masterpiece and a work in progress simultaneously."

- Sophia Bush

"Healing doesn’t mean the damage never existed. It means the damage no longer controls your life."

- Akshay Dubey

"In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity."

- Albert Einstein

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

- Ernest Hemingway

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

- Isabel Allende

"Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths."

- Arnold Schwarzenegger

"Nothing can dim the light which shines from within."

- Maya Angelou

"It is worth remembering that the time of greatest gain in terms of wisdom and inner strength is often that of greatest difficulty."

- Dalai Lama

"The only way to do great work is to love what you do."

- Steve Jobs

"Believe you can and you’re halfway there."

- Theodore Roosevelt

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

- Robert Schuller

"Fall seven times, stand up eight."

- Japanese Proverb

"Silence is a source of great strength."

- Lao Tzu

"Our strength grows out of our weaknesses."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"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

"It doesn’t take a lot of strength to hang on. It takes a lot of strength to let go."

- J. C. Watts

"You really have to look inside yourself and find your own inner strength, and say, ‘I’m proud of what I am and who I am, and I’m just going to be myself.'"

- Mariah Carey

"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world."

- Harriet Tubman

"It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires great strength to decide on what to do."

- Elbert Hubbard

"The strongest people are not those who show strength in front of the world but those who fight and win battles that others do not know anything about."

- Jonathan Harnisch

"The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen."

- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

"Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness."

- Desmond Tutu

"Self-care means giving the world the best of you instead of what is left of you."

- Katie Reed

"You don’t have to control your thoughts. You just have to stop letting them control you."

- Dan Millman

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

- Dieter F. Uchtdorf

"Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."

- A.A. Milne

"If you tried / and didn’t end up / where you wanted to go / that’s still progress."

- Rupi Kaur

"It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are."

- E.E. Cummings

"Life is tough, my darling, but so are you."

- Stephanie Bennett Henry

"Don’t be pushed around by the fears in your mind. Be led by the dreams in your heart."

- Roy T. Bennett

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

- Arthur Ashe

"You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop."

- Rumi

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

- Jon Kabat-Zinn

"Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it’s holy ground. There’s no greater investment."

- Stephen Covey

"You are not your illness. You have an individual story to tell. You have a name, a history, a personality. Staying yourself is part of the battle."

- Julian Seifter

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress."

- Frederick Douglass

"You say you’re depressed — all I see is resilience. You are allowed to feel messed up and inside out. It doesn’t mean you’re defective–it just means you’re human."

- David Mitchell

"Your present circumstances don’t determine where you go; they merely determine where you start."

- Nido Qubein

"Slow breathing is like an anchor in the midst of an emotional storm: the anchor won't make the storm go away, but it will hold you steady until it passes."

- Russ Harris

"Be dedicated to change the way in which people see mental illness at all levels of society. If not for yourself, advocate for those who are struggling in silence."

- Germany Kent

"There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in."

- Leonard Cohen

"Deep breathing is our nervous system’s love language."

- Dr. Lauren Fogel Mersy

"I think it’s really important to take the stigma away from mental health… My brain and my heart are really important to me. I don’t know why I wouldn’t seek help to have those things be as healthy as my teeth."

- Kerry Washington

"Mental health…is not a destination, but a process. It’s about how you drive, not where you’re going."

- Noam Shpancer, PhD

"Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light."

- Albus Dumbledore

"Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they're never weakness."

- Brené Brown

"Just because no one else can heal or do your inner work for you doesn’t mean you can, should, or need to do it alone."

- Lisa Olivera

"I cannot stand the words ‘Get over it’. All of us are under such pressure to put our problems in the past tense. Slow down. Don’t allow others to hurry your healing. It is a process, one that may take years, occasionally, even a lifetime – and that’s OK."

- Beau Taplin

"My dark days made me strong. Or maybe I already was strong, and they made me prove it."

- Emery Lord

"There is no normal life that is free of pain. It's the very wrestling with our problems that can be the impetus for our growth."

- Fred Rogers

"You don’t have to be positive all the time. It’s perfectly okay to feel sad, angry, annoyed, frustrated, scared and anxious. Having feelings doesn’t make you a negative person. It makes you human."

- Lori Deschene

"Nothing can dim the light that shines from within."

- Maya Angelou

"You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection."

- Buddha

"This feeling will pass. The fear is real but the danger is not."

- Cammie McGovern

"Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor."

- Thich Nhat Hanh

"Even if we don’t have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there."

- Stephen Chbosky

"You are valuable just because you exist. Not because of what you do or what you have done, but simply because you are."

- Max Lucado

"Women have to take the time to focus on our mental health — take time for self, for the spiritual, without feeling guilty or selfish. The world will see you the way you see you, and treat you the way you treat yourself."

- Beyoncé

"The best way out is always through."

- Robert Frost

"We are not our trauma. We are not our brain chemistry. That’s part of who we are, but we’re so much more than that."

- Sam J. Miller

"Your mental health is everything – prioritize it. Make the time like your life depends on it, because it does."

- Mel Robbins

"If we start being honest about our pain, our anger, and our shortcomings instead of pretending they don’t exist, then maybe we’ll leave the world a better place than we found it."

- Russell Wilson

"Mental health problems don’t define who you are. They are something you experience. You walk in the rain and you feel the rain, but you are not the rain."

- Matt Haig

"What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, and more unashamed conversation."

- Glenn Close

"Being able to be your true self is one of the strongest components of good mental health."

- Dr. Lauren Fogel Mersy

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

- Louisa May Alcott

"Sometimes self care is exercise and eating right. Sometimes it’s spending time with loved ones or taking a nap. And sometimes it’s watching an entire season of TV in one weekend while you lounge around in your pajamas. Whatever soothes your soul."

- Nanea Hoffman

"In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you."

- Deepak Chopra

"OCD is not how it’s stereotyped… it made me feel like my mind was playing a cruel trick on me… Anxiety comes and goes, but now it feels like just another difficult emotion, as opposed to something that’s consuming my life. By doing the work and showing up for myself every day, I feel like I have more trust in myself than ever before."

- Camila Cabello

"You do not have to live the life that OCD wants you to live – you can live the life that you want to live."

- Patrick B. McGrath, Ph.D.

"The body achieves what the mind believes."

- Florence Griffith Joyner

"Strength is the product of struggle. You must do what others don’t to achieve what others won’t."

- Henry Rollins

"Your body can stand almost anything. It’s your mind that you have to convince."

- Anon

"Exercise not only changes your body, it changes your mind, your attitude, and your mood."

- Anonymous

"A champion is someone who gets up when they can’t."

- Jack Dempsey

"Mental toughness is essential to success."

- Vince Lombardi

"The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another."

- William James

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

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Your mind will give up a thousand times before your body ever will. Feel the fear and do it anyway!"

- Anonymous

"The most important conversations you’ll ever have are the ones you’ll have with yourself."

- David Goggins

"It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it."

- Lou Holtz

"Emotional pain is not something that should be hidden away and never spoken about. There is truth in your pain, there is growth in your pain, but only if it’s first brought out into the open."

- Steven Aitchison

"Emotions are like waves. We can’t stop them from coming, but we can choose which one to surf."

- Jonatan Mårtensson

"Healing takes time, and asking for help is a courageous step."

- Mariska Hargitay

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

- Martin Luther King Jr.

"We would never tell someone with a broken leg that they should stop wallowing and get it together. We don’t consider taking medication for an ear infection something to be ashamed of. We shouldn’t treat mental health conditions any differently."

- Michelle Obama

"The advice I’d give to somebody that’s silently struggling is, you don’t have to live that way. You don’t have to struggle in silence. You can be un-silent."

- Demi Lovato

"You are not alone. You are seen. I am with you. You are not alone."

- Shonda Rhimes

"It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light."

- Aristotle

"Don’t let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace."

- 14th Dalai Lama

"It is not the bruises on the body that hurt. It is the wounds of the heart and the scars on the mind."

- Aisha Mirza

"I saw the future, I did, and in it, I was alive."

- Neil Hilborn

"The greatest strength lies in the gentleness and tenderness of our heart."

- Rumi

"The soul always knows what to do to heal itself. The challenge is to silence the mind."

- Caroline Myss

"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience."

- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

"There is no standard normal. Normal is subjective. There are seven billion versions of normal on this planet."

- Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive

"Our wounds are often the openings into the best and most beautiful part of us."

- David Richo

"Physical strength is measured by what we can carry; spiritual by what we can bear."

- Anonymous

"Not all battles are visible and neither are the victories."

- Brittany Burgunder

"The only bad workout is the one that didn’t happen."

- Anonymous

"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant."

- Robert Louis Stevenson

"Anyone can be affected, despite their level of success or their place on the food chain. In fact, there is a good chance you know someone who is struggling with it since nearly 20% of American adults face some form of mental illness in their lifetime. So why aren’t we talking about it?"

- Kristen Bell

"Mental health … is not a destination but a process. It’s about how you drive, not where you’re going."

- Noam Shpancer

"There isn’t anybody out there who doesn’t have a mental health issue, whether it’s depression, anxiety, or how to cope with relationships. Having OCD is not an embarrassment anymore – for me. Just know that there is help, and your life could be better if you go out and seek the help."

- Howie Mandel

"‘Positive vibes only’ isn’t a thing. Humans have a wide range of emotions and that’s OK."

- Molly Bahr, LMHC

"Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out."

- John Wooden

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

- Anne Lamott

"It’s not a mountain that you climb or a hurdle that you jump, it’s something that you live with in an ongoing way. People want that narrative of illness being in the past tense. But a lot of the time, it isn’t."

- John Green

"Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."

- John Wooden

"Change what you can, manage what you can’t."

- Raymond McCauley

"Sometimes the people around you won’t understand your journey. They don’t need to, it’s not for them."

- Joubert Botha

"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."

- Oscar Wilde

"I learned that my sadness never destroyed what was great about me. You just have to go back to that greatness, find that one little light that’s left. I’m lucky I found one little glimmer stored away."

- Lady Gaga

"The emotion that can break your heart is sometimes the very one that heals it."

- Nicholas Sparks

"Every day may not be good … but there’s something good in every day."

- Alice Morse Earle

"Out of difficulties grow miracles."

- Jean de La Bruyère

"Argue for your limitations and, sure enough, they’re yours."

- Richard Bach

"Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths."

- Etty Hillesum

"We all have mental health in the same way that we all have physical health. It’s okay to have depression, it’s okay to have anxiety, it’s okay to have an anxiety disorder."

- Prince Harry

"Look at you, love. Still here and hopeful after it all."

- Alex Elle

"No one will listen to us until we listen to ourselves."

- Marianne Williamson

"Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light."

- Helen Keller

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

- Nathaniel Branden

"Awareness is like the sun. When it shines on things, they are transformed."

- Thich Nhat Hanh

"Why fit in when you were born to stand out?"

- Dr. Seuss

"God will never give you anything you can’t handle, so don’t stress."

- Kelly Clarkson

"Strength is the ability to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands—and then eat just one of those pieces."

- Judith Viorst

"Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it isn’t so."

- Lemony Snicket

"It’s not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."

- Charles Darwin

"My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened."

- Michel de Montaigne

"The chief element of happiness is this: to want to be what you are."

- Desiderius Erasmus

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

"We acquire the strength we have overcome."

"The pain you feel today will be the strength you feel tomorrow."

"Strength grows in the moments when you think you can’t go on but you keep going anyway."

- Unknown

"OCD is not a life sentence. It is a challenge that, with time and effort, you can overcome."