Helpful encouraging quotes to lift your spirits and inspire you.
Encouraging quotes can provide comfort during trying times. They can also serve as a daily source of inspiration when life knocks you down. When shared with loved ones or even applied to yourself, something as simple as an encouraging quote may have the power to change life for the better.
A seemingly simple card, for instance, can give your loved ones the courage to keep going. A thoughtfully made letter may be able to offer much-needed inspiration. The right encouraging quote can make a world of difference and convey your message. Browse this collection of encouraging quotes to find the ones that best suit your needs.
Best encouraging quotes.
The best encouraging quotes stir people to action. Whether they’re trying to achieve a goal or facing a significant challenge, the right quote can brighten up someone’s day and give their spirit a much-needed lift.
You can often find these quotes in posters, banners, and cards, helping empower people with enduring and meaningful messages of encouragement. Pick from some of the best encouraging quotes below when you want to make a memorable and impactful statement.
Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.”
Winston Churchill
Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.”
Kahlil Gibran
We cannot solve problems with the kind of thinking we employed when we came up with them.”
Albert Einstein
When you change your thoughts, remember to also change your world.”
Norman Vincent Peale
It is only when we take chances that our lives improve. The initial and the most difficult risk we need to take is to become honest.”
Walter Anderson
Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On!’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
Calvin Coolidge
I cannot express how important it is to believe that taking one tiny—and possibly very uncomfortable—step at a time can ultimately add up to a great distance.”
Tig Notaro
Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.”
Walt Whitman
There are moments when troubles enter our lives, and we can do nothing to avoid them. But they are there for a reason. Only when we have overcome them will we understand why they were there.”
Paulo Coelho , The Fifth Mountain
“Thirty years ago, my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he’d had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said. ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’”
Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
As one of the best encouraging quotes out there, this reminds us that when we feel overwhelmed with a task or with life, it’s always best to take it one step at a time.
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Positive encouraging quotes.
Sometimes, what someone needs is a push in the right direction. Whether you want to evoke excitement, joy, or inspiration, these positive, encouraging quotes can lend the necessary guidance.
From realizing your dreams and the need for courage to creating change and tackling challenges, these quotes speak to anyone and everyone who’s ever dared to take a step forward in the right direction.
Don’t be too quick to draw conclusions from what happens to you; simply let it happen. Otherwise, it will be too easy for you to look with blame…at your past, which naturally has a share with everything that now meets you.”
Rainer Maria Rilke , Letters to a Young Poet
It’s worth remembering that it is often the small steps, not the giant leaps, that bring about the most lasting change.”
Queen Elizabeth II
This positive encouraging quote is a great way to encourage someone to continue making changes, even if they seem small, because, when compounded, these seemingly small efforts have the power to bring about an impactful result.
If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.”
Booker T. Washington
You are braver than you believe, you are stronger than you seem, and you are smarter than you think.”
Karl Geurs and Carter Crocker,
Pooh’s Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin
To bring about change, you must not be afraid to take the first step. We will fail when we fail to try.”
Rosa Parks
All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.”
Walt Disney
This Walt Disney quote serves as a reminder that each endeavor, whether big or small, takes courage—the courage to take the first step and the courage to persist in making our dreams come true.
The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”
Steve Jobs
Never let the things you can’t do stop you from doing what you can.”
Ronald Reagan
Instead of letting your hardships and failures discourage or exhaust you, let them inspire you. Let them make you even hungrier to succeed.”
Michelle Obama
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings.”
Henry David Thoreau , Walden
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Short encouraging quotes.
Short encouraging quotes may be, well, short, but their brevity serves to make them even more impactful. Aside from warming the heart, they do a great job at lifting one’s spirits.
Use these hand-picked encouraging quotes to make custom cards that convey reassurance, comfort, and inspiration. Want to spread cheer and positivity to your community? Incorporate these short, encouraging quotes into your personalized flyers to make an even bigger impact.
Do your thing and don’t care if they like it.”
Tina Fey , Bossypants
It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
E.E. Cummings
Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.”
Winston Churchill
Champions keep playing until they get it right.”
Billie Jean King
Believe you can, and you’re halfway there.”
Theodore Roosevelt
You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.”
Stephen King , On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.”
Babe Ruth
It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
Nelson Mandela
If you get tired, learn to rest, not to quit.”
Banksy
We all deal with our fair share of responsibilities and workloads. And sometimes, we get swamped. We get tired. This short, encouraging quote inspires us to never quit, even when it seems like quitting is the only option. Stepping away from something is crucial for realigning our perspectives and helps give us enough room to breathe.
Forever – is composed of Nows –…”
Emily Dickinson
Taken from Dickinson’s Poem 690, this quote shows a powerful truth that reminds us of the passage of time (forever) and how it’s made up of small moments in the present.
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Encouraging quotes about life.
Life is a rollercoaster that’s filled with ups and downs, and sometimes, when you’re having trouble navigating this complex landscape, encouraging quotes about life can make you smile. They even have the power to brighten up someone’s world and allow you to leave a lasting and positive impact.
Choose from any of these encouraging quotes about life and turn any multimedia project, from letters to collages, into a source of positivity.
If people are doubting how far you can go, go so far that you can’t hear them anymore.”
Michele Ruiz
Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Keep growing quietly and seriously throughout your whole development; you cannot disturb it more rudely than by looking outward and expecting from outside replies to questions that only your inmost feeling in your most hushed hour can perhaps answer.”
Rainer Maria Rilke , Letters to a Young Poet
Be courageous. Challenge orthodoxy. Stand up for what you believe in. When you are in your rocking chair talking to your grandchildren many years from now, be sure you have a good story to tell.”
Amal Clooney
We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
Joseph Campbell
If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”
Frances Hodgson Burnett , The Secret Garden
You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go…”
Dr. Seuss , Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
It’s life. You don’t figure it out. You just climb up on the beast and ride.”
Rebecca Wells,
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
Create the highest, grandest vision possible for your life because you become what you believe.”
Oprah Winfrey
This encouraging quote about life shows us that our thoughts have power. Depending on how we tend to think, we can either make our dreams a reality or remain stuck in whatever predicament we’re currently in.
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
Viktor E. Frankl , Man’s Search for Meaning
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Encouraging quotes for work.
Sometimes, work gets the best of us, even if it’s something that we’re passionate about. Encouraging quotes for work can inspire employees, add more substance to your mission statement, and set your company down the right path.
These hand-picked quotes teach us plenty of things, from the importance of fear to what it takes to be successful. Pick any quote from this collection and use it to inspire yourself or your colleagues through custom posters, banners, or cards.
Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you’re wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn’t love you anymore.”
Lady Gaga
Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.”
Dwayne Johnson
Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.”
Newt Gingrich
Dreams are lovely. But they are just dreams. Fleeting, ephemeral, pretty. But dreams do not come true just because you dream them. It’s hard work that makes things happen. It’s hard work that creates change.”
Shonda Rhimes
Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it, and eventually the confidence will follow.”
Carrie Fisher
Without ambition, one starts nothing. Without work, one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them.”
Madam C.J. Walker
The thing I remember best about successful people I’ve met all through the years is their obvious delight in what they’re doing, and it seems to have very little to do with worldly success. They just love what they’re doing, and they love it in front of others.”
Mister Rogers
Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.”
Truman Capote
Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit at home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”
Dale Carnegie
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Encouraging quotes for students.
Sharing an encouraging quote or two is a great way to help learners focus on their goals and stay motivated.
Whether it’s for you or all the learners in your life, these encouraging quotes for students are a great source of inspiration. Add a spark of positivity to the classroom, reignite the passion for learning, and remind learners about all the wonderful things they can do through custom posters and banners that showcase these encouraging quotes.
For the mind does not require filling like a bottle, but rather, like wood, it only requires kindling to create in it an impulse to think independently and an ardent desire for truth.”
Plutarch , On Listening
Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.”
Malcolm X
Teachers open the door, but you must walk through it yourself.”
Chinese proverb
This encouraging quote for students motivates us to be proactive in choosing to use the guidance we’ve received to actually go out and do something like facing our fears.
The wise are eager to learn, and they do not feel ashamed to ask for guidance from those below them.”
Confucius
You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
Maya Angelou
There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.”
Jiddu Krishnamurthi
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
Mahatma Gandhi
Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one’s self-esteem. That is why young children before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all.”
Thomas Szasz
“One learns from books and examples only that certain things can be done. Actual learning requires that you do those things.”
Frank Herbert , Children of Dune
One hour per day of study in your chosen field is all it takes. One hour per day of study will put you at the top of your field within three years. Within five years, you’ll be a national authority. In seven years, you can be one of the best people in the world at what you do.”
Earl Nightingale
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Encouraging quotes for friends.
Even our closest friends have their share of life’s ups and downs. What can you do to remind them that they’re not alone and that, despite setbacks, you value and appreciate them?
Sending them a thoughtfully made card or even a collage with encouraging quotes can help cheer them up and make a positive impact on their lives. Whether you want to empower a friend or remind them that they have a place in your heart, these encouraging quotes for friends can magically brighten up their day.
Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.”
Muhammad Ali
Life is partly what we make it, and partly what is made by the friends we choose.”
Tennessee Williams
Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”
Marcel Proust
The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.”
Elisabeth Foley
A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down.”
Arnold H. Glasgow
Close friends are truly life’s treasures. Sometimes, they know us better than we know ourselves. With gentle honesty, they are there to guide and support us, to share our laughter and our tears. Their presence reminds us that we are never really alone.”
Vincent van Gogh
And what is a friend? More than a father, more than a brother,” a traveling companion, with him, you can conquer the impossible, even if you must lose it later. Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession; friendship is never anything but sharing.”
Elie Wiesel
Ponder for a long time whether you shall admit a given person to your friendship, but when you have decided to admit him, welcome him with all your heart and soul. Speak as boldly with him as with yourself.”
Seneca , Letters from a Stoic
There are three things that grow more precious with age: old wood to burn, old books to read, and old friends to enjoy.”
Henry Ford
Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destinies. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it’s all over.”
Octavia Butler
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Encouraging spiritual quotes.
Encouraging spiritual quotes helps empower the reader. They’re also great for providing some guidance for someone who’s undergoing a spiritual journey.
Use these quotes to empower their beliefs and help set them on their path to spiritual discovery, no matter their belief system.
You can get a thousand no’s from people, and only one ‘yes’ from God.”
Tyler Perry
In dealing with those who are undergoing great suffering, if you feel ‘burnout’ setting in, if you feel demoralized and exhausted, it is best, for the sake of everyone, to withdraw and restore yourself. The point is to have a long-term perspective.”
The 14th Dalai Lama
Yes, you must live life beautifully and not allow the spirit of the world that makes gods out of power, riches, and pleasure to make you forget that you have been created for greater things.”
Mother Teresa
If you do a good job for others, you heal yourself at the same time because a dose of joy is a spiritual cure. It transcends all barriers.”
Ed Sullivan
When you consider things like the stars, our affairs don’t seem to matter very much, do they?”
Virginia Woolf
If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.”
Pema Chödrön
You can’t know, you can only believe – or not.”
C.S. Lewis
Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
This encouraging spiritual quote from Dr. King reminds us of the importance of love and the crucial role it plays in our lives. Adding this to a poster or a banner can help encourage your audience to be the light and find solutions rooted in love, not hate.
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”
Leo Buscaglia
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
The 14th Dalai Lama , The Art of Happiness
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Funny encouraging quotes.
Encouraging quotes don’t always have to be serious. As they say, “laughter is the best medicine,” and sometimes, funny quotes can work their magic and give someone a hilarious reason to persist.
Add these funny, encouraging quotes into a card or letter for your loved ones and picture getting a laugh out of them and making their day.
Write it. Shoot it. Publish it. Crochet it, sauté it, whatever. MAKE.”
Joss Whedon
Don’t let the muggles get you down.”
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
This encouraging quote reminds you that even if people try to bring you down, you shouldn’t be disheartened and, instead, be reminded that you have that fire (or magic) within you.
Thankfully, persistence is a great substitute for talent.”
Steve Martin , Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life
Whatever you do, always give 100%—unless you’re donating blood.”
Bill Murray
Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.”
Elbert Hubbard
The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”
Oscar Wilde
To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone, and a funny bone.”
Reba McEntire ,
Comfort from a Country Quilt: Finding New Inspiration and Strength in Old-Fashioned Values
Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow just as well.”
Mark Twain
Mark Twain is known for his wit and humor. This funny, encouraging quote is a great example of that. While taking a poke at procrastination, this quote actually tells us to do the opposite.
I didn’t fail the test, I just found 100 ways to do it wrong.”
Benjamin Franklin
Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia.”
Charles M. Schultz
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Best practices for using encouraging quotes.
Encouraging quotes can be a quick little pick-me-up for when you’re feeling down or uninspired. Here are some helpful tips to help you incorporate encouraging quotes more effectively, whether it’s for personal use or for a card or letter to a loved one:
- Use quotes that speak to you or resonate with the recipient. Assess the current situation to see which nuggets of wisdom give you or the recipient a motivational kick. If you find an encouraging quote that helps lift someone’s spirits, for example, share it with them through a beautifully made poster, card, or collage. You can even make a custom flyer to spread the positivity to more people.
- There are many ways to incorporate encouraging quotes into your daily life, from using them as affirmations and making them a part of your daily routine to creating posters or banners that you can hang up in your space. Make sure that you place these in a prominent location so that they’re easily visible. Alternatively, you can create a custom wallpaper featuring your favorite encouraging quote and use that for your desktop or mobile device.
- Double-check the quote’s original source. Quotes are often misattributed to other people. One famous example of this is the Winnie the Pooh quote (“You are braver than you believe…”) that’s been attributed to A.A. Milne. The quote made its first appearance in a Winnie the Pooh film, whose screenplay was written by Karl Geurs and Carter Crocker.
Tips for picking a great encouraging quote.
With the sheer number of encouraging quotes available online, finding the best one that fits your unique needs and circumstances can seem daunting. We’re sharing some actionable tips to help you in your search:
- Find quotes, whether they’re short encouraging quotes or funny encouraging quotes, that are memorable and meaningful for you or the recipient. Go for ones that are timeless or ones that can be used in multiple settings or situations.
- Sometimes, an encouraging quote simply encourages you, but it may not be the right fit if you’re looking for motivation or something that spurs you into action. What you choose will ultimately depend on factors like your intentions and the situation you’re in.
- Determine your goal. Do you want to do better at work? Do you want to stay motivated in school? This is a cliché, but knowing what you want to achieve with your choice of encouraging quotes can help you find the best or most appropriate one.
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