It’s something we rarely talk about. Or want to think about.

But it’s also an important part of life and there are many timeless words of wisdom about it that can help shift something deep inside of us.

So in today’s post I want to share 101 of the most thought provoking and powerful quotes about death.

I hope you’ll find something here to help you with the meaning of your own life, with grief when you have lost a loved one and simply to make a bit more sense of something that can be hard to understand.

Death Quotes That Will Make You Think Differently About Life

“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”
– Marcus Aurelius

“That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.”
– Emily Dickinson

“It is not length of life, but depth of life.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Whatever you want to do, do it now. There are only so many tomorrows.”
– Michael Landon

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
– Mark Twain

“Death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.”
– Steve Jobs

“We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.”
– Chuck Palahniuk

“Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.”
– Haruki Murakami

“A man with outward courage dares to die; a man with inner courage dares to live.”
– Lao Tzu

“People living deeply have no fear of death.”
– Anaïs Nin

“He who is not busy being born is busy dying.”
– Bob Dylan

“By becoming deeply aware of our mortality, we intensify our experience of every aspect of life.”
– Robert Greene

“Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.”
– William Saroyan

“Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.”
– Henry David Thoreau

“No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they’d die for.”
– Martin Luther King Jr.

“He who should teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live.”
– Montaigne

“I would rather die a meaningful death than to live a meaningless life.”
– Corazon Aquino

“Some people are so afraid to die that they never begin to live.”
– Henry Van Dyke

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.”
– Steve Jobs

“What is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying.”
– Albert Camus

“I’m the one that’s got to die when it’s time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to.”
– Jimi Hendrix

Short and Powerful Quotes About Death

“Death ends a life, not a relationship.”
– Mitch Albom

“I go to seek a Great Perhaps.”
– François Rabelais

“Death twitches my ear. ‘Live,’ he says. ‘I am coming.'”
– Virgil

“Death pays all debts.”
– William Shakespeare

“The meaning of life is that it stops.”
– Franz Kafka

“Unbeing dead isn’t being alive.”
– E. E. Cummings

“Life is hard. After all, it kills you.”
– Katharine Hepburn

“Death takes no bribes.”
– Benjamin Franklin

“The idea is to die young as late as possible.”
– Ashley Montagu

“Every exit is an entry somewhere else.”
– Tom Stoppard

“I shall not die of a cold. I shall die of having lived.”
– Willa Cather

“It is nothing to die. It is frightful not to live.”
– Victor Hugo

“Death makes equal the high and low.”
– John Heywood

“Come to terms with death. Thereafter anything is possible.”
– Albert Camus

“No art is possible without a dance with death.”
– Kurt Vonnegut

“Death is just infinity closing in.”
– Jorge Luis Borges

“Even death has a heart.”
– Markus Zusak

“Nothing can happen more beautiful than death.”
– Walt Whitman

“I don’t want to die without any scars.”
– Chuck Palahniuk

“The phoenix must burn to emerge.”
– Janet Fitch

Death Quotes That Will Help You With Loss

“Tell your friend that in his death, a part of you dies and goes with him. Wherever he goes, you also go. He will not be alone.”
– Jiddu Krishnamurti

“What we have once enjoyed deeply we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.”
– Helen Keller

“Death is a challenge. It tells us not to waste time. It tells us to tell each other right now that we love each other.”
– Leo Buscaglia

“It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things.”
– Lemony Snicket

“Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation.”
– Rumi

“Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.”
– George Eliot

“The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.”
– Harriet Beecher Stowe

“Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.”
– Arthur Schopenhauer

“We understand death for the first time when he puts his hand upon one whom we love.”
– Germaine de Staël

“That was the thing. You never got used to it, the idea of someone being gone. Just when you think it’s reconciled, accepted, someone points it out to you, and it just hits you all over again, that shocking.”
– Sarah Dessen

“If you gave someone your heart and they died, did they take it with them? Did you spend the rest of forever with a hole inside you that couldn’t be filled?”
– Jodi Picoult

“When he died, all things soft and beautiful and bright would be buried with him.”
– Madeline Miller

“They say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.”
– Banksy

“The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.”
– Cicero

“People die, I think, but your relationship with them doesn’t. It continues and is ever-changing.”
– Jandy Nelson

“There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”
– Thornton Wilder

“When people don’t express themselves, they die one piece at a time.”
– Laurie Halse Anderson

“Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.”
– Isaac Asimov

“Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.”
– Arthur Schopenhauer

“Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion to death.”
– Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

“They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies.”
– William Penn

Meaningful Quotes on Death That Hit Differently

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, ‘Wow! What a Ride!'”
– Hunter S. Thompson

“Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which cannot exist when I do?”
– Epicurus

“It is the fate – the genetic and neural fate – of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.”
– Oliver Sacks

“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”
– Mark Twain

“It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.”
– Samuel Johnson

“Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one’s head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forget life, to be at peace.”
– Oscar Wilde

“Rehearse death. To say this is to tell a man to rehearse his freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.”
– Seneca

“If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life – and only then will I be free to become myself.”
– Martin Heidegger

“No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away.”
– Terry Pratchett

“Death is nothing, but to live defeated is to die every day.”
– Napoleon Bonaparte

“The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there’s no risk of accident for someone who’s dead.”
– Albert Einstein

“For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.”
– Kahlil Gibran

“The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?”
– Edgar Allan Poe

“It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it’s called Life.”
– Terry Pratchett

“Death is the mother of Beauty; hence from her, alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams and our desires.”
– Wallace Stevens

“Man always thinks about the past before he dies, as if he were frantically searching for proof that he truly lived.”
– Jet Black

“Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.”
– Ernest Hemingway

“Death not merely ends life, it also bestows upon it a silent completeness, snatched from the hazardous flux to which all things human are subject.”
– Hannah Arendt

“The call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms of life and transformation.”
– Hermann Hesse

“Death is so genuine a fact that it excludes falsehoods, or betrays its emptiness; it is a touchstone that proves the gold, and dishonors the baser metal.”
– Nathaniel Hawthorne

Death Quotes That Will Give You Relief and Help You Heal

“Those who learned to know death, rather than to fear and fight it, become our teachers about life.”
– Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

“Joy at the smallest things comes to you only when you have accepted death. To be, and to enjoy your being, you need death, and limitation enables you to fulfill your being.”
– Carl Jung

“Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.”
– Rabindranath Tagore

“The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.”
– Thornton Wilder

“Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.”
– C. S. Lewis

“There is no death. Only a change of worlds.”
– Chief Seattle

“Die happily and look forward to taking up a new and better form. Like the sun, only when you set in the west can you rise in the east.”
– Rumi

“As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well used brings happy death.”
– Leonardo da Vinci

“Let life be beautiful like summer flowers and death like autumn leaves.”
– Rabindranath Tagore

“I discovered to my joy, that it is life, not death, that has no limits.”
– Gabriel García Márquez

“Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there’s a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.”
– Helen Keller

“You’ll drift apart, it’s true, but you’ll be out in the open, part of everything alive again.”
– Philip Pullman

“To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.”
– J.K. Rowling

“Death is our friend precisely because it brings us into absolute and passionate presence with all that is here, that is natural, that is love.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke

“Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you’re alive, it isn’t.”
– Richard Bach

“Death is nothing else but going home to God, the bond of love will be unbroken for all eternity.”
– Mother Teresa

“Endings are not always bad. Most times they’re just beginnings in disguise.”
– Kim Harrison

“Death never takes the wise man by surprise, he is always ready to go.”
– Jean de La Fontaine

“Neither fire nor wind, birth nor death can erase our good deeds.”
– Buddha

Want more timeless and thought provoking inspiration? Then have a look at these best words of wisdom ever, the quotes about reading here and also this one with deep and meaningful quotes about life.

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

“If you want happiness for an hour — take a nap.’
If you want happiness for a day — go fishing.
If you want happiness for a year — inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime — help someone else.”
Chinese Proverb

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.”
Helen Keller

Happiness must not always come from big things and events. It can come from smaller, daily habits too.

So today I’d simply like to share 3 quick tips and habits that help me to live a happier life.

1. Start by setting a low bar for happiness.

When you wake up in the morning tell yourself: “Set a low bar for happiness today.”

When I tell myself this and try to keep it in mind during the day I appreciate things more.

The food, my work, the weather, the small events of the day becomes not everyday stuff but something I feel happy to have.

The small things or what may be something one takes for granted becomes something I now often pause for a moment or two to take in and appreciate.

But if I become happier in my everyday life for the smaller things does that mean that I become unmotivated to keep working towards the bigger things?

Not in my experience.

This way of looking at my life instead fuels me with more energy and inspiration, life becomes lighter and I feel less inner resistance as I explore and work towards both small and bigger things.

I recommend to give this one a try and to see how it works for you.

And to use a reminder on your phone or on paper so you’ll more easily keep that low bar at the forefront of your mind.

2. Help someone out.

Helping someone out is one of simplest but also one of the most powerful things one can do to live a happy life.

How can you help someone out? By giving them value in some form.

Here are a handful of ideas for how to do that.

Offering some practical help.

With for example work, moving houses or cooking dinner.

Giving some good advice.

People may not always want advice but if they ask then give your best advice based on your experience.

Hugs.

The comfort of one hug or more can make the other person’s situation at least a bit better.

Encourage someone.

There is much discouragement in the world. So instead, be an exception and encourage people to believe in themselves and what they want to do.

Just listen.

Sometimes people don’t want any help. They just want to vent or for someone to listen as they figure things out and release pent up emotions.

It may not seem like much but it can be an immense help for someone who needs it. So be there fully – don’t sit there thinking about something else – and listen.

Put things into perspective.

It’s easy to get wrapped up in a problem and to make a mountain out of a molehill. But you can help out by adding your perspective.

The two of you can talk about it, perhaps laugh about it and even find the hidden opportunity within the problem that in one person’s head may have almost seemed like the sky was falling.

And remember to pat yourself on the back and appreciate yourself for helping someone out. Do not brush it off or make it smaller than it is.

Pause and take a moment to quietly reflect on how you did something good.

3. Be kind to yourself.

Being kind to yourself is a very helpful thing for healthy self-esteem and for living a happier life.

There are of course many ways to be kinder to yourself, but here are three good ones that I’ve found to be powerful.

Change your input to things that are kind and constructive.

Destructive messages from the people around you or from people further away such as media, advertising and society in general does not help you to be kind to yourself.

So, bit by bit, replace them with other daily and weekly input.

It could be the encouragement of friends and family and the help from someone close who has been in a situation that you are in now.

It could be practical personal development books and blogs that help you out with real solutions to the challenges you face and the goals you want to achieve.

Or it could be to spend more time in nature and in silence to relax and recharge yourself.

Compare yourself to yourself.

Comparing what you have and your results to what other people have and have accomplished can really kill your motivation and keep your self-esteem at a low level.

There are always people ahead of you.

So focus on you.

On what you have accomplished. And on how you can and have improved your results.

This is important because it’s a great motivator to see how much you have improved and how far you have come.

Give yourself a break.

I sometimes hear that you should always be positive or always be winning or working towards your goal. That may sound inspirational in theory.

But reality is not ideal or perfect and neither are you and I.

Life gets in the way sometimes. You may get in your own way. And sometimes you simply don’t have the energy or the courage or the time to do something.

And that’s OK.

Instead of trying to live up to some perfect image that other people and/or you may press upon you, choose to set human standards for yourself.

Choose to give yourself a break when things don’t go as you may have wished and choose to cut yourself some slack.

Just getting lost in a good book on a Sunday afternoon is one of the best simple pleasures in life.

So in today’s post I want to focus on that and share 105 of the most powerful, inspirational and thought-provoking quotes about reading.

I hope you’ll find something here that will inspire you to pick up your next great read and that you can share with fellow booklovers in your life.

Powerful and Famous Quotes About Reading

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”
– George R.R. Martin

“Books are the mirrors of the soul.”
– Virginia Woolf

“The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest people of the past centuries.”
– René Descartes

“The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.”
– Mark Twain

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”
– James Baldwin

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
– Cicero

“There is no friend as loyal as a book.”
– Ernest Hemingway

“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”
– Harper Lee

“There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island.”
– Walt Disney

“To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.”
– Victor Hugo

“Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.”
– Francis Bacon

“My alma mater was books, a good library. I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.”
– Malcolm X

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
– Haruki Murakami

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”
– Frederick Douglass

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
– Jorge Luis Borges

“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.”
– Oscar Wilde

“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”
– Benjamin Franklin

“A well-read woman is a dangerous creature.”
– Lisa Kleypas

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”
– Jane Austen

“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”
– Joseph Brodsky

Inspirational Quotes About Reading That Will Make You Think

“Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.”
– Mason Cooley

“Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know.”
– Alberto Manguel

“Reading was my escape and my comfort, my consolation, my stimulant of choice: reading for the pure pleasure of it, for the beautiful stillness that surrounds you when you hear an author’s words reverberating in your head.”
– Paul Auster

“One of the many gifts that books give readers is a connection to each other. When we share an affection for a writer, an author, or a story, we also have a better understanding of people unlike ourselves. Books cultivate empathy.”
– Sarah Jessica Parker

“That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.”
– Anna Quindlen

“Whenever you read a good book, somewhere in the world a door opens to allow in more light.”
– Vera Nazarian

“We read to know we are not alone.”
– C.S. Lewis

“Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul.”
– Joyce Carol Oates

“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.”
– Oscar Wilde

“Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it’s a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it’s a way of making contact with someone else’s imagination after a day that’s all too real.”
– Nora Ephron

“Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled ‘This could change your life.'”
– Helen Exley

“In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.”
– Mortimer J. Adler

“No one ever reads a book. He reads himself through books, either to discover or to control himself.”
– Romain Rolland

“A word after a word after a word is power.”
– Margaret Atwood

“Reading is that fruitful miracle of a communication in the midst of solitude.”
– Marcel Proust

“Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.”
– Carl Sagan

“Everything in the world exists in order to end up as a book.”
– Stéphane Mallarmé

“I’ve always thought that a good book should be either the entry point inward, to learn about yourself, or a door outward, to open you up to new worlds.”
– Taylor Jenkins Reid

“Books are a form of political action. Books are knowledge. Books are reflection. Books change your mind.”
– Toni Morrison

“Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.”
– John Locke

Quotes About the Importance of Reading Books

“Many times the reading of a book has made the future of a man.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
– Nelson Mandela

“The quality of your thoughts is determined by the quality of your reading.”
– James Clear

“Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.”
– Barbara W. Tuchman

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”
– Charles W. Eliot

“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.”
– Joseph Addison

“No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.”
– Confucius

“I have challenged myself that I will read thousands of books and I will empower myself with knowledge. Pens and books are the weapons that defeat terrorism.”
– Malala Yousafzai

“Reading is an act of civilization; it’s one of the greatest acts of civilization because it takes the free raw material of the mind and builds castles of possibilities.”
– Ben Okri

“What I love most about reading: It gives you the ability to reach higher ground. And keep climbing.”
– Oprah

“If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“You will learn most things by looking, but reading gives understanding. Reading will make you free.”
– Paul Rand

“The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt

“I’m reading so much and exposing myself to so many new ideas. It almost feels like the chemistry and the structure of my brain is changing so rapidly sometimes.”
– Emma Watson

“Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people — people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.”
– E.B. White

“I can feel infinitely alive curled up on the sofa reading a book.”
– Benedict Cumberbatch

“In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn’t read all the time – none, zero.”
– Charlie Munger

“Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.”
– Albert Einstein

“To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.”
– W. Somerset Maugham

“I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“All of the smartest people I’ve met, regardless of where they received their formal education, were mostly self-taught, incredibly curious, and voracious readers.”
– Jim O’Shaughnessy

Quotes About Reading for Kids

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
– Dr. Seuss

“I wouldn’t be a songwriter if it wasn’t for books that I loved as a kid. I think that when you can escape into a book it trains your imagination to think big and to think that more can exist than what you see.”
– Taylor Swift

“A childhood without books – that would be no childhood. That would be like being shut out from the enchanted place where you can go and find the rarest kind of joy.”
– Astrid Lindgren

“Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.”
– Margaret Fuller

“There are many little ways to enlarge your child’s world. Love of books is the best of all.”
– Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

“Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey.”
– G.K. Chesterton

“Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world.”
– Napoléon Bonaparte

“Reading is the gateway skill that makes all other learning possible.”
– Barack Obama

“I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn’t be daunting, they should be funny, exciting, and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage.”
– Roald Dahl

“Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.”
– Maya Angelou

“Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.”
– Harry Truman

“Let children read whatever they want and then talk about it with them.”
– Judy Blume

“A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest.”
– C.S. Lewis

“If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.”
– Maya Angelou

“A child who carries a book with a bookmark in it is in two places at the same time.”
– Tony Abbott

“Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself.”
– George Bernard Shaw

“Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.”
– Emilie Buchwald

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”
– Madeleine L’Engle

“Reading should not be presented to children as a chore, a duty. It should be offered as a gift.”
– Kate DiCamillo

“These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone.”
– Roald Dahl

“A child with a library card holds a lot of power over her life and her future.”
– Joy Stevens

“Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.”
– Malcolm X

Short Quotes About Reading

“No two persons ever read the same book.”
– Edmund Wilson

“A good book has no ending.”
– R.D. Cumming

“A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.”
– Samuel Johnson

“Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.”
– Carlos Ruiz Zafón

“A book is a gift you can open again and again.”
– Garrison Keillor

“Think before you speak. Read before you think.”
– Fran Lebowitz

“Some books are so familiar that reading them is like being home again.”
– Louisa May Alcott

“If a book is well written, I always find it too short.”
– Jane Austen

“I guess there are never enough books.”
– John Steinbeck

“Literature is my utopia.”
– Helen Keller

“If you don’t like to read, you haven’t found the right book.”
– J.K. Rowling

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
– C.S. Lewis

“Reading is a discount ticket to everywhere.”
– Mary Schmich

“I read for pleasure and that is the moment I learn the most.”
– Margaret Atwood

“A good book is an event in my life.”
– Stendhal

“Reading one book is like eating one potato chip.”
– Diane Duane

“A half-read book is a half-finished love affair.”
– David Mitchell

“No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting.”
– Lady M.W. Montagu

“Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens as well.”
– Mark Haddon

“I can survive well enough on my own – if given the proper reading material.”
– Sarah J. Maas

“Books and doors are the same thing. You open them, and you go through into another world.”
– Jeanette Winterson

Want more inspiration and thought-provoking sayings? Then have a look at these deep and powerful quotes, this one with quotes that hit hard and also this post with the best words of wisdom ever about life.

And of those inexplicable decisions your partner makes about what they want to eat or how to best load the dishwasher.

Today – about a week from my own 11th wedding day – I want to celebrate that by sharing 101 of the most relatable, witty and funny marriage quotes.

I hope you’ll find something that will make you and partner laugh and will give friends and family some good ideas to use for a wedding toast or an anniversary card.

Funny Marriage Quotes That Will Make You Laugh

“I love being married. It’s so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.”
– Rita Rudner

“Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.”
– Benjamin Franklin

“Marrying a man is like buying something you’ve been admiring for a long time in a shop window. You may love it when you get it home, but it doesn’t always go with everything else in the house.”
– Jean Kerr

“Only married people can understand how you can be miserable and happy at the same time.”
– Chris Rock

“Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an institution?”
– Groucho Marx

“Marriage is like a game of chess, except the board is flowing water, the pieces are made of smoke and no move you make will have any effect on the outcome.”
– Jerry Seinfeld

“Getting married is like trading the adoration of many for the sarcasm of one.”
– Mae West

“By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.”
– Socrates

“One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.”
– Oscar Wilde

“Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory.”
– Abraham Lincoln

“There’s only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn what it is I’ll get married again.”
– Clint Eastwood

“My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.”
– Winston Churchill

“The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret.”
– Henny Youngman

“Before you marry a person, you should first make them use a computer with slow internet to see who they really are.”
– Will Ferrell

“When a man opens a car door for his wife, it’s either a new car or a new wife.”
– Prince Philip

“It’s tough to stay married. My wife kisses the dog on the lips, yet she won’t drink from my glass.”
– Rodney Dangerfield

“If love means never having to say you’re sorry, then marriage means always having to say everything twice.”
– Estelle Getty

“I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.”
– Groucho Marx

“All my friends are getting married. I guess I’m just at that age where people give up.”
– Amy Schumer

“Marriage, n: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.”
– Ambrose Bierce

“The trouble with some women is that they get all excited about nothing – and then marry him.”
– Cher

Short and Funny Marriage Quotes and Sayings

“Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing.”
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Marriage is like a phone call in the night: first the ring, and then you wake up.”
– Evelyn Hendrickson

“We were married for better or worse. I couldn’t have done better and she couldn’t have done worse.”
– Henny Youngman

“Marriage: A word which should be pronounced ‘mirage’.”
– Herbert Spencer

“Marriage: sometimes soulmates, sometimes cellmates.”
– Rory Elder

“A man is incomplete until he is married. After that, he is finished.”
– Zsa Zsa Gabor

“Love is blind; marriage is the eye-opener.”
– Pauline Thomason

“Marriage is a blast. Like a bomb.”
– Julieanne O’Connor

“A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.”
– Michel de Montaigne

“Marriage should be a duet – when one sings, the other claps.”
– Joe Murray

“All marriages are happy. It’s the living together afterward that causes all the trouble.”
– Raymond Hull

“Marriage is nature’s way of keeping us from fighting with strangers.”
– Alan King

“All men make mistakes, but married men find out about them sooner.”
– Red Skelton

“A man doesn’t know what happiness is until he’s married. By then it’s too late.”
– Frank Sinatra

“A good wife always forgives her husband when she’s wrong.”
– Milton Berle

“When you’re in love, it’s the most glorious two-and-a-half days of your life.”
– Richard Lewis

“Marriage is good for those who are afraid to sleep alone at night.”
– St. Jerome

“If love is the answer, could you rephrase the question?”
– Lily Tomlin

“Marriage is grand – and divorce? Well, it’s around twenty grand.”
– Jay Leno

“Who won in life? Me. Because I got to marry you.”
– Chip Gaines

“Marriage is like a bank account. You put it in, you take it out, you lose interest.”
– Irwin Corey

Relatable and Funny Marriage Quotes for Cards and Celebrations

“I married for love but the obvious side benefit of having someone around to find my glasses cannot be ignored.”
– Cameron Esposito

“My wife, Mary, and I have been married for forty-seven years, and not once have we had an argument serious enough to consider divorce. Murder, yes, but divorce, never.”
– Jack Benny

“We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness – and call it love – true love.”
– Robert Fulghum

“When you see a married couple walking down the street, the one that’s a few steps ahead is the one that’s mad.”
– Helen Rowland

“To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the loving cup, whenever you’re wrong, admit it; whenever you’re right, shut up.”
– Ogden Nash

“Women marry men hoping they will change. Men marry women hoping they will not.”
– Albert Einstein

“For marriage to be a success, every woman and every man should have her and his own bathroom. The end.”
– Catherine Zeta-Jones

“Behind every great man, there is a woman rolling her eyes.”
– Jim Carrey

“Whatever you may look like, marry a man your own age – as your beauty fades, so will his eyesight.”
– Phyllis Diller

“Husband secretly lowers the thermostat and I secretly turn it back up. We both vehemently deny touching it. Marriage is fun.”
– Stephanie Ortiz

“You know there is a name for people who are always wrong about everything all the time: Husband!”
– Bill Maher

“Just found out the wife is writing a book about our honeymoon, called Fifty Shades of Just Okay.”
– Conan O’Brien

“I’m so conflicted when my husband does the laundry. On one hand, he did the laundry. On the other, my clothes can now be sold at Gap Kids.”
– Molly McNearney

“My wife had us register for fine china. Because you never know when the Pope is going to swing by and want a microwaved hot dog on a $200 plate.”
– Jim Gaffigan

“When you first get married, they open the car door for you. Eighteen years now… once he opened the car door for me in the last four years – we were on the freeway at the time.”
– Joan Rivers

“My wife is really sentimental. One Valentine’s Day, I gave her a ring and to this day she has never forgotten those three little words that were engraved inside: Made in Taiwan.”
– Leopold Fechtner

“I’d like to publicly thank my husband for changing half the diapers in our house. I hope he changes all of mine one day.”
– Kristen Bell

“I am a very committed wife. And I should be committed, too – for being married so many times.”
– Elizabeth Taylor

“What’s the best way to get your husband to remember your anniversary? Get married on his birthday.”
– Cindy Garner

“We always hold hands. If I let go, she shops.”
– Henny Youngman

“I’m going to get married again because I’m more mature now, and I need some kitchen stuff.”
– Wendy Liebman

Funny Marriage Quotes for Newlyweds

“I’m married to a very unusual person, but maybe it took a very unusual person to be willing to marry me.”
– Fiona Shaw

“Obviously, if I was serious about having a relationship with someone long-term, the last people I would introduce him to would be my family.”
– Chelsea Handler

“Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should just live next door and visit now and then.”
– Katharine Hepburn

“My wife didn’t take my name, which isn’t weird, but what’s weird is when people think it’s weird, like we’re on a first-name basis anyway.”
– Mark Agee

“We have a couple of rules in our relationship. The first rule is that I make her feel like she’s getting everything. The second rule is that I actually do let her have her way in everything. And, so far, it’s working.”
– Justin Timberlake

“I have learned that only two things are necessary to keep one’s wife happy. First, let her think she’s having her own way. And second, let her have it.”
– Lyndon B. Johnson

“Always get married in the morning. That way if it doesn’t work out, you haven’t wasted the whole day.”
– Mickey Rooney

“Marriage is an attempt to solve problems together which you didn’t even have when you were on your own.”
– Eddie Cantor

“Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who can’t sleep with the window shut, and a woman who can’t sleep with the window open.”
– George Bernard Shaw

“Marriage is really tough because you have to deal with feelings… and lawyers.”
– Richard Pryor

“Marriage is give and take. You’d better give it to her or she’ll take it anyway.”
– Joey Adams

“Never ever discount the idea of marriage. Sure, someone might tell you that marriage is just a piece of paper. Well, so is money, and what’s more life-affirming than cold, hard cash?”
– Dennis Miller

“The two most important words in marriage for me are ‘yes, dear.'”
– Eric Close

“I can’t make you love me, but I can fill my pantry with your favorite snacks and offer you a weekly stipend of $75.”
– Rob Delaney

“Music played at weddings always reminds me of the music played for soldiers before they go into battle.”
– Heinrich Heine

“Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.”
– Gilbert K. Chesterton

“One of the keys to a successful marriage is separate bathrooms. When he enters my bathroom sometimes, I’m like, ‘Why are you in here?’ And he’s like, ‘I live here. Can I enjoy my bathroom too?'”
– Michelle Obama

“A bride at her second marriage does not wear a veil. She wants to see what she is getting.”
– Helen Rowland

Hilarious Marriage Quotes on Love That Lasts

“I love you no matter what you do, but do you have to do so much of it?”
– Jean Illsley Clarke

“Never feel remorse for what you have thought about your wife; she has thought much worse things about you.”
– Jean Rostand

“We got married: society’s solution to loneliness, lust and laundry.”
– George Cockcroft

“A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short.”
– André Maurois

“Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music, and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays.”
– Henny Youngman

“In every good marriage, it pays sometimes to be a little deaf.”
– Ruth Bader Ginsburg

“A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.”
– Terry Pratchett

“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times – always with the same person.”
– Mignon McLaughlin

“Remember that creating a successful marriage is like farming: you have to start over again every morning.”
– H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

“Marriage is the bond between a person who never remembers anniversaries and another who never forgets them.”
– Ogden Nash

“The best way to get most husbands to do something is to suggest that perhaps they’re too old to do it.”
– Anne Bancroft

“Marriage is not just spiritual communion, it is also remembering to take out the trash.”
– Dr. Joyce Brothers

“After about 15 years I finally figured out that she’s always right. So surprisingly we just stopped fighting after that.”
– Barack Obama

“Being a good husband is like being a standup comic. You need 10 years before you can call yourself a beginner.”
– Jerry Seinfeld

“Sometimes, marriage seems to be just texting each other ‘what do you want for dinner?’ back and forth until one of you dies.”
– Sarah Kelly

“I was ready to get married nine years before my wife was. It was only later I realized that she was using all those years to train me. And that’s why I know she will never leave me. She doesn’t have that kind of time to train somebody else.”
– Steve Skrovan

“My wife is a psychologist… Not only does she know when I’m being a jerk, but she knows exactly what type of jerk I’m being.”
– Lee Judge

“Make sure you have date night even if it’s once in a blue moon because most of the time you’re just too tired and you’d actually prefer to sleep.”
– Chris Hemsworth

“An archeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets, the more interested he is in her.”
– Agatha Christie

“Marriage has no guarantees. If that’s what you’re looking for, go live with a car battery.”
– Erma Bombeck

Want more laughs and inspiration about love? Then check out these funny wedding quotes, the hilarious love quotes here and also this one with short love quotes.

When life gets tough, overwhelming or just feels too uncertain then one thing that helps me to calm down and find a way forward is the words of wisdom from the people who walked this Earth before us (and some from people who are still here).

So in today’s post I thought I’d share my favorites.

These are the 101 best words of wisdom ever about life, happiness and about what our years on this planet is all about.

I hope you’ll find something uplifting and helpful here for yourself and the people in your life that may need a positive boost too.

The Best Words of Wisdom Ever About Life

“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”
– Abraham Lincoln

“For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.”
– George Bernard Shaw

“In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.”
– Buddha

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
– Rumi

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
– Socrates

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”
– Mark Twain

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
– Aristotle

“We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.”
– Marcel Proust

“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”
– Albert Einstein

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”
– Steve Jobs

“Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.”
– Viktor Frankl

“Real wisdom is not the knowledge of everything, but the knowledge of which things in life are necessary, which are less necessary, and which are completely unnecessary to know.”
– Leo Tolstoy

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
– George Bernard Shaw

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
– Aristotle

“He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.”
– Marcus Aurelius

“A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.”
– David Elton Trueblood

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”
– Confucius

“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.”
– Mahatma Gandhi

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.”
– Helen Keller

The Best Words of Wisdom About Life That Hit Hard

“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.”
– Seneca

“Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.”
– Lou Holtz

“Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt

“A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
– William Shakespeare

“The past is behind, learn from it. The future is ahead, prepare for it. The present is here, live it.”
– Thomas S. Monson

“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”
– Leo Tolstoy

“How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.”
– Wayne Dyer

“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
– Martin Luther King Jr.

“A man is but a product of his thoughts. What he thinks he becomes.”
– Mahatma Gandhi

“We will be known forever by the tracks we leave.”
– Dakota (Native American saying)

“It all begins and ends in your mind. What you give power to, has power over you, if you allow it.”
– Leon Brown

“The day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit.”
– Paulo Coelho

“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”
– John F. Kennedy

“Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.”
– Plato

“We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.”
– Winston Churchill

“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”
– Isaac Asimov

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
– Carl Jung

“There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche

“It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.”
– Seneca

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
– Winston Churchill

The Funniest Words of Wisdom About Life

“Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.”
– Elbert Hubbard

“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.”
– Dalai Lama

“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”
– Mark Twain

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
– Mae West

“Before you marry a person, you should first make them use a computer with slow Internet to see who they really are.”
– Will Ferrell

“Knowledge is like underwear. It is useful to have it, but not necessary to show it off.”
– Bill Murray

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”
– Abraham Lincoln

“A day without laughter is a day wasted.”
– Charlie Chaplin

“The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs, one step at a time.”
– Joe Girard

“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.”
– Theodore Roosevelt

“My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She’s ninety-seven now, and we don’t know where the hell she is.”
– Ellen DeGeneres

“I have noticed that even people who claim everything is predetermined and that we can do nothing to change it look before they cross the road.”
– Stephen Hawking

“Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.”
– Miles Kington

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”
– Zig Ziglar

“I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.”
– Lily Tomlin

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
– Thomas A. Edison

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”
– Albert Einstein

“When I hear somebody sigh, ‘Life is hard,’ I am always tempted to ask, ‘Compared to what?'”
– Sydney J. Harris

“Never follow anyone else’s path. Unless you’re in the woods and you’re lost and you see a path. Then by all means follow that path.”
– Ellen DeGeneres

“Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom.”
– Terry Pratchett

The Best Short Words of Wisdom

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”
– Henry David Thoreau

“To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.”
– Bertrand Russell

“Turn your wounds into wisdom.”
– Oprah Winfrey

“Don’t gain the world and lose your soul; wisdom is better than silver or gold.”
– Bob Marley

“Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.”
– Jimi Hendrix

“Patience is the companion of wisdom.”
– Saint Augustine

“Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.”
– Lao Tzu

“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”
– Marcus Aurelius

“Wisdom begins in wonder.”
– Socrates

“The greatest wealth is to live content with little.”
– Plato

“Cleverness is not wisdom.”
– Euripides

“Wisdom is knowing when to end.”
– Robert Greene

“Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.”
– Immanuel Kant

“Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.”
– Francis Bacon

“No man was ever wise by chance.”
– Seneca

“Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.”
– Theodore Isaac Rubin

“A loving heart is the truest wisdom.”
– Charles Dickens

“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.”
– Lord Alfred Tennyson

“The truest wisdom is a resolute determination.”
– Napoleon Bonaparte

“Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.”
– Sophocles

The Best Words of Wisdom About Living a Happy Life

“Happiness is not something readymade. It comes from your own actions.”
– Dalai Lama

“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.”
– John Muir

“Happiness and freedom begin with one principle. Some things are within your control and some are not.”
– Epictetus

“Be happy. It’s one way of being wise.”
– Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

“The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.”
– Michel de Montaigne

“The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“All change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end.”
– Robin Sharma

“The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.”
– Paulo Coelho

“What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?”
– Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“It’s better to be alone than to spend time with toxic people. It’s better to do nothing than to work on something that doesn’t matter. It’s better to rest than to climb the wrong mountain.”
– James Clear

“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”
– Aristotle

“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”
– Winston Churchill

“If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress.”
– Barack Obama

“Seek the wisdom of the ages, but look at the world through the eyes of a child.”
– Ron Wild

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”
– Andre Gide

“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
– Mark Twain

“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.”
– Denis Waitley

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
– Albert Einstein

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.”
– Helen Keller

“Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Want more timeless inspiration and words of wisdom? Then have a look at these positive quotes about life, the 10 fundamentals of happiness from Seneca and also these 7 pearls of wisdom from Epictetus.

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

“You have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.”
Louise L. Hay

It’s so easy be dragged down by your own thoughts.

So easy to not feel like “I’m not good enough”.

Not good enough to maybe to go for the job or promotion you want. Or out on a date with that person you’d really like to get to know better.

Or even as you do your best you may feel like it’s still not good enough. And so you feel that you’re not good enough either.

Such thoughts combined with the pressures and stress of today’s world can quickly start tearing your confidence in yourself and your self-esteem to pieces.

I think most of us have been in that situation.

I’ve been there many times. And let those thoughts hold me down and back from what I wanted.

But I’ve also ­– over the years – learned quite a few things that help me to prevent those thoughts from popping up in the first place. And to handle them when they do come running towards me.

1. You don’t have listen to your inner critic (you can shut it down).

When I was younger then I didn’t know I had an inner critic. A voice inside of me that would tell me that I was lazy, that my plan wouldn’t work and that I could have done an even better job.

The inner critic could sometimes motivate me to work smarter and do better. But most often it just tore me down.

I also didn’t know that you don’t have to listen to everything your mind is telling you. That you can actually talk back to that inner critic in your head.

But when it pipes up nowadays I know what works best for me is to – in my mind – shout:

Stop!

Or: No, no, no… we’re not going down that path again!

And the quicker I do that after the critic starts babbling the easier it will be to shut it down.

2. Find the exception to open up your mind again.

When you’re lost in a snowball of thoughts of how you’re not good enough then it can be tough to change your headspace to a more positive one once again.

You may think to yourself you’re not doing a good job at all in school. Or that your dating life sucks.

When I get lost in such thoughts I like to ask myself:

What’s one small exception to that though?

When I, for example, asked myself this one during my school years I’d remember that I was actually doing well in English class. Or, later on, that I had some nice dates with that one person 5 months ago.

And that small exception opened up my mind to more rays of optimistic light.

To finding more positive things that were actually in my life and that I had done or was doing at the time.

3. Make a list and then take a few minutes to soak in your positive memories.

Take out a pen and a piece of paper. Or a blank memo note on your smart phone.

And simply think back. To times and situations when you felt good enough.

Or to times when you may not have felt quite good enough at first but still took action and did well or even better than you had expected.

Write a few such memories down. And then when you feel uncertain or your confidence drops in some situation then pull out that note and soak in those memories for a few minutes to change your outlook.

4. Stop getting stuck in the comparison trap.

When you all too often compare yourself to others, to what they have and what they’ve done then you’re getting yourself stuck in the comparison trap.

This destructive habit tends to feed that feeling of not being good enough.

Because this habitual comparing is not a game you can win.

There will always be someone that’s better than you or that has more or has achieved more. Somewhere out there in your neighborhood, country or the world.

I’ve found that a much better alternative for me has been to compare myself to myself. To see how far I’ve come and what I’ve overcome.

Making that a habit and only occasionally checking out what other people are doing also makes it easier to not be envious but to be happy for their successes.

5. What people share online is usually a high-light reel.

In the past you had to sit down and think about what friends and acquaintances may have had. Or perhaps turn on the TV to see how someone famous lived.

Nowadays it’s often right there as soon as you pick up your smart phone or sit down in front of your laptop.

It’s harder to avoid the comparison trap these days then it was 10 or 15 years ago.

But one thing I try to keep in mind and that really helps when it comes to social media is this:

What people are sharing is a high-light reel of their lives.

Nothing wrong with that. But if you think that’s how their lives look all the time then you’re likely fooling yourself and making yourself feel worse without any real reason.

Because they usually share just the happiest, most fun and exciting moments of their lives. But no matter who they are everyone will still have bad days, get a knock-out flu, eat some food they shouldn’t have and they’ll have their own worries.

So don’t fall into the trap of comparing your low-points or everyday life with someone else’s high-light reel.

6. You may not want to check social media more than once a day.

I find that I can quite easily revert back into the comparison trap and into starting to feel like I’m not good enough if I check social media too often or spend too much time there.

Checking it quickly just once a day is enough for me and it keeps my focus and thoughts in the right place.

7. You can always start small with a right thing string to change how you feel.

One thing I like to do in the morning or when I’m not feeling too good about myself and that helps me to keep my self-esteem stable is what I like to call a right thing string.

Here’s what you do:

Do something that you deep down think is the right thing. Do it right now…

• Give a genuine compliment to someone at school, work or in your life.
• Take 3 minutes to unclutter your workspace.
• Or help someone out with a bit of information that they’re looking for.

Then add another thing that you think is the right thing to do.

Have a banana instead of candy or potato chips. When you feel like judging someone on social media or on TV then try to find a kinder and more understanding point of view.

Then add another thing. And another.

Build a small string of doing the right things during, for example, 10-30 minutes.

When you’ve added a right thing to your string – no matter how small it may be – make sure to take just a couple of seconds to pause and to appreciate the good thing you did.

I often think one of these things to myself:

• Excellent!
• Well done!
• That was fun!

Building a string like this makes you feel good about yourself again, it will over time raise your self-esteem and help to keep it stable and it’s simply a good and fun way to put yourself into a better headspace again.

8. Celebrate all wins.

Not only the big ones. Because then you’ll wait a long time between celebrations and run the risk of only feeling good about yourself when you’ve reached such a peak in life.

I’ve learned that it tends to work better to keep the motivation and self-confidence up if I celebrate all wins. No matter how small.

One small step forward is still one small step forward and you need to take such steps no matter what lofty goal you want to reach.

So celebrate those wins too in some way. Maybe with a pat on your back, a tasty and delicious snack or a quiet break out in nature.

9. It really helps to let it out.

Keeping these thoughts bottled up can make them spiral out of control.

Letting them out can help you to look at things from a more grounded and constructive perspective.

Three ways to let it out are:

Vent about these thoughts as someone close to you simply listens.

Do this for a little while to release the pent up tensions and to figure things out for yourself.

Discuss it with a friend.

Let her add her perspective. Or ask him what he’s done in a similar situation.

Your friend can ground you in reality again so you don’t start making a horrific mountain out of a molehill or medium-sized hill.

And the two of you can perhaps come up with a plan for how you can start improving upon the specific situation you’re in where you’re not feeling good enough (such as preparing for that job interview or that date).

Journal about it.

If you don’t have anyone close to you to talk to about this – or you don’t want to for some reason – then a helpful alternative is to journal about it.

Just get all those thoughts swirling around in your head out of paper or in a digital document.

This is similar to venting and seeing it all laid out before you can help you to more easily get an overview, find clarity and a realistic size of your challenge and see what you can do to improve upon the situation.

10. Don’t beat yourself up. There are much better ways to motivate yourself.

Beating yourself up can renew your motivation to do better the next time.

But it will most likely cause more hurt than it will help you in the long run as it drags you down mentally and may often extinguish your motivation instead of renewing it.

So find another way to motivate yourself that won’t push your respect and love for yourself down such as:

• Be kinder and more constructive when you talk to yourself.
• Let it out as mentioned above.
• Look for small or tiny steps you can take today to improve the situation you’re in.
• Start building a right thing string.

And remember that just because plenty of people beat themselves up all the time or because you’ve done it many times in the past doesn’t mean that it’s the healthiest or best way to move forward again.

11. Focus on and take responsibility for the process.

If you focus on the process instead of always hoping for a certain result then you’ll be a lot more relaxed, the pressure you put on yourself will be greatly reduced and the feeling of not being good enough will diminish too.

When you focus on the process then you just take responsibility for showing up and taking action.

That’s it.

No matter if that’s at work, while building your own business or at the gym.

Results will come anyway from that consistent action. And from you focusing on your process and adjusting it along the way as you learn more about what works and what does not.

I’ve found that if I focus on the process instead of obsessing about some result I want as soon as possible – or preferably even sooner – then my patience and persistence grows and I’m lot more likely to continue on my path even I hit a rough patch or two (or five).

12. What someone has said or done to you may not be about you.

The criticism or verbal attacks you may have received this morning or during the past year might not have been about you at all.

So don’t make the common mistake of thinking it’s all about you.

Someone close to you, at work or at school could simply have had a bad week, month or year.

Or he or she may be in a bad marriage, dissatisfied with his/her career or carrying an old and heavy baggage of negativity that someone else once put on him or her.

Remind yourself of this when you don’t feel good enough because of what someone else may have said or done. And realize that you don’t have to carry their baggage and negativity.

That belongs to them. Not you.

13. You can and may need to make some real changes in your environment to feel better.

Whatever we let into our minds will have a big effect. No matter if those influences are positive or negative.

So you may need to make some changes in your environment to feel better about yourself.

Otherwise you’re always trying to move forward while powerful weights are holding and dragging you back.

A simple start to that process of step-by-step changing your day to day world is to ask yourself this:

What are the top 3 sources of negativity in my life?

It could be:

• Someone close to you or at work or in school.
• A social media account.
• A website or forum you visit every week.
• Or a TV-show, podcast, music, magazine and so on.

Then ask yourself:

What can I do to spend less time with these 3 sources this week?

Come up with one or a few action-steps for each of the sources if possible. And focus on taking action to reduce the influence and time you spend on at least one of these sources this week.

And then, during the next 7 days, spend the time you’ve now freed up with the most supportive, uplifting and positive sources – close by or far away in the world – and people in your life.

Some days just feel heavy, tired or uninspired. Or you’re overwhelmed and stressed out.

And on some days life just keeps throwing unexpected and unwelcome curveballs.

So to help you with that I’d like to share 125 of the most motivational, joyful and positive quotes about life.

I hope you’ll find something here to share with friends and family to give them a boost, something to ground you and give you hope when you’re having a tough time and simply something to brighten your day.

Positive Quotes About Life to Brighten Your Day

“Life is like a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
– Albert Einstein

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”
– Alice Walker

“Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.”
– Ashley Smith

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”
– Anaïs Nin

“I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I have lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.”
– Diane Ackerman

“You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.”
– Oprah Winfrey

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
– George Bernard Shaw

“Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.”
– Emily Dickinson

“We all have two lives. The second one starts when we realize we only have one.”
– Confucius

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
– John Lennon

“What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others.”
– Nelson Mandela

“No matter what happens in life, be good to people. Being good to people is a wonderful legacy to leave behind.”
– Taylor Swift

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
– Confucius

“Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.”
– Dalai Lama

“Life is in ourselves and not in the external.”
– Fyodor Dostoevsky

“The good life is inspired by love and guided by knowledge.”
– Bertrand Russell

“Life has got all those twists and turns. You’ve got to hold on tight and off you go.”
– Nicole Kidman

“Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay.”
– Simone de Beauvoir

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
– Winston Churchill

“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
– Lao Tzu

“Love life. Engage in it. Give it all you’ve got. Love it with a passion because life truly does give back, many times over, what you put into it.”
– Maya Angelou

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
– Soren Kierkegaard

“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche

“In three words, I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”
– Robert Frost

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Positive Quotes for a Great Morning

“Every morning brings new potential, but if you dwell on the misfortunes of the day before, you tend to overlook tremendous opportunities.”
– Harvey Mackay

“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.”
– Rumi

“Just one small positive thought in the morning can change your whole day.”
– Dalai Lama

“Every day brings new choices.”
– Martha Beck

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”
– Marcus Aurelius

“Waking up this morning, I smile. 24 brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh

“Each morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.”
– Buddha

“An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.”
– Henry David Thoreau

“The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day.”
– Henry Ward Beecher

“Morning is an important time of day, because how you spend your morning can often tell you what kind of day you are going to have.”
– Lemony Snicket

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
– Anne Frank

“Smile in the mirror. Do that every morning and you’ll start to see a big difference in your life.”
– Yoko Ono

“I get up every morning and it’s going to be a great day. You never know when it’s going to be over so I refuse to have a bad day.”
– Paul Henderson

“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Now that your eyes are open, make the sun jealous with your burning passion to start the day. Make the sun jealous or stay in bed.”
– Malak El Halabi

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”
– Robert Louis Stevenson

“You have to have a dream so you can get up in the morning.”
– Billy Wilder

“You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction.”
– George Horace Lorimer

“Give every day the chance to become the most beautiful day of your life.”
– Mark Twain

“Every morning, I wake up saying, ‘I’m still alive, a miracle.’ And so I keep on pushing.”
– Jim Carrey

Positive Quotes for Work and a Jolt of Motivation

“If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.”
– Dolly Parton

“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.”
– Alexander Graham Bell

“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.”
– Michael Altshuler

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.”
– Steve Jobs

“The most difficult thing is the decision to act; the rest is merely tenacity.”
– Amelia Earhart

“Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible.'”
– Audrey Hepburn

“You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.”
– Stephen King

“Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.”
– Tony Robbins

“The secret to getting ahead is getting started.”
– Mark Twain

“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”
– Confucius

“Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.”
– Dale Carnegie

“Success isn’t always about ‘Greatness,’ it’s about consistency. Consistent, hard work gains success. Greatness will come.”
– Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

“No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.”
– Robin Williams

“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.”
– Albert Einstein

“Believe you can, and you’re halfway there.”
– Theodore Roosevelt

“Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.”
– Earl Nightingale

“Be passionate and move forward with gusto every single hour of every single day until you reach your goal.”
– Ava DuVernay

“The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.”
– Vidal Sassoon

“A year from now, you may wish you had started today.”
– Karen Lamb

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined.”
– Henry David Thoreau

Positive Quotes About Living a Happy Life

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
– Mahatma Gandhi

“Life will bring you pain all by itself. Your responsibility is to create joy.”
– Milton Erickson

“Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn’t stop to enjoy it.”
– William Feather

“Every day is a new day, and you’ll never be able to find happiness if you don’t move on.”
– Carrie Underwood

“The most important thing is to enjoy your life – to be happy – it’s all that matters.”
– Audrey Hepburn

“Folks are usually about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
– Abraham Lincoln

“For every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
– Dr. Seuss

“Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.”
– Omar Khayyam

“The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts.”
– Marcus Aurelius

“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh

“Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.”
– Carl Jung

“Don’t waste a minute not being happy. If one window closes, run to the next window – or break down a door.”
– Brooke Shields

“Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”
– Joseph Campbell

“If you want to be happy, be.”
– Leo Tolstoy

“A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.”
– Albert Einstein

“Happiness is not a goal… it’s a by-product of a life well-lived.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt

“Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions.”
– Dalai Lama

“If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough.”
– Oprah Winfrey

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”
– Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

“The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.”
– James M. Barrie

“It’s the moments that I stopped just to be, rather than do, that have given me true happiness.”
– Richard Branson

“Happiness does not lead to gratitude. Gratitude leads to happiness.”
– David Steindl-Rast

“The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.”
– William Morris

“Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh

Positive Quotes for Spreading the Joy and Optimism

“The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.”
– Mark Twain

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
– Maya Angelou

“Optimism is a happiness magnet. If you stay positive, good things and good people will be drawn to you.”
– Mary Lou Retton

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
– Martin Luther King Jr.

“Keep your face always toward the sunshine and shadows will fall behind you.”
– Walt Whitman

“I believe we are here on the planet Earth to live, grow up and do what we can to make this world a better place for all people to enjoy freedom.”
– Rosa Parks

“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So, let us be loving, hopeful, and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.”
– Jack Layton

“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”
– Marcel Proust

“If you see someone without a smile, give ’em yours.”
– Dolly Parton

“The person who can bring the spirit of laughter into a room is indeed blessed.”
– Bennett Cerf

“Always find opportunities to make someone smile, and to offer random acts of kindness in everyday life.”
– Roy T. Bennett

“Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.”
– Mother Teresa

“The beauty of empowering others is that your own power is not diminished in the process.”
– Andrew Carnegie

“Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.”
– Colin Powell

“Be fanatically positive and militantly optimistic. If something is not to your liking, change your liking.”
– Rick Steves

“Whoever is happy will make others happy too.”
– Anne Frank

“There is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow creatures and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.”
– Charlotte Brontë

“As we work to create light for others, we naturally light our own way.”
– Mary Anne Radmacher

“Positive anything is better than negative nothing.”
– Elbert Hubbard

“Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results.”
– Willie Nelson

Short Positive Quotes About Life

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
– Oscar Wilde

“Light tomorrow with today.”
– Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“Hope is the most exciting thing there is in life.”
– Mandy Moore

“I dwell in possibility.”
– Emily Dickinson

“Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.”
– John W. Gardner

“Done is better than perfect.”
– Sheryl Sandberg

“The power of imagination makes us infinite.”
– John Muir

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist.”
– Oscar Wilde

“A dead end is just a good place to turn around.”
– Naomi Judd

“Life itself is the proper binge.”
– Julia Child

“You cannot find peace by avoiding life.”
– Virginia Woolf

“Say something positive, and you’ll see something positive.”
– Jim Thompson

“Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”
– Roald Dahl

“Each day provides its own gifts.”
– Marcus Aurelius

“What we think, we become.”
– Buddha

Want more motivation and positive energy to brighten your day? Then have a look at these daily motivational quotes, the inspirational workplace quotes here and also this one with short success quotes.