Are you looking for some inspiration to lift your spirits? Discover 150 short quotes on life to remind you of the incredible potential within you!
Life is a beautiful thing. But it can also be very hard. Even the best of us can get stuck in a rut and start to feel down on ourselves.
Resilience is all about picking yourself back up and seeking out the people and things that bring joy into your life.
These 150 short quotes on life are here to give you a quick dose of inspiration whenever you need it. Whether you’re looking for motivation, beauty in the simple things, or a reminder of the pottential within you, these quotes are designed to lift your spirits in just a matter of minutes.
150 Short Quotes On Life to Lift Your Spirits
Embracing Life’s Journey
1. “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” – George Bernard Shaw
2. “The purpose of our lives is to be happy.” – Dalai Lama
3. “Life has no limitations, except the ones you make.” – Les Brown
4. “Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
5. “The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams.” – Brené Brown
6. “Life is a flower of which love is the honey.” – Victor Hugo
7. “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” – Maya Angelou
8. “If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.” – Bruce LeeIn three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.
9. “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” – Helen Keller
10. “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.'” – Robert Frost
Finding Inner Strength
11. “The only person you should try to be better than is the person you were yesterday.” – Anonymous
12. “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” – Theodore Roosevelt
13. “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” – C.S. Lewis
14. “Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.” – Sam Levenson
15. “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
16. “Where there is no struggle, there is no strength.” – Oprah Winfrey
17. “Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle.” – Christian D. Larson
18. “The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.” – Ernest Hemingway
19. “You are stronger than you seem, braver than you believe, and smarter than you think.” – A.A. Milne
20. “Every day may not be good, but there’s something good in every day.” – Alice Morse Earle
Embracing Positivity
21. “Keep your face always toward the sunshine—and shadows will fall behind you.” – Walt Whitman
22. “The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.” – Dolly Parton
23. “Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.” – Zig Ziglar
24. “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” – C.S. Lewis
25. “Happiness is not by chance, but by choice.” – Jim Rohn
26. “The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.” – Winston Churchill
27. “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” – Albert Schweitzer
28. “The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.” – Oprah Winfrey
29. “In every day, there are 1,440 minutes. That means we have 1,440 daily opportunities to make a positive impact.” – Les Brown
30. “Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.” – Lyndon B. Johnson
Embracing Change and Growth
31. “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” – Steve Jobs
32. “Change your thoughts and you change your world.” – Norman Vincent Peale
33. “The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” – Socrates
34. “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” – Confucius
35. “You must do the things you think you cannot do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
36. “Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it.” – Charles R. Swindoll
37. “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” – Winston Churchill
38. “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” – Neale Donald Walsch
39. “The only thing that is constant is change.” – Heraclitus
40. “If you change nothing, nothing will change.” – Tony Robbins
Embracing Moments of Joy
41. “The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us.” – Ashley Montagu
42. “Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.” – Karl Barth
43. “We need joy as we need air. We need love as we need water. We need each other as we need the earth we share.” —Maya Angelou
44. “Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.” – Henri Nouwen
45. “There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
46. “Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.” – Emily Dickinson
47. “Let your joy be in your journey—not in some distant goal.” —Tim Cook
48. “The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” – Christopher McCandless
49. “The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.” – E.E. Cummings
50. “Joy is not in things; it is in us.” – Richard Wagner
Embracing Kindness
51. “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.” – Plato
52. “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” – Aesop
53. “Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” – Mark Twain
54. “In a world where you can be anything, be kind.” – Jennifer Dukes Lee
55. “Kindness is a gift everyone can afford to give.” – Unknown
56. “Kindness is a passport that opens doors and fashions friends. It softens hearts and molds relationships that can last lifetimes.” – Joseph B. Wirthlin
57. “The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.” – Oscar Wilde
58. “Kindness is like snow—it beautifies everything it covers.” – Kahlil Gibran
59. “Kindness is choosing love over hate, light over darkness, compassion over judgment.” – Raktivist
60. “Kindness is the sunshine in which virtue grows.” – Robert Green Ingersoll
Embracing Courage
61. “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
62. “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” – Anais Nin
63. “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
64. “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” – Nelson Mandela
65. “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.'” – Mary Anne Radmacher
66. “Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.” – Mother Teresa
67. “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” – Confucius
68. “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” – Helen Keller
69. “With courage, you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate, and the wisdom to be humble. Courage is the foundation of integrity.” – Keshavan Nair
70. “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.” – Mark Twain
Embracing Dreams
71. “Dream big and dare to fail.” – Norman Vaughan
72. “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
73. “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” – Walt Disney
74. “A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.” – John Lennon
75. “The only thing that will stop you from fulfilling your dreams is you.” – Tom Bradley
76. “Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.” – Sam Levenson
77. “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” – C.S. Lewis
78. “Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.” – Langston Hughes
79. “The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.” – Oprah Winfrey
80. “Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” – Steve Jobs
Cultivating Gratitude
81. “Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” – Melody Beattie
82. “Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.” – Henry Ward Beecher
83. “Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
84. “Gratitude turns what we have into enough.” – Anonymous
85. “Gratitude is the wine of the soul. Go on. Get drunk.” – Rumi
86. “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero
87. “The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more you will have to express gratitude for.” – Zig Ziglar
88. “Gratitude is the open door to abundance.” – Yogi Bhajan
89. “Gratitude is the sweetest thing in a seeker’s life—in all human life. If there is gratitude in your heart, then there will be tremendous sweetness in your eyes.” – Sri Chinmoy
90. “Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.” – Lionel Hampton
Embracing Simplicity
91. “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” – Leonardo da Vinci
92. “The greatest wealth is to live content with little.” – Plato
93. “Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance.” – Coco Chanel
94.”Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” – Confucius
95. “The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.” – Hans Hofmann
96. “Simplicity is the glory of expression.” – Walt Whitman
97. “The more you have, the more you are occupied. The less you have, the more free you are.” – Mother Teresa
98. “It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.” – Laura Ingalls Wilder
99. “In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
100. “Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful.” – John Maeda
Embracing Resilience
101. “The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.” – Robert Jordan
102. “Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it’s less good than the one you had before.” – Elizabeth Edwards
103. “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” – Nelson Mandela
104. “It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.” – Lou Holtz
105. “The human capacity for burden is like bamboo—far more flexible than you’d ever believe at first glance.” – Jodi Picoult
106. “Out of difficulties grow miracles.” – Jean de La Bruyère
107. “You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.” – Margaret Thatcher
108. “The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.” – Ernest Hemingway
109. “In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.” – Albert Einstein
110. “Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.” – Nelson Mandela
Embracing Wisdom
111. “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” – William Shakespeare
112. “Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.” – Jimi Hendrix
113. “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” – Socrates
114. “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
115. “Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom.” – Terry Pratchett
116. “The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.” – H.L. Mencken
117. “The first step in the acquisition of wisdom is silence, the second listening, the third memory, the fourth practice, the fifth teaching others.” – Solomon Ibn Gabriol
118. “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” – Aristotle
119. “To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.” – Mark Twain
120. “The road to wisdom? Well, it’s plain and simple to express: Err and err and err again, but less and less and less.” – Piet Hein
Embracing Adventure
121. “Adventure is worthwhile in itself.” – Amelia Earhart
122. “Adventure is not outside a man; it is within.” – David Grayson
123. “The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.” – Oprah Winfrey
124. “Adventure is allowing the unexpected to happen to you.” – Richard Aldington
125. “Life is an adventure, and it’s not the destination we reach that’s most rewarding. It’s the journey along the way.” – Anonymous
126. “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” – Steve Jobs
127. “Adventure is worthwhile in itself.” – Amelia Earhart
128. “The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate.” – O. Henry
129. “Adventure is not in the guidebook, and beauty is not on the map. Seek and you shall find.” – Unknown
130. “Adventure isn’t hanging on a rope off the side of a mountain. Adventure is an attitude that we must apply to the day to day obstacles in life.” – John Amatt
Fostering Friendship
131. “A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.” – Walter Winchell
132. “A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.” – Elbert Hubbard
133. “Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.'” – C.S. Lewis
134. “A true friend is someone who is always there during the ups and downs, I love you.” – Unknown
135. “Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.” – Woodrow Wilson
136. “A single rose can be my garden… a single friend, my world.” – Leo Buscaglia
137. “Friendship is not about whom you’ve known the longest; it’s about who walked into your life, said, ‘I’m here for you,’ and proved it.” – Unknown
138. “A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.” – C.S. Lewis
139. “A true friend is someone who is always there during the ups and downs, I love you.” – Unknown
140.”Friendship is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words.” – George Eliot
Embracing Change
141. “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
142. “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” – George Bernard Shaw
143. “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” – Albert Einstein
144. “Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.” – Jim Rohn
145. “Change your thoughts and you change your world.” – Norman Vincent Peale
146. “The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” – Alan Watts
147. “Change is painful, but nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don’t belong.” – Mandy Hale
148. “If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.” – Lao Tzu
149. “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” – Charles Darwin
150. “Change is the essence of life; be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become.” – Reinhold Niebuhr
If life’s got you down, remember that inspiration is just a couple minutes away.
These 150 short quotes on life will always be here for you to read when you need an instant boost to lift your spirits.
They’re basically mini pep talks that remind you to find the silver linings and focus on the small beautiful things in your daily life.
We’re curious to hear if you have a favorite. Let us know in the comments below!
With love,
A small note to my readers – Over here at VLHhealth, we occasionally include affiliate links in our posts. This means that if you purchase using our links, we will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
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