100+ Anxiety Quotes To Help Calm Your Deepest Fears
If you're struggling with anxiety, you're far from alone.
yourtango Anxiety makes life interesting... sort of. As the best anxiety quotes explain, the anxiety caused by constant feelings of doubt can be downright overwhelming.
You second-guess yourself all of the time, and panic attacks may tear you down, leaving you upset and vulnerable. Symptoms of anxiety can keep you up at night, cause mood swings, and make you act irrationally.
You may feel broken, scared, and as though you aren’t going anywhere, but remember that while your anxiety is real, it's also one of the worst liars you'll ever have the displeasure of knowing.
Everyone has bad days where your anxiety wants you to stay in bed and not do anything, but it's important to learn how to quiet your anxious thoughts and keep going. Remember, almost everyone faces some degree of anxiety at some point in their life.
It can be difficult for the people closest to you to understand what you are going through.
Remember to put your mental health first before anything else. Everything else can wait.
Hopefully, you can find the best way to relieve your anxiety, and maybe feel a little inspired by these anxiety quotes.
Living With Anxiety Quotes
1. “Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control it.” — Kahlil Gibran
2. “It’s sad actually, because my anxiety keeps me from enjoying things as much as I should at this age.” —Amanda Seyfried
3. “My anxiety is silent. You wouldn’t even notice a change on the outside, but I’m honestly so stressed I can’t even manage simple tasks. People call me lazy when in reality I’m just overwhelmed.”
4. “Anxiety is practicing failure in advance. Anxiety is needless and imaginary. It’s fear about fear, fear that means nothing.” —Seth Godin
5. “Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.” —Arthur Somers Roche
6. “Anxiety’s like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you very far.” —Jodi Picoult
7. “Anxiety was born in the very same moment as mankind. And since we will never be able to master it, we will have to learn to live with it— just as we have learned to live with storms.” —Paulo Coelho
8. “My anxiety doesn’t come from thinking about the future but from wanting to control it.” —Hugh Prather
9. “Some days, doing ‘the best we can’ may still fall short of what we would like to be able to do, but life isn’t perfect — on any front — and doing what we can with what we have is the most we should expect of ourselves or anyone else.” —Fred Rogers
10. “Everyone remembers the remark of the old man at the point of death, that his life had been full of troubles — most of which had never happened.” —Winston Churchill
11. “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
12. “You’re feeling burnt out and discouraged but you’ve made it this far and I think that’s really brave.”
13. “I know what it’s like to be afraid of your own mind.” —Dr. Reid on "Criminal Minds"
14. “The worst feeling in the world is trying to hold back a panic attack in public.”
15. “S.T.R.E.S.S. = Someone Trying to Repair Every Situation Solo.” —Dave Willis
16. "I was a pretty sensitive kid and quite neurotic, filled with a lot of anxiety, which all would have been very familiar to my pop, you know? Except it was a part of himself he was trying to reject, so I got caught in the middle of it, I think." —Bruce Springsteen
17. "I'm generally known as a happy person, but years ago, I suffered from panic and anxiety. I've learned to manage the fear and pain." —Goldie Hawn
18. "You'd think true masculinity was just calm and collected happiness. So alpha male that it needs not or worries not. But typically masculine characters are always fighting, and most violence comes from some agitated level of fear and anxiety." —Liev Schreiber
19. "I didn't learn about depression or anxiety at school. So when I had to go to my parents to say 'I need help, I need to go to therapy,' I felt like this weird, messed up kid. And I wasn't, but I felt that way." —Lili Reinhart
20. "I think that fear comes about when there's things in the world that we want to change, things we're scared or angry about, and we can't change them, and so we become fearful; we develop anxiety." —Michael Franti
Anxiety and Depression Quotes
21. “Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.” —Charles Spurgeon
22. “Stress, anxiety, and depression are caused when we are living to please others.” —Paulo Coelho
23. “Having anxiety and depression is like being scared and tired at the same time. It’s the fear of failure, but no urge to be productive. It’s wanting friends, but hate socializing. It’s wanting to be alone, but not wanting to be lonely. It’s feeling everything at once then feeling paralyzingly numb.”
24. “The mind that is anxious about future events is miserable.” —Seneca
25. “Many of us feel stress and get overwhelmed not because we’re taking on too much, but because we’re taking on too little of what really strengthens us.” —Marcus Buckingham
26. “She was brave and strong and broken all at once.” —Anna Funder
27. “It’s okay to feel unstable. It’s ok to disassociate. It’s okay to hide from the world. It’s ok to need help. It’s okay not to be okay. Your mental illness is not a personal failure.”
28. “Your mental health is more important than the test, the interview, the lunch date, the meeting, the family dinner, the soccer game, the recital, and the grocery-run. Take care of yourself.”
29. “Don’t assume I’m weak because I have panic attacks. You’ll never know the amount of strength it takes to face the world every day.”
30. “No amount of regret can change the past. No amount of anxiety can change the future.” —Karen Salmansohn
31. “You cannot recover from anxiety by just staying calm. You cannot recover from depression by just being positive. You cannot recover from anorexia nervosa by just eating more. If mental illnesses were that simple we wouldn’t be struggling in the first place.”
32. “You have dug your soul out of the dark, you have fought to be here; do not go back to what buried you.” —Bianca Sparacino
33. “You are more than the mistakes you’ve made. You are the wisdom, love, strength and compassion you’ve gained from all you’ve been through.” —Karen Salmansohn
34. “We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.” —Mother Teresa
35. “Worry in the dark can make it even darker.” —Camron Wright
36. “Maybe you have to know the darkness before you can appreciate the light.” —Madeleine L’Engle
37. “What else does anxiety about the future bring you but sorrow upon sorrow?” —Thomas á Kempis
38. “She has been through hell. So believe me when I say, fear her when she looks into a fire and smiles.” —E. Corona
39. “He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.” —Michel de Montaigne
40. “The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” —William James
Social Anxiety Quotes
41. “When I let go of what I am, I become what I want to be.” — Lao Tzu
42. “You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.” —Eleanor Roosevelt
43. “Social anxiety isn’t a choice. I wish people knew how badly I wish I could be like everybody else, and how hard it is to be affected by something that can bring me to my knees, every single day.”
44. “Our stresses, anxieties, pains and problems arise because we do not see the world, others or even ourselves as worthy of love.” —Prem Prakash
45. “I get nervous about everything. Sometimes I literally don’t know why I’m anxious. I just am and no-one seems to understand that.”
46. "Anxiety is love's greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic." —Anais Nin
47. "Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself." —Samuel Butler
48. “It's not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me.” ―Stephen Fry, "Moab Is My Washpot"
49. “I certainly have not the talent which some people possess," said Darcy, "of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.” ―Jane Austen, "Pride and Prejudice"
50. “I wondered how many people there were in the world who suffered, and continued to suffer, because they could not break out from their own web of shyness and reserve, and in their blindness and folly built up a great distorted wall in front of them that hid the truth.” ―Daphne du Maurier, "Rebecca"
51. “When all by myself, I can think of all kinds of clever remarks, quick comebacks to what no one said, and flashes of witty sociability with nobody. But all of this vanishes when I face someone in the flesh: I lose my intelligence, I can no longer speak, and after half an hour I just feel tired. Talking to people makes me feel like sleeping. Only my ghostly and imaginary friends, only the conversations I have in my dreams, are genuinely real and substantial.” ―Fernando Pessoa
52. “I've spent most of my life and most of my friendships holding my breath and hoping that when people get close enough they won't leave, and fearing that it's a matter of time before they figure me out and go.” ―Shauna Niequist, "Bittersweet: "Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way"
53. “I have packed myself into silence so deeply and for so long that I can never unpack myself using words. When I speak, I only pack myself a little differently.” ―Herta Müller
54. “I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high.” ―Charlotte Brontë, "Jane Eyre"
55. “In all her intercourse with society, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it... She stood apart from mortal interests, yet close beside them, like a ghost that revisits the familiar fireside, and can no longer make itself seen or felt.” ―Nathaniel Hawthorne, "The Scarlet Letter"
56. “All I wanted was to be left alone. They abhor a vacuum, other people. You find a quiet corner where you can hunker down in peace, and the next minute there they are, crowding around you in their party hats, tooting their paper whistles in your face and insisting you get up and join in the knees-up.” ―John Banville
57. “There is a unique sort of agony to entering a party alone.” ―Mackenzi Lee
58. “I'm excellent at faking being okay with things, even when inside my brain there is a tiny screaming gnome who is definitely not okay.” ―Alice Oseman, "I Was Born for This"
59. “I wanted to just sink into my media downloads for a while and pretend I didn't exist.” ―Martha Wells, "Artificial Condition"
60. “But I guess that was the whole problem, at that point, my inability to deal with normal human interaction.” ―Kristen Roupenian, "You Know You Want This"
Funny Anxiety Quotes
61. “I just give myself permission to suck... I find this hugely liberating.” —John Green
62. “We must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie.” —David Mamet
63. “Anxiety is a lot like a toddler. It never stops talking, tells you you’re wrong about everything, and wakes you up at 3am.”
64. "I don't think I could do what Woody Allen or Clint Eastwood or Ben Stiller do, where they direct a movie and they star in it. I would just be like, 'Oh, I don't even want to look at my face.'" —Bill Hader
65. “You can’t be that kid standing at the top of the waterslide, overthinking it. You have to go down the chute.” ―Tina Fey, "Bossypants"
66. "A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me, I am afraid of widths." —Steven Wright
67. "I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous. Everyone hasn't met me yet." —Rodney Dangerfield
68. “I don't struggle with anxiety. I'm actually pretty good at it.”
69. "In terms of like, instant relief, canceling plans is like heroin." —John Mulaney
70. "One way to handle social anxiety is to pretend you are a ghost and people are staring at you because they have a gift they never asked for." —Aparna Nancherla
Overcoming Anxiety Quotes
71. “There are two ways to get rid of an anxiety monster, my friend — you either have a bath or a nap.” —Andrew Kaufman
72. “Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.” —William S. Burroughs
73. “You’re not going to master the rest of your life in one day. Just relax. Master the day. Then just keep doing that every day.”
74. “Comedy is defiance. It’s a snort of contempt in the face of fear and anxiety. And it’s the laughter that allows hope to creep back on the inhale.” —Will Durst
75. “Don’t believe every worried thought you have. Worried thoughts are notoriously inaccurate.” —Renee Jain
76. "Don’t spend too much time worrying about your mistakes. Mistakes become experience.”
77. “I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes, so live not in your yesterdays, not just for tomorrow, but in the here and now.” —Carl Sandburg
78. “The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” —Confucius
79. “Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future.” —Deepak Chopra
80. "Smile, breathe, and go slowly.” —Thich Nhat Hanh
81. “You don’t drown by falling into water. You only drown if you stay there.” —Zig Ziglar
82. “Strength doesn’t come from what you can do. It comes from overcoming the things you once thought you couldn’t.”
83. “Everyone faces challenges in life. It’s a matter of how you learn to overcome them and use them to your advantage.” —Celestine Chua
84. “Going through things you never thought you’d go through will only take you places you never thought you’d get to.” —Morgan Harper Nichols
Positive and Calming Anxiety Quotes
85. "Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action.” —Walter Anderson
86. “Your calm mind is the ultimate weapon against your challenges.” —Bryant McGill
87. “Stand up to your obstacles and do something about them. You will find that they haven’t half the strength you think they have.” —Norman Vincent Peale
88. “The best thing one can do when it is raining, is to let it rain.” —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
89. "Everything you have ever wanted is sitting on the other side of fear." —George Addair
90. “Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.” —Mary Tyler Moore
91. “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” —Jon Kabat-Zinn
92. “You can’t go back and make a new start, but you can start right now and make a brand new ending.” —James R. Sherman
93. “If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.” —Frank A. Clark
94. “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” —Henry Stanley Haskins
95. “Happiness is not a brilliant climax to years of grim struggle and anxiety. It is a long succession of little decisions simply to be happy in the moment.” —J. Donald Walters
96. “Good humor is a tonic for mind and body. It is the best antidote for anxiety and depression... It lightens human burdens. It is the direct route to serenity and contentment.” —Grenville Kleiser
97. “Nothing is permanent in this wicked world — not even our troubles.” —Charlie Chaplin
98. “Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.” —Eckhart Tolle
99. “Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.” —Chinese Proverb
100. “For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.” —T.S. Eliot
101. "The truth is that there is no actual stress or anxiety in the world; it's your thoughts that create these false beliefs. You can't package stress, touch it, or see it." —Wayne Dyer
102. “Courage is the power of the mind to overcome fear.” —Martin Luther King Jr.
103. "If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.”— Amit Ray
Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., and affect 40 million Americans every year. If you or someone you know suffers from a mental health disorder, the SAMHSA National Helpline is a free and confidential treatment referral and information service, operating 24/7.
Emily Francos is a writer who covers astrology, mental health, pop culture and relationship topics.