Photo: romiximage via canva
Looking to a few encouraging quotes during a crisis can get your head back in the right place.
By Sofia Stewart — Updated on Nov 10, 2022
Everyone falls upon hard times at some point in life.
When that happens, reading encouraging quotes can help you get your head in the right place and restore your resilience.
The best encouraging quotes for hard times
1. “The trick is to enjoy life. Don’t wish away your days, waiting for better ones ahead.” — Marjorie Pay Hinckley
2. “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
3. “The greatest mistake you can make in life is to continually fear that you will make one.” —Elbert Hubbard
4. “Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.” — Wayne Dyer
5. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” — Wayne Gretzky
6. “Just think how happy you would be if you lost everything you have right now, and then got it back again.” — Frances Rodman
7. “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” — Dr. Seuss
8. “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
9. “A problem is a chance for you to do your best.” — Duke Ellington
10. “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning how to dance in the rain.” — Vivian Greene
11. “I didn’t fail the test, I just found 100 ways to do it wrong.” — Benjamin Franklin
12. “Always remember you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, smarter than you think and twice as beautiful as you’ve ever imagined.” — Dr. Seuss
13. “Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” — Marcus Aurelius
14. “Don’t cry for a man who’s left you; the next one may fall for your smile.” — Mae West
15. “You don’t have to control your thoughts; you just have to stop letting them control you.” — Dan Millman
16. “Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.'”— Mary Anne Radmacher
17. “Life isn’t about getting and having, it’s about giving and being.” — Kevin Kruse
18. “Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” — Joshua J. Marine
19. “The greatest glory in living lies not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail.” — Nelson Mandela
20. “Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.” — Thich Nhat Hanh
21. “Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. And don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines.” — Leroy Satchel Paige
22. “It is only in our darkest hours that we may discover the true strength of the brilliant light within ourselves that can never, ever, be dimmed.” — Doe Zantamata
23. “Learn how to be happy with what you have while you pursue all that you want.” — Jim Rohn
24. “I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.” — Og Mandino
25. “We should always pray for help, but we should always listen for inspiration and impression to proceed in ways different from those we may have thought of.” — John H. Groberg
26. “In life, we make the best decisions we can with the information we have on hand.” — Agnes Kamara-Umunna
27. “Every goal first started as something in our mind. You have it all within you!” — Deborah Day
28. “He worked with her as she was and not as he wanted her to be.” — Colin Clark
29. “How can you love people without encouraging them? And how can you be loyal to people without educating them.” — Confucius
30. “We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.” — Martin Luther King
31. “Hard times don’t create heroes. It is during the hard times when the ‘hero’ within us is revealed.” — Bob Riley
32. “Inside of a ring or out, ain’t nothing wrong with going down. It’s staying down that’s wrong.” — Muhammad Ali
33. “When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot, and hang on.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
34. “Going through challenging things can teach you a lot, and they also make you appreciate the times that aren’t so challenging.” — Carrie Fisher
35. “We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.” — Kenji Miyazawa
36. “I don’t know a startup that hasn’t been through tough times.” — Vinod Khosla
37. “You start with darkness to move through but sometimes the darkness moves through you.” ― Dean Young
38. “I like to use the hard times of the past to motivate me today.” — Dwayne Johnson
39. “Hard times, when held with open hands and a tender heart, can prepare us for the future.” ― Cindee Snider Re
40. “We must meet the challenge rather than wish it were not before us.”— William J. Brennan
41. “Optimism is a happiness magnet. If you stay positive, good things and good people will be drawn to you.” — Mary Lou Retton
42. “Stay positive, all other choices are pointless punishments to your psyche.” — Joe Peterson
43. “If you are positive, you'll see opportunities instead of obstacles.” — Widad Akrawi
44. “Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.” — Zig Ziglar
45. “Stay positive in every situation and everything you do, never stop trying, have faith don't stop due to failure.” — Anurag Prakash Ray
46. “Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.” — Marcus Aurelius
47. “Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.” — Helen Keller
48. “An attitude of positive expectation is the mark of the superior personality.” — Brian Tracy
49. “Positive thinking is empowering, positive action is achieving.” — Dr. T.P.Chia
50. "Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud." — Maya Angelou
51. "Belief creates the actual fact." — William James
52. "Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around." — Henry David Thoreau
53. "Never get discouraged if you fail. Learn from it. Keep trying." — Thomas Edison
54. "Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!" — Anne Frank
55. “Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.” — J.K. Rowling
56. "Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving." — Albert Einstein
57. "You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream." — Malala Yousafzai
58. "What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you." — Ralph Waldo Emerson
59. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” — Mark Twain
60. "Once you choose hope, anything’s possible." — Christopher Reeve
61. "Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence." — Vince Lombardi
More for You:
Sofia Stewart is a writer who focuses on pop culture, religion, and relationship topics.