Life isn’t always easy. Or simple.
But one thing that has helped me throughout the years to find new motivation and energy and a more positive perspective on my own life is to listen to the wisdom of the people who came before us.
And in today’s post I want to share some of those timeless thoughts.
This is 202 of the most inspirational, motivational and famous quotes about life.
I hope you’ll find something here that helps you out and motivates you, no matter if you want tips that make you think, that gives you a boost of positive energy or simply makes you laugh and helps you to relax a bit.
The Best Quotes About Life
“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”
– Soren Kierkegaard
“Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you respond to it.”
– Lou Holtz
“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.”
– Helen Keller
“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
– Oscar Wilde
“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
– George Bernard Shaw
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
– Confucius
“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”
– Robert Frost
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
– Albert Einstein
“The most important thing is to enjoy your life – to be happy – it’s all that matters.”
– Audrey Hepburn
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”
– Anaïs Nin
“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
– Winston Churchill
“I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.”
– Anne Frank
“The good life is inspired by love and guided by knowledge.”
– Bertrand Russell
“To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone and a funny bone.”
– Reba McEntire
“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”
– Maya Angelou
“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
“You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.”
– Oprah Winfrey
“Life is very short and what we have to do must be done in the now.”
– Audre Lorde
“Believe you can and you’re halfway there.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
“Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.”
– Voltaire
“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
“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
– John Lennon
“The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts.”
– Marcus Aurelius
“You will face many defeats in life, but never let yourself be defeated.”
– Maya Angelou
Famous Quotes About Life
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”
– Marie Curie
“No matter what happens in life, be good to people. Being good to people is a wonderful legacy to leave behind.”
– Taylor Swift
“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
“We do not remember days, we remember moments.”
– Cesare Pavese
“When I hear somebody sigh, ‘Life is hard,’ I am always tempted to ask, ‘Compared to what?’”
– Sydney J. Harris
“For the great doesn’t happen through impulse alone, and is a succession of little things that are brought together.”
– Vincent van Gogh
“Your vocation in life is where your greatest joy meets the world’s greatest need.”
– Frederick Buechner
“Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.”
– Emily Dickinson
“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
“Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay.”
– Simone de Beauvoir
“Life has got all those twists and turns. You’ve got to hold on tight and off you go.”
– Nicole Kidman
“The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.”
– Arthur Schopenhauer
“The power of imagination makes us infinite.”
– John Muir
“Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”
– Forrest Gump
“Life is like an onion; you peel off a layer at a time and sometimes you weep.”
– Carl Sandburg
“Maybe that’s what life is… a wink of the eye and winking stars.”
– Jack Kerouac
“Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it.”
– Ernest Holmes
“The story of life is quicker than the blink of an eye, the story of love is hello, goodbye.”
– Jimi Hendrix
“Open your eyes, look within. Are you satisfied with the life you’re living?”
– Bob Marley
“Life itself is the proper binge.”
– Julia Child
“Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.”
– Isaac Asimov
“Life is a work in progress.”
– Jeff Rich
“You have to believe in yourself when no one else does.”
– Serena Williams
Inspirational Quotes About Life
“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
“To me, if life boils down to one thing, it’s movement. To live is to keep moving.”
– Jerry Seinfeld
“You cannot find peace by avoiding life.”
– Virginia Woolf
“Waking up this morning, I smile. 24 brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh
“Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.”
– Omar Khayyam
“Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke
“Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.”
– Ruth Bader Ginsburg
“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”
– Chief Seattle
“Lead from the heart, not the head.”
– Diana, Princess of Wales
“One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn’t pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself.”
– Lucille Ball
“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”
– George Bernard Shaw
“Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.”
– Albert Camus
“You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world’s problems at once but don’t ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.”
– Michelle Obama
“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”
– Alice Walker
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”
– Steve Jobs
“Don’t let life discourage you; everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was.”
– Richard L. Evans
“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”
– Henry David Thoreau
“Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and, above all, confidence in ourselves. We must believe we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.”
– Marie Curie
“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
“Live a life full of humility, gratitude, intellectual curiosity, and never stop learning.”
– GZA
“A dead end is just a good place to turn around.”
– Naomi Judd
“All of us have to be committed to a life beyond our own aspirations.”
– Bernice King
“Remember when life’s path is steep to keep your mind even.”
– Horace
“The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere.”
– Anne Morrow Lindbergh
“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
Motivational Quotes About Life
“Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.”
– Richard Branson
“Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.”
– Wayne Dyer
“A ship is always safe at shore but that is not what it’s built for.”
– Albert Einstein
“Show me a person who has never made a mistake and I’ll show you someone who has never achieved much.”
– Joan Collins
“If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.”
– Dolly Parton
“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”
– Arthur Ashe
“Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.”
– Groucho Marx
“It is only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth – and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up – that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.”
– Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.”
– Milton Berle
“People are like music. Some speak the truth, and others are just noise.”
– Bill Murray
“Whoever is happy will make others happy too.”
– Anne Frank
“There’s always something we can do. Whatever you did, your life is still meaningful.”
– Bryan Stevenson
“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
“Today is life – the only life you are sure of. Make the most of today. Get interested in something. Shake yourself awake. Develop a hobby. Let the winds of enthusiasm sweep through you. Live today with gusto.”
– Dale Carnegie
“Positive anything is better than negative nothing.”
– Elbert Hubbard
“You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.”
– Stephen King
“It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.”
– Confucius
“Just one small positive thought in the morning can change your whole day.”
– Dalai Lama
“If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six hours sharpening my ax.”
– Abraham Lincoln
“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
“Take a deep breath, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.”
– Frank Sinatra
“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
– Albert Einstein
“If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.”
– Henry Ford
“One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from a horse master. He told me to go slow to go fast. I think that applies to everything in life. We live as though there aren’t enough hours in the day but if we do each thing calmly and carefully we will get it done quicker and with much less stress.”
– Viggo Mortensen
Funny Quotes About Life
“You know the trouble with real life? There’s no danger music.”
– Jim Carrey
“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”
– Bernard Baruch
“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
– Mae West
“It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It’s called living.”
– Terry Pratchett
“If my life wasn’t funny, it would just be true, and that’s unacceptable.”
– Carrie Fisher
“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.”
– A. A. Milne
“If I’d have done all the things I was supposed to have done, I’d be really tired.”
– Willie Nelson
“My formula for living is quite simple. I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night. In between, I occupy myself as best I can.”
– Cary Grant
“I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.”
– Lily Tomlin
“Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.”
– Elbert Hubbard
“Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope.”
– Dr. Seuss
“Don’t waste so much time thinking about how much you weigh. There is no more mind-numbing, boring, idiotic, self-destructive diversion from the fun of living.”
– Meryl Streep
“I’d like to live like a poor man – only with lots of money.”
– Pablo Picasso
“The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy.”
– Helen Hayes
“Love is being stupid together.”
– Paul Valery
“I have a simple philosophy: Fill what’s empty. Empty what’s full. Scratch where it itches.”
– Alice Roosevelt Longworth
“The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.”
– E. E. Cummings
Quotes About Life That Makes You Think Deep Thoughts
“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”
– Buddha
“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”
– Marthe Troly-Curtin
“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
“The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves they find their own order the continuous thread of revelation.”
– Eudora Welty
“Life is a tide; float on it. Go down with it and go up with it, but be detached. Then it is not difficult.”
– Prem Rawat
“Life is a series of collisions with the future; it is not the sum of what we have been, but what we yearn to be.”
– Jose Ortega y Gasset
“Empathy begins with understanding life from another person’s perspective. Nobody has an objective experience of reality. It’s all through our own individual prisms.”
– Sterling K. Brown
“The pleasure which we most rarely experience gives us greatest delight.”
– Epictetus
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”
– Epicurus
“Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other – it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future have not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.”
– Charles Caleb Colton
“Life is not what it’s supposed to be. It’s what it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference.”
– Virginia Satir
“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.”
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed.”
– Henrik Ibsen
“Just because it didn’t last forever, doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth your while.”
– Unknown
“Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.”
– Winnie the Pooh
“When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.”
– Winston Churchill
“Everyone should be able to express themselves in the way that best suits them – life is too short to spend it unhappy.”
– Jinkx Monsoon
“I used to think that the worst thing in life was to end up alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel alone.”
– Robin Williams
“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.”
– Helen Keller
“That’s the funny thing about life. We’re rarely aware of the bullets we dodge. The just-misses. The almost-never-happeneds. We spend so much time worrying about how the future is going to play out and not nearly enough time admiring the precious perfection of the present.”
– Lauren Miller
“Be patient and understanding. Life is too short to be vengeful or malicious.”
– Phillips Brooks
“The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you.”
– Stephanie Perkins
“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.”
– James Oppenheim
“The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be.”
– Marcel Pagnol
“Happiness is within. It has nothing to do with how much applause you get or how many people praise you. Happiness comes when you believe that you have done something truly meaningful.”
– Martin Yan
“If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.”
– Epicurus
“Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.”
– Heraclitus
“The greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.”
– Martha Washington
“On a deeper level you are already complete. When you realize that, there is a playful, joyous energy behind what you do.”
– Eckhart Tolle
“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
“The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.”
– George Eliot
Positive Quotes About Life
“I have had dreams, and I’ve had nightmares. I overcame the nightmares because of my dreams.”
– Jonas Salk
“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
– Mark Twain
“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh
“Folks are usually about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
– Abraham Lincoln
“It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.”
– L.M. Montgomery
“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
“The best way to succeed in this world is to act on the advice you give to others.”
– Unknown
“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”
– Stephen King
“There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid you will succeed.”
– Ray Goforth
“Life is too short not to enjoy it.”
– Glen Campbell
“Nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost legendary. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Perseverance and determination alone are omnipotent.”
– Calvin Coolidge
“Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.”
– Earl Nightingale
“Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life. Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism.”
– David M. Burns
“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”
– T.E. Lawrence
“Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly.”
– Stephen R. Covey
“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children… to leave the world a better place… to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Optimism is a happiness magnet. If you stay positive, good things and good people will be drawn to you.”
– Mary Lou Retton
“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
“I am an artist… I am here to live out loud.”
– Emile Zola
“A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it is not open.”
– Frank Zappa
“Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.”
– Jack London
“The whole point is to live life and be – to use all the colors in the crayon box.”
– RuPaul
“Choose to be optimistic, it feels better.”
– Dalai Lama
“Smile in the mirror. Do that every morning and you’ll start to see a big difference in your life.”
– Yoko Ono
“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”
– Marcel Proust
“Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible.’”
– Audrey Hepburn
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
– Mark Twain
Short Quotes About Life
“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”
– Aesop
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt
“Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.”
– Malcolm S. Forbes
“Everything you want is on the other side of fear.”
– Jack Canfield
“Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.”
– Stephen Hawking
“Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.”
– Dalai Lama
“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.”
– Epictetus
“Success is largely a matter of holding on after others have let go.”
– Unknown
“We become what we think about.”
– Earl Nightingale
“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.”
– Lao Tzu
“The best revenge is massive success.”
– Frank Sinatra
“To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.”
– Albert Camus
“Love is a better teacher than duty.”
– Albert Einstein
“There is more to life than increasing its speed.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
“The unhappy derive comfort from the misfortunes of others.”
– Aesop
“Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.”
– Buddha
“The best proof of love is trust.”
– Joyce Brothers
“Your problem is you’re… too busy holding onto your unworthiness.”
– Ram Dass
“It ain’t what they call you, it’s what you answer to.”
– W.C. Fields
“The better you feel about yourself, the less you feel the need to show off.”
– Robert Hand
“Good things happen to those who hustle.”
– Chuck Noll
“Success comes in cans; failure in can’ts.”
– Unknown
“For success, attitude is equally as important as ability.”
– Harry F. Banks
“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”
– Mark Twain
“Life is too short to work so hard.”
– Vivien Leigh
“Don’t ever doubt yourselves or waste a second of your life. It’s too short, and you’re too special.”
– Ariana Grande
“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.”
– Abraham Lincoln
“Life is too short to worry about anything. You had better enjoy it because the next day promises nothing.”
– Eric Davis
“If you are too busy to laugh, you are too busy.”
– Proverb
“And remember, no matter where you go, there you are.”
– Confucius
Want more timeless wisdom and inspiration about life?Then check out the short happy quotes in this post, the positive quotes of the day about life here and also these short inspirational quotes.