45 Comforting Quotes to Encourage You During Life's Greatest Challenges
These words of comfort from compassionate leaders can help you overcome grief, loss, and major disappointing moments.
When life hands you lemons, sometimes it can feel like you simply can't make lemonade — and you'll need a strong, comforting hand to uplift you. Nearly everyone goes through adversity in their own life's journey, and sometimes a tragic event or a great disappointment can feel like it's knocked you down for good. But some of the most iconic lessons we have been taught in life comes from inspiring leaders who have experienced difficulties all their own. "It's not whether you get knocked down; it's whether you get up," said Vince Lombardi, the real-life coach and leader of the Green Bay Packers during the 1960s, who led his players to a Super Bowl Championship five times.
Lombardi is a good example of how all comforting wisdom comes from people among various walks of life. Authors from A.A. Milne to Jane Austen captured the spirit of resilience in classic works like Pride and Prejudice, among other contemporary titles. More recently, though, even some of our favorite musicians have found ways to embody the spirit of picking yourself up and dusting yourself off when things get tough. Taylor Swift's own personal journey is a great example: "If somebody hurts you, it’s okay to cry a river: Just remember to build a bridge and get over it."
Whether you're looking for comforting advice from one of our country's greatest political inspirations — with names like Elenor Roosevelt and Barbara Bush included — or a simple pick me up from a strong woman who knows a thing or two — we're looking at you, Dolly! — this collection of comforting quotes can help you overcome whatever life throws at you.
Martin Luther King Jr.
If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.
Christopher Reeve
A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.
Oprah Winfrey
Where there is no struggle, there is no strength.
Deepak Chopra
The past is gone, the future is not here, now I am free of both. Right now, I choose joy.
Jane Austen
"Do not give way to useless alarm; though it is right to be prepared for the worst, there is no occasion to look on it as certain." - Pride and Prejudice
Emily Dickinson
Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality.
Charlotte Brontë
A depressing and difficult passage has prefaced every page I have turned in life.
J.K. Rowling
"It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more." - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Maya Angelou
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.
A.A. Milne
Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.
Mark Twain
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 safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, Dream, Discover.
Nora Ephron
Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.
Helen Keller
Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.
Vince Lombardi
It's not whether you get knocked down; it's whether you get up.
Serena Williams
I don't like to lose — at anything — yet I've grown most not from victories, but setbacks.
Lance Armstrong
Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place.
John Adams
To be good, and to do good, is all we have to do.
Julia Child
Drama is very important in life: You have to come on with a bang. You never want to go out with a whimper.
Nelson Mandela
It always seems impossible until it’s done.
Ronald Regan
Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They’re just braver five minutes longer.
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