25 Quotes Everyone With a Mental Illness Should Hear

If you need a little inspiration to get you through your day today, our mental health community has got you covered. We asked our readers who live with a mental illness to share some quotes that have helped them along their own journeys.

We hope at least one of these resonates with you:

1. “Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.” — Albus Dumbledore from “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” (submitted by Eva Gigis)

2. “Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I’m not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you’ve felt that way.”
— Charles Bukowski from “Gamblers All” (submitted by Ashley Mobley)

3. “There’s only us. There’s only this. Forget regret, or life is yours to miss. No other road. No other way, no day but today.” — “No Day But Today,” Rent (submitted by Colleen McDaniel)

4. “Promise me you’ll always remember — you’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” — Christopher Robin from “Winnie the Pooh” (submitted by Monica Jean Cozadd)

5. “Start by doing what’s necessary, then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” — Saint Francis of Assisi (submitted by Sherri Paricio Bornhoft)

6. “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” — Elisabeth Kübler-Ross from “Death: The Final Stage of Growth“ (submitted by Laura Ito)

7. “Not a famous quote, but I had a doctor in college who told me to try to leave the house every day. For 25 years that’s helped me. Sometimes I just go to the mailbox or the store, but that’s enough. It helps to break the cycle when I’m stuck.” — Rue Brown

8. “Your illness is not your identity. Your chemistry is not your character.” — Pastor Rick Warren (submitted by Leisl Stoufer)

9. “You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have the right to be here.” — Max Ehrmann from “Desiderata: A Poem for a Way of Life” (submitted by Sydney Anne)

10. “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.” — Douglas Adams from “The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul” (submitted by Alyse Ruriani)

11. “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” — Dr. Seuss from “The Lorax” (submitted by Sarah Littlewood: “I feel that this is saying that unless I care a whole lot about myself nothing will get better.”)

12. “Even if we don’t have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there.” — Charlie from “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” (submitted by Julia Ann Lange)

13. “I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship.” — Amy March, from “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott (submitted by Sarah Mackey)

14. “’I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo.
‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.’” —  J.R.R. Tolkien from “The Fellowship of the Ring“ (submitted by Chelsea Haire)

15. “Just keep swimming” — Dory from “Finding Nemo” (submitted by Vanessa Bird)

16. “You are valuable just because you exist. Not because of what you do or what you have done, but simply because you are.” — Max Lucado from “No Wonder They Call Him the Savior” (submitted by Lindsay Bee)

17. “In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer.”  — Albert Camus from “Return to Tipasa” (submitted by Heather Nehr Hall)

18. “I believed in my capacity to stand back up and run into the waves again and again, no matter the risk.” — Terry Tempest Williams from “When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice” (submitted by Alyse Ruriani)

19. “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” — Fredrick Douglas from his “West India Emancipation” speech (submitted by Francis Strait)

20. “I have come to realize making yourself happy is most important. Never be ashamed of how you feel. You have the right feel any emotion you want, and do what makes you happy.” — Demi Lovato in a interview with Seventeen (submitted by Liz Liz)

21. “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” — Oscar Wilde from “An Ideal Husband” (submitted by Christina Chalgren)

22. “One of my professors said something in class the day I finally told him I needed help. He said that you could look at things as though you’re struggling, or striving. I’ve tried to remember that when I feel like I am stuck in mental quicksand. I’m striving…” — Annabel Rodman

23. “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” — Winston Churchill (submitted by Kirsten Della Santina)

24. “Be patient and tough; some day this pain will be useful to you.” — Ovid (submitted by Laura Ito)

25. “Your days are like pages, the chapters unread; you have to keep turning, your book has no end.” — “Glass Hearts,” by Of Mice & Men (submitted by Kylie Wagner-Grobman)