30 Quotes to Read If You're Having a Hard Day

Quotes have always been a source of comfort for me. They affirm that others are challenged by hardship too, and are confronting and questioning the same truths I am. Our stories may be unique, but how we survive is not. I hope you are able to recognize yourself in words from the voices of others, and feel closer to the universal truths of what it means to be human. I hope these quotes bring comfort to you as well.

Perseverance 

“You let time pass. That’s the cure. You survive the days. You float like a rabid ghost through the weeks. You cry and wallow and lament and scratch you way back up through the months. And then one day you find yourself alone on a bench in the sun and you close your eyes and lean your head back and realize you’re okay.” – Cheryl Strayed

“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.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.” – Albert Camus

“You go on by doing the best you can. You go on by being generous. you go on by being true. you go on by allowing the unbearable days to pass and by allowing the pleasure in other days. You go on by finding a channel for your love and another for your rage.” – Cheryl Strayed

Strength 

“The woman whom I love and admire for their strength and grace did not get that way because shit worked out. They got that way because shit went wrong, and they handled it. They handled it in a thousand different ways, but they handled it. Those women are my superheroes.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“Sometimes when you’re in a dark place, you think you’ve been buried, but you’ve actually been planted.” – Maya Angelou

“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.” – Gandhi

Resiliency 

“And here you are living, despite it all.” – Rupi Kaur

“Still, I rise.” – Maya Angelou

“Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down, and got back up again.” – Nelson Mandela

“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive: and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.” – Maya Angelou

Hope

“Do not lose hope, please believe that there are a thousand beautiful things waiting for you. Sunshine comes to all who feel rain.” – R.M. Drake

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

Faith

“Embrace uncertainty. Some of the most beautiful chapters in our lives won’t have a title until much later.” – Bob Goff

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

“When fear knocks, let faith answer the door.” – Robin Roberts

Change 

“I can be changed by what happens to me but I refuse to be reduced by it.” – Maya Angelou

“Don’t surrender all your joy for an idea of yourself you used to have that isn’t true anymore.” – Cheryl Strayed

Adaptability 

“She stood in the storm, and when the wind did not blow her way, she adjusted her sails.” – Elizabeth Edwards

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.” – Charles Darwin

“If you can’t go around it, over it, or through it, you had better negotiate with it.” – Ashleigh Brilliant

Transformation

“I used to see a butterfly in my mind’s eye every time I heard the word transformation, but life has schooled me. Transformation isn’t a butterfly. It’s the thing before you get to be a pretty bug flying away. It’s huddling in the dark cocoon and then pushing your way out. It’s the messy work of making sense of your fortunes and misfortunes, desires and doubts, hang-ups and sorrows, so you can go on and become the person you must next become.” – Cheryl Strayed

“The art of life is not controlling what happens to us, but using what happens to us.” – Gloria Steinem 

Grief

“Grief is like the ocean; it comes in waves, ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.” – Vicki Harrison

“Grief changes shape, but it never ends.” – Keanu Reeves

“It’s turning the thunder into grace, knowing sometimes the break in your heart is like the hole in the flute. Sometimes it’s the place where the music comes through.” – Andrea Gibson

“I’ll never know and neither will you about the life you didn’t get. We’ll only know that whatever that sister life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn’t carry us. There’s nothing to do but salute it from shore.” – Cheryl Strayed

“What is stronger than the human heart which shatters over and over and still lives.” – Rupi Kaur

Perspective

“Where you are, is not who you are.” – circumstances

“Sometimes the most healing thing to do is remind ourselves over and over and over, other people feel this too.” – Andrea Gibson

Have a good quote that helps you? Be sure to share it in the comments down below!