Every person in the world knows what a bad day feels like. Most of those people even know what a bunch of bad days feels like.
And it is hard to stay or be positive when it feels like life is constantly attacking you.
If you’ve ever found yourself in a place where bad days (or weeks or years) are taking their toll on you, you’ve come to the right place!
Because words have power.
The old saying is, “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.”
But in my experience, it is words that hurt the most.
But they can also lift you up and give you hope.
They can encourage and comfort you.
The can strengthen you.
Words can bring you peace when you can’t see past the dark.
They might not be a cure-all, but there is positive power in words.
With that in mind, spend some reading through and thinking about these powerful ‘thought of the day’ quotes that will help you to see that life will be okay.
You can also check out this related list of bible verses to bring you comfort on sick days.
This page contains affiliate links, which means if you make a purchase through these links, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Read the full disclosure here.
Inspirational Thought of the Day Quotes For Positivity
“Always remember: if you’re going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill
“And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” – 1 Peter 5:10
“Don’t worry about a thing, ’cause, every little thing is gonna be alright!” – Bob Marley
“Everything is going to be fine in the end. If it’s not fine it’s not the end.” – Oscar Wilde
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” – Confucius
“What I’ve learned is that real change is very, very hard. But I’ve also learned that change is possible – if you fight for it.” – Elizabeth Warren
“Part of my act is meant to shake you up. It looks like I’m being funny, but I’m reminding you of other things. Life is tough, darling. Life is hard. And we better laugh at everything; otherwise, we’re going down the tube.” – Joan Rivers
“If you are not making any mistakes, you are being excessively risk-averse. Investing involves risk, and that means you will occasionally be wrong. And although it is okay to be wrong, it is not okay to stay wrong.” – Barry Ritholtz
“When you’re at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on.” – Theodore Roosevelt
“Even in the worst of situations – even when it seems no one in the world appreciates you – as long as you have hope, everything can get better.” – Chris Colfer, The Wishing Spell
“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.” – Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
“Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,
That cannot fly.”
– Langston Hughes
“I like the night. Without the dark, we’d never see the stars.” – Stephenie Meyer
“No matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.” – Maya Angelou
“We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents.” – Bob Ross
“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.”
– Emily Dickinson
“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.” – Tom Bodett
“I guess I’m a little weird. I like to talk to trees and animals. That’s okay though; I have more fun than most people.” – Bob Ross
“Sometimes it takes a wrong turn to get you to the right place.” – Mandy Hale
“But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” – Isaiah 40:31
“Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you respond to it.” – Lou Holtz
“Never lose hope. Storms make people stronger and never last forever.” – Roy T. Bennett
“There is a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.”
– Leonard Cohen
“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise again.” – Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
“Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.” – William James
“Sometimes you need a little crisis to get your adrenaline flowing and help you realize your true potential.” – Jeannette Walls
“If you’re reading this…
Congratulations, you’re alive.
If that’s not something to smile about,
then I don’t know what is.”
– Chad Sugg, Monsters Under Your Head
“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”
– J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
“Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle.” – Christian D. Larson
“It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.” – Babe Ruth
“Success isn’t permanent and failure isn’t fatal; it’s the courage to continue that counts.” – Mike Ditka
“None of us know what might happen even the next minute, yet still we go forward. Because we trust. Because we have Faith.” – Paulo Coelho
“You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.” – William Faulkner
“You shouldn’t focus on why you can’t do something, which is what most people do. You should focus on why perhaps you can, and be one of the exceptions.” – Steve Case
“Everybody goes through difficult times, but it is those who push through those difficult times who will eventually become successful in life. Don’t give up, because this too shall pass.” – Jeanette Coron
“The struggles we endure today will be the ‘good old days’ we laugh about tomorrow.” – Aaron Lauritsen
“Someday everything will make perfect sense. So, for now, laugh at the confusion, smile through the tears, and keep reminding yourself that everything happens for a reason.” – Unknown
“Chose and direct yourself to be peaceful inside regardless of what is happening outside.” – Unknown
“The one law that does not change is that everything changes, and the hardship I was bearing today was only a breath away from the pleasures I would have tomorrow, and those pleasures would be all the richer because of the memories of this I was enduring.” – Louis L’Amour
“When there is a great disappointment, we don’t know if that’s the end of the story. It may be just the beginning of a great adventure.” – Pema Chodron
“The world breaks everyone, and afterward many are stronger at the broken places.” – Ernest Hemingway
“Don’t give up when dark times come. The more storms you face in life, the stronger you’ll be. Hold on. Your greater is coming.” – Germany Kent
“If pain must come, may it come quickly. Because I have a life to live, and I need to live it in the best way possible. If he has to make a choice, may he make it now. Then I will either wait for him or forget him.” – Paulo Coelho
“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.” – Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
“Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.” – Dan Stanford
“Transformation is a process, and as life happens there are tons of ups and downs. It’s a journey of discovery-there are moments on mountaintops and moments in deep valleys of despair.” – Rick Warren
“To love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.”
– Ellen Bass
“There is a saying in Tibetan, ‘Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength.’ No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that’s our real disaster.”
– Dalai Lama
“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.” – G.K. Chesterton
“Each life is made up of mistakes and learning, waiting and growing, practicing patience and being persistent.” – Billy Graham
TIP: Write your favorite quote down and take notes in a journal. I love >>This One<< and use it for my daily journaling!
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that do not work.” – Thomas Edison
“Sometimes life gets weird. Hang in there, it gets better.” – Tanner Patrick
“You don’t always win, but every time you lose, you get better.” – Ian Somerhalder
“I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And I have trained myself to love it. Because it is only when we are suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight, that we force our wings to unravel and alas begin our flight. And as we fly, we still may not know where we are going to. But the miracle is in the unfolding of the wings. You may not know where you’re going, but you know that so long as you spread your wings, the winds will carry you.” – C. JoyBell C.
“Some days there won’t be a song in your heart. Sing anyway.” – Emory Austin
“Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come,
Whispering ‘it will be happier’…” – Alfred Lord Tennyson
“Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” – A. A. Milne
“I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.” – Anne Frank
“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” – Dale Carnegie
“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” – Maya Angelou
“Morning will come, it has no choice.” – Marty Rubin
“I am not judged by the number of times I fail, but by the number of times I succeed; and the number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I can fail and keep on trying.” – Tom Hopkins
“Smile. Let everyone know that today you are stronger than yesterday.” – Unknown
“Mistakes that are perceived as mistakes are often not mistakes at all.” – Kirk Douglas
“The pain that you are feeling, cannot compare to the joy that is coming.” – Romans 8:18
“If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.” – Jim Rohn
“I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan
“Life is not about how fast you run or how high you climb, but how well you bounce.” – Vivian Komori
“Even in the worst of situations – even when it seems no one in the world appreciates you – as long as you have hope, everything can get better.” – Chris Colfer
“When you have lost hope, you have lost everything. And when you think all is lost, when all is dire and bleak, there is always hope.” – Pittacus Lore
“I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.” – Nelson Mandela
“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.” – Robert Frost
“Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” – Albert Einstein
“There is much to be said for failure. It is more interesting than success.” – Max Beerbohm
“I don’t like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and it isn’t of much value. Life hasn’t revealed its beauty to them. ” – Boris Pasternak
“The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you’re in control of your life. If you don’t, life controls you.” Tony Robbins
“Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with that there is.” – Ernest Hemingway
“The best thing one can do when it’s raining is let it rain.” – Henry Wadswroth Longfellow
“You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.” – Walt Disney
“For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.” – J.R.R. Tolkien
“It isn’t as bad as you sometimes think it is. It all works out. Don’t worry. I say that to myself every morning. It all works out in the end. Put your trust in God, and move forward with faith and confidence in the future. The Lord will not forsake us. He will not forsake us. If we will put our trust in Him, if we will pray to Him, if we will live worthy of His blessings, He will hear our prayers.” – Gordon B. Hinckley
“We are all of us failure – at least, the best of us are.” – J.M. Barrie
“Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.” – Muhammad Ali
“Since I was young, I have always known this: Life damages us, every one. We can’t escape that damage. But now, I am also learning this: We can be mended. We mend each other.” – Veronica Roth
“To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.” – G.K. Chesterton
“Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald
“There is no education like adversity.” – Benjamin Desraeli
“In a world filled with hate, we must still dare to hope. In a world filled with anger, we must still dare to comfort. In a world filled with despair, we must still dare to dream. And in a world filled with distrust, we must still dare to believe.” – Michael Jackson
“It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.” – J.R.R. Tolkien
“You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.” – Thomas Merton
“Sometimes when things are falling apart, they may actually be falling in place.” – Unknown
“There are moments in your life that make you and sets the course of who you’re going to be. Sometimes they’re little, subtle moments, sometimes their big moments that you never saw coming. Life changes, People change. Its what you do afterward that counts.” – Unknown
“You’ll never be brave if you don’t get hurt. You’ll never learn if you don’t make mistakes. You’ll never be successful if you don’t encounter failure.” – Unknown
“Things don’t go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be.” – Samuel Johnson
“When things are bad, we take comfort in the thought that they could always get worse. And when they are, we find hope in the thought that things are so bad they have to get better.” – Malcolm S. Forbes
“Every single day is a good day no matter how bright or dark it is, because it always brings an opportunity to start a positive beginning in your life.” – Edmond Mbiaka
“Deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
“I laugh because I must not cry, that is all, that is all. ” – Abraham Lincoln
“Fall seven times. Stand up eight.” – Japanese Proverb
“Being happy doesn’t mean you’re perfect. It just means you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.” – K.B. Indiana
And last but not least, quote 101…
“At what point do you give up – decide enough is enough? There is only one answer really. Never.” – Tabitha Suzuma
Don’t forget it. Pin it!
Amanda, I LOVE this post! You have collected some of my all-time favorites. 🙂 Funny you should start this post off with, ““Always remember: if you’re going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill” because it’s one of the best. Sometimes it’s hard to keep going when we’re going through hell. Yet we were created by a loving God to go through so we can get to where He’s leading! ♥
Oh my goodness – I had not read this quote but I adore it: ““Since I was young, I have always known this: Life damages us, every one. We can’t escape that damage. But now, I am also learning this: We can be mended. We mend each other.” – Veronica Roth” Thank you for sharing this! I wholeheartedly believe our stories are our greatest blessing for someone else. Our pain is no longer void of a purpose. We can help heal a hurt and lost world with our own story. There’s only one of us!
This one: ““I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that do not work.” – Thomas Edison” Oh how true that is! 😀
I’ve pinned this post and shared it on Twitter. Thanking God for your heart, your hope and your love. God bless you & those you love! 🙏🏼
I had so much fun pulling this one together. I just love how some people say things so eloquently! Especially that one by Winston Churchill. It’s just some solid and simple advice! Thanks for sharing:-)
Wow. So many positive quotes here – a really lovely collection.
Thank you so much!
This is an awesome collection! I’m a sucker for quotes so I’ll bookmark this. Einstein had lots of wise words to share with the world but I especially love the one here “Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity” – So true – it can be hard to see the positives or opportunities sometimes, but they’re there if we look hard enough. Great post!
Caz x
Thank you! I love quotes, too. A lot of these people are much more eloquent than me, so I’ll just let them say it 🙂
Saving this for a rainy day!!