107 Positive Quotes That Will Turn Your Whole Day Around (2024)

Reinforce your positive-thinking practice with inspiring words from names you know.

We already know that positive thinking can help decrease stress and anxiety—scientists have proven it. And the power of positivity doesn't always have to originate with you—it can also come from what you hear.A 2021 study found that verbal encouragement can help students to perform better in school and on tests. Praise and positive attention have also been linked to better behavior in kids.

Still, it can be hard to come up with the right words, especially on the spot. But the positive quotes listed below are powerful enough to fill in any blank you may be stuck on. Read on for some inspiring messages you can repeat during your next big heart-to-heart with someone who needs to hear something good.

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Positive Quotes About Life

1. "The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be." — Ralph Waldo Emerson
2. "As we work to create light for others, we naturally light our own way." — Mary Anne Radmacher
3. "To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." — Oscar Wilde
4. "Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow." — Helen Keller
5. "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on." — Robert Frost
6. "If you don't like the road you're walking, start paving another one." — Dolly Parton
7. "Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring." — Marilyn Monroe
8. "Great things happen to those who don't stop believing, trying, learning, and being grateful." ― Roy T. Bennett
9. "When the sun is shining I can do anything; no mountain is too high, no trouble too difficult to overcome." — Wilma Rudolph
10. "Be fanatically positive and militantly optimistic. If something is not to your liking, change your liking." — Rick Steves
11. "Confidence isn't optimism or pessimism, and it's not a character attribute. It's the expectation of a positive outcome." — Rosabeth Moss Kanter
12. "Only when we're drowning do we understand how fierce our feet can kick." — Amanda Gorman
13. "To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment." — Ralph Waldo Emerson
14. "The most important step a man can take. It's not the first one, is it? It's the next one. Always the next step." ― Brandon Sanderson
15. "We all have two lives. The second one starts when we realize we only have one." — Confucius
16. "It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light." — Aristotle
17. "Optimism is a huge asset. We can always use more of it. But optimism isn't a belief that things will automatically get better; it's a conviction that we can make things better." — Melinda French Gates
18. "If you look at what you have in life, you'll always have more. If you look at what you don't have in life, you'll never have enough." — Oprah Winfrey
19. "And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good." — John Steinbeck
20. "For every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness." — Ralph Waldo Emerson
21. "All your dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them." — Walt Disney
22. "Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not." — Oscar Wilde

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Short But Inspiring Quotes

23. "You cannot change what you are, only what you do." — Philip Pullman
24. "An unexamined life is not worth living." — Socrates
25. "Say something positive, and you'll see something positive." — Jim Thompson
26. "Every strike brings me closer to the next home run." — Babe Ruth
27. "The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts." — Marcus Aurelius
28. "Before anything else, preparation is the key to success." — Alexander Graham Bell
29. "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken." — Oscar Wilde
30. "I dwell in possibility." — Emily Dickinson
31. "Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life." — Omar Khayyam
32. "The power of imagination makes us infinite." — John Muir
33. "The next choice is the most important choice." — George Wells
34. "Make your life matter and have fun doing it." — Aaron Hurst
35. "Anything is possible with sunshine and a little pink." — Lilly Pulitzer
36. "Those who don't believe in magic will never find it." — Roald Dahl
37. "Light tomorrow with today." — Elizabeth Barrett Browning
38. "Happiness is not by chance but by choice." — Jim Rohn
39. "Do good and good will come to you." — Adam Lowy
40. "You do not find the happy life. You make it." — Thomas S. Monson
41. "The most wasted of days is one without laughter." — E. E. Cummings
42. "You will face many defeats in life, but never let yourself be defeated." — Maya Angelou
43. "Hope is the most exciting thing there is in life." — Mandy Moore
44. "No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted." — Aesop
45. "Lead from the heart, not the head." — Princess Diana

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Positive Thinking Quotes to Motivate You At Work

46. "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people's thinking." — Steve Jobs
47. "The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary." — Vidal Sassoon
48. "If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you'll never get it done." — Bruce Lee
49. "The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity." — Amelia Earhart
50. "The most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great in whatever they want to do." — Kobe Bryant
51. "Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value." — Albert Einstein
52. "Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him." — Booker T. Washington
53. "Someday is not a day of the week." — Janet Dailey
54. "Pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it." — Paulo Coelho
55. "Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway." — Earl Nightingale
56. "If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up." — J.M. Power
57. "Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat." — F. Scott Fitzgerald
58. "When someone tells me 'no,' it doesn't mean I can't do it, it simply means I can't do it with them." — Karen E. Quinones Miller
59. "A year from now you may wish you had started today." — Karen Lamb
60. "Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity." — Khalil Gibran
61. "Be passionate and move forward with gusto every single hour of every single day until you reach your goal." — Ava DuVernay
62. "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now." — Chinese Proverb
63. "To win big, you sometimes have to take big risks." — Bill Gates
64. "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined." — Henry David Thoreau
65. "I believe great people do things before they are ready." — Amy Poehler
66. "You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose." — Theodor Seuss Geisel
67. "The bad news is time flies. The good news is you're the pilot." — Michael Altshuler

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Motivational Quotes From World Leaders

68. "Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." — Martin Luther King Jr.
69. "The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." — Nelson Mandela
70. "Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier." — Colin Powell
71. "The real test is not whether you avoid this failure because you won't. It's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere." —Barack Obama
72. "If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader." — John Quincy Adams
73. "The beauty of empowering others is that your own power is not diminished in the process." — Andrew Carnegie
74. "Do not let anyone ever tell you who you are." — Kamala Harris
75. "Believe you can and you're halfway there." — Theodore Roosevelt
76. "Choose to be optimistic, it feels better." — Dalai Lama
77. "Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen." — Winston Churchill
78. "There can be hope only for a society which acts as one big family, not as many separate ones." — Anwar Sadat
79. "Don't follow the crowd, let the crowd follow you." — Margaret Thatcher
80. "In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." — Abraham Lincoln
81. "A winner is a dreamer who never gave up." — Nelson Mandela
82. "A leader is a dealer in hope." — Napoleon Bonaparte
83. "Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose." — Lyndon B. Johnson
84. "If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way." — Martin Luther King Jr.
85. "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." — Mahatma Gandhi
86. "A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on." — John F. Kennedy
87. "I didn't fail the test. I just found 100 ways to do it wrong." — Benjamin Franklin
88. "In a gentle way, you can shake the world." — Mahatma Gandhi
89. "Do one thing every day that scares you." — Eleanor Roosevelt

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Inspirational Quotes About Relationships

90. "Always find opportunities to make someone smile, and to offer random acts of kindness in everyday life." — Roy T. Bennett
91. "Things are never quite as scary when you've got a best friend." — Bill Watterson
92. "Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile." — Albert Einstein
93. Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate." — Albert Schweitzer
94. "If you are not willing to risk the usual, you will have to settle for the ordinary." — Jim Rohn
95. "Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength while loving someone deeply gives you courage." — Laozi
96. "The true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit." — Nelson Henderson
97. "My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful, and optimistic. And we'll change the world." — Jack Layton
98. "If you see someone without a smile, give 'em yours." — Dolly Parton
99. "Memories of our lives, of our works and our deeds will continue in others." — Rosa Parks
100. "Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible." — Tony Robbins
101. "Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom." — Marcel Proust
102. "Nobody has ever measured—not even poets—how much love the human heart can hold." — Zelda Fitzgerald
103. "Life is made of ever so many partings welded together." — Charles Dickens
104. "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." — Maya Angelou
105. "The person who can bring the spirit of laughter into a room is indeed blessed." — Bennett Cerf
106. "Deep in your wounds are seeds, waiting to grow beautiful flowers." — Niti Majethia
107. "Whoever is happy will make others happy too." — Anne Frank

Wrapping Up

That's it for our list of positive quotes, but be sure to check back in with us soon for even more wise words. You can also sign up for our newsletter to enjoy similar content, as well as the latest in wellness, entertainment, and travel.

Carrie Weisman

Carrie Weisman oversees all SEO efforts at Best Life. She specializes in content optimization and editorial marketing. Read more

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Sources referenced in this article

1. Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4760272/
2. Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8536856/