Cheer up, buttercup!
Change isn’t always easy, but in retrospect, it can turn out to be the best thing that’s ever happened to you. It can inspire you to try new things or take exciting new risks.
Change is inherently inspirational — it’s reminiscent of love in that regards.
It’s like when you fall in love and you experience a series of mixed emotions: There are exhilarating highs and disheartening lows. There are feelings of admiration and feelings of dislike.
Love can make you crazy in the best and worst possible ways. And then you break up, and you suddenly feel like the whole world is crashing down around you.
The feeling is, well, unexplainable … and yet authors, philosophers, and many others have somehow found a way to pinpoint our exact feelings about change through their words — quotes that people come back to for inspiration across the ages.
The great thinkers also have a lot of quotes about change, and their inspirational sayings offer tremendous insight into what it truly means to throw your life into upheaval in the hopes of finding something better.
When asked about change, author Paulo Coelho was once quoted as saying:
“When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.”
A good change quote is one that speaks for you when you’re at a loss for words. They reveal every little feeling you are trying to express.
So if you’re having trouble finding the right words to express how you feel in the throes of a breakup, or after losing your best friend or your job, here are 10 inspirational quotes that will help you remember that change can be a beautiful thing, if you let it.
It’s time to pick up the pieces and move on.
Here are the 50 best inspirational quotes about change to inspire you out of your slump.
1. “If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”
— Roald Dahl
2. “When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”
— Abraham Lincoln
3. “If you’re gonna make a change, you’re gonna have to operate from a new belief that says life happens not to me but for me.”
— Tony Robbins
4. “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
— Nelson Mandela
5. “Don’t feel stupid if you don’t like what everyone else pretends to love.”
— Emma Watson
6. “Maybe there’s something you’re afraid to do today, someone you’re afraid to love, or somewhere you’re afraid it’s gonna hurt. It’s gonna hurt because it matters.”
— John Green
7. “Only do what your heart tells you.”
— Princess Diana
8. “The final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.”
— Anne Frank
9. “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”
— George Bernard Shaw
10. “Better to fight for something than to live for nothing.”
— George Patton
11. “They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”
— Andy Warhol
12. “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS.”
— W.C. Fields
13. “I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start over all over again.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald
14. “Each morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.”
— Buddha
15. “When a man says I cannot, he has made a suggestion to himself. He has weakened his power of accomplishing that which otherwise would have been accomplished.”
— Muhammad Ali
16. “You must learn a new way to think before you can master a new way to be.”
— Marianne Williamson
17. “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become.”
— Steve Jobs
18. “And suddenly you know: It’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.”
— Meister Eckhart
19. “It’s okay to walk out of someone’s life if you don’t feel like you belong in it anymore.”
— Unknown
20. “Well-behaved women rarely make history.”
— Marilyn Monroe
21. “I choose to be unstoppable. I am bigger than my concerns and worries. The strength of others inspire me daily. I focus on my goal. I trust my intuition and live a courageous life.”
— Unknown
22. “You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody.”
— Maya Angelou
23. “Actually, I just woke up one day and decided I didn’t want to feel like that anymore, or ever again. So I changed. Just like that.”
— Unknown
24. “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
— Albert Einstein
25. “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
— Abraham Lincoln
26. “It’s never too late to be what you might have been.”
— George Eliot
27. “You are not judged by the height you have risen, but from the depth you have climbed.”
— Frederick Douglass
28. “You don’t worry ’bout fitting in when you custom made.”
29. “Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back everything is different …”
— C.S. Lewis
30. “‘Where you movin’?’ I said, ‘Onto better things.'”
31. “When we deny the story, it defines us. When we own the story, we can write a brave new ending.”
— Brené Brown
32. “You have to stop crying, and you have to go kick some a—.”
— Lady Gaga
33. “When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”
— Haruki Murakami
34. “You will fail. It’s a matter of when. The true test is if you can continue and stand up and accept failure and move forward.”
— Lady Gaga
35. “There are no regrets in life, just lessons.”
— Jennifer Aniston
36. “I’m on the hunt for who I’ve not yet become.”
— Unknown
37. “If you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours.”
— Dolly Parton
38. “You’ve got to kick fear to the side, because the payoff is huge.”
— Mariska Hargitay
39. “In the waves of change we find our true direction.”
— Unknown
40. “Better to live one year as a tiger, than a hundred as a sheep.”
— Madonna
41. “You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.”
— John C. Maxwell
42. “Stop letting people who do so little for you control so much of your mind, feelings and emotions.”
— Will Smith
43. “Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”
— John F. Kennedy, Jr.
44. “Remember that just because you hit bottom doesn’t mean you have to stay there.”
— Robert Downey Jr.
45. “You will have bad times, but they will always wake you up to the stuff you weren’t paying attention to.”
— Robin Williams
46. “The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.”
— Unknown
47. “I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. i am changing the things I cannot accept.”
— Angela Davis
48. “We are born in one day. We die in one day. We can change in one day. And we can fall in love in one day. Anything can happen in just one day.”
— Unknown
49. “Nevertheless, she persisted.”
— Unknown
50. “Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.”
— Stephen Hawking