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Sometimes life struggles knock you down so much that you can’t find it in you to get back up on your own. These powerful uplifting quotes for hard times will help you be more positive and flexible so that you bend and not break no matter what happens!
Every challenge we face strengthens us and makes us who we are. You just need to keep your head above the water long enough until you reach the shore. In my humble opinion, there is hardly anything as effective as uplifting quotes to keep you afloat during difficult times.
Of course, if you have a soulmate or a friend to rely on in challenging life situations, it definitely makes life easier. But it also makes you dependent on another person, which is not always ideal.
Positive quotes, as well as encouraging self-affirmations, are great for self-motivation and are here for uplifting you any moment you happen to have self-doubt or fear that eats you from the inside.
How can positive quotes help you during hard times
When life is hard, every bit of support makes a difference. Positive uplifting quotes help you build the inner strength and courage needed to overcome the struggle and keep going. Reading inspirational quotes is like listening to a kind supportive friend, who is also wise.
If you have a friend who also needs encouragement during difficult times, send them one of these quotes to show your love and support! Also, check out my other list of quotes to uplift yourself when your world seems dark and unfriendly.
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Best uplifting quotes for hard times

This is the list of the best inspirational quotes for difficult times. You can expect to feel better, either more relaxed or more motivated to solve your problems, after reading these smart sayings. Some of them are perfectly short and on point to make them your personal motto. (Also check out my list of badass quotes for extra inspiration!)
- Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. – Charles Swindoll
- Do what you can with all you have, wherever you are. – Theodore Roosevelt
- You don’t always need a plan. Sometimes you just need to breathe, trust, let go and see what happens. – Mandy Hale
- Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye. – Helen Keller
- When your dreams are bigger than the places you find yourself in, sometimes you need to seek out your own reminders that there is more. And there is always more waiting for you on the other side of fear. – Elaine Welteroth
- We all have problems. But it’s not what happens to us, [it’s] the choices we make after. – Elizabeth Smart
- For every reason it’s not possible, there are hundreds of people who have faced the same circumstances and succeeded. – Jack Canfield
- I tell myself, ‘You’ve been through so much, you’ve endured so much, time will allow me to heal, and soon this will be just another memory that made me the strong woman, athlete, and mother I am today.‘ – Serena Williams
- It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get back up. – Vince Lombardi
- I avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward. – Charlotte Brontë
- An oak is not felled at one blow. – Spanish Proverb
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Uplifting messages to say to yourself
As much as I always encourage you to use positive self-affirmations, sometimes hearing someone else’s opinion hits harder. These uplifting quotes are super motivational, so keep them close (print or bookmark this page) and revisit your favorite ones when you feel like you need some empowerment.
12. Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny. – C. S. Lewis
13. Our lives are stories in which we write, direct and star in the leading role. Some chapters are happy while others bring lessons to learn, but we always have the power to be the heroes of our own adventures. – Joelle Speranza
14. Life has got all those twists and turns. You’ve got to hold on tight and off you go. – Nicole Kidman
15. Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day, saying, “I will try again tomorrow”. – Mary Anne Radmacher
16. It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. – Sylvester Stallone
17. All dreams are within reach. All you have to do is keep moving towards them.
Viola Davis
18. To succeed, you have to do something and be very bad at it for a while. You have to look bad before you can look really good. – Barbara DeAngelis
19. Constant dripping hollows out a stone. – Lucretius
20. You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. – Malala Yousafzai
21. Make your life a masterpiece, imagine no limitations on what you can be, have, or do. – Brian Tracy
Quotes to make you smile in hard times

22. No matter what you’re going through, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. – Demi Lovato
23. Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is! – Anne Frank
24. People who wonder whether the glass is half empty or half full miss the point. The glass is refillable. – Simon Sinek
25. May you see sunshine where others see shadows, and opportunities where others see obstacles. – Unknown
26. When we let fear be our master, we cannot be happy and free as a butterfly. But when we choose to trust the journey and embrace love and joy, we are free to fly. – Annicken R. Day
27. The moral of my story is the sun always comes out after the storm. Being optimistic and surrounding yourself with positive loving people is for me, living life on the sunny side of the street.
Janice Dean
28. I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars. – Og Mandino
29. In every difficult situation is potential value. Believe this, then begin looking for it. – Norman Vincent Peale
30. Don’t be afraid. Because you’re going to be afraid. But remember when you become afraid, just don’t be afraid. – Joan Jett
31. Even a stopped clock is right twice every day. After some years, it can boast of a long series of successes. – Marie Con Ebner-Eschenbach
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Quotes about strength in hard times
They say what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. Here are several quotes about staying strong through hard times and not allowing yourself to be defeated. There is only a rainbow after the rain!
32. I ask not for a lighter burden, but for broader shoulders. – Jewish Proverb
33. You make a choice: continue living your life feeling muddled in this abyss of self-misunderstanding, or you find your identity independent of it. You draw your own box. – Duchess Meghan
34. You have to be where you are to get where you need to go. – Amy Poehler
35. Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye. – Helen Keller
36. We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated. – Maya Angelou
37. If you’re going through hell, keep going. – Winston Churchill
38. Every strike brings me closer to the next home run. – Babe Ruth
39. You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.
Margaret Thatcher
40. The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty. – Winston Churchill
41. Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong. – Ella Fitzgerald
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Quotes to uplift someone who is depressed

Quotes for depression may be helpful to uplift and improve the mood, but when you are deep in that state it’s better to reach out for some professional help and talk to a therapist who can help you out.
42. In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present. – Sir Francis Bacon
43. The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up. – Paul Valery
44. Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving. – Albert Einstein
45. There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly. – Buckminster Fuller
46. Every moment is a fresh beginning.
T.S Eliot
47. Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time. – Ruth Bader Ginsburg
48. If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one. – Dolly Parton
49. Life is not what happened back there or what might happen up ahead. Life is like the rhythm of the heart — every breath, every blink of the eye. It is beat by beat, moment by moment. This… is all there is. This… is all we need. – Andy Puddycombe
50. I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions. – Stephen Covey
51. I don’t look ahead. I’m right here with you. It’s a good way to be. – Danny DeVito
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Uplifting quotes in times of uncertainty
52. Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you’ll be able to see further. – Thomas Carlyle
53. You must find the place inside yourself where nothing is impossible. – Deepak Chopra
54. I am experienced enough to do this. I am knowledgeable enough to do this. I am prepared enough to do this. I am mature enough to do this. I am brave enough to do this. – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
55. I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity. – Gilda Radner
56. Real difficulties can be overcome; it is only the imaginary ones that are unconquerable. – Theodore N. Vail
57. I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination. – Jimmy Dean
58. Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. – Winston Churchill
59. Strength doesn’t come from what you can do. It comes from overcoming the things you once thought you couldn’t.
60. The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any. – Alice Walker
61. I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance. – Beryl Markham
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Quotes about helping others through hard times

62. Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud. – Maya Angelou
63. No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another. – Charles Dickens
64. The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself. – Mark Caine
65. Taking care of yourself makes you stronger for everyone in your life … including you. – Kelly Rudolph
66. I don’t want to live in the kind of world where we don’t look out for each other. Not just the people that are close to us, but anybody who needs a helping hand. I can’t change the way anybody else thinks, or what they choose to do, but I can do my bit. – Charles De Lint
67. The simple act of listening to someone and making them feel as if they have truly been heard is a most treasured gift. – L. A. Villafane
68. There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.
John Holmes
69. Ask yourself this question: “Will this matter a year from now?” – Richard Carlson
70. Adversity, similar to lava, appears to destroy everything in its way. But out of the ashes and smoke, new, better, and stronger things emerge that may have not been born in any other way. – Zoe V.
71. A kind gesture can reach a wound that only compassion can heal. – Steve Maraboli
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Uplifting quotes in times of grief
72. We are all the pieces of what we remember. We hold in ourselves the hopes and fears of those who love us. As long as there is love and memory, there is no true loss. – Cassandra Clare
73. Tears shed for another person are not a sign of weakness. They are a sign of a pure heart. – José N. Harris
74. In times of grief and sorrow I will hold you and rock you and take your grief and make it my own. When you cry I cry and when you hurt I hurt. And together we will try to hold back the floods to tears and despair and make it through the potholed street of life. – Nicholas Sparks
75. It hurt because it mattered. – John Green
76. Grief is a most peculiar thing; we’re so helpless in the face of it. It’s like a window that will simply open of its own accord. The room grows cold, and we can do nothing but shiver. But it opens a little less each time, and a little less; and one day we wonder what has become of it. – Arthur Golden
77. We all want to do something to mitigate the pain of loss or to turn grief into something positive, to find a silver lining in the clouds. But I believe there is real value in just standing there, being still, being sad.
John Green
78. We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey. – Kenji Miyazawa
79. In times of pain, when the future is too terrifying to contemplate and the past too painful to remember, I have learned to pay attention to right now. The precise moment I was in was always the only safe place for me. – Julia Cameron
80. Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form. – Rumi
81. How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard. – Winnie the Pooh
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Quotes about smiling through hard times

82. It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light. – Aristotle
83. Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out. – John Wooden
84. It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome. – William James
85. Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. And don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines. – Leroy Satchel Paige
86. Let your dreams be bigger than your fears, your actions louder than your words, and your faith stronger than your feelings. – Unknown
87. Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life. – Omar Kayyam
88. In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on. – Robert Frost
89. If you don’t like something change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.
Mary Engelbreit
90. The most wasted of days is one without laughter. – E. E. Cummings
91. Life is at its best when everything has fallen out of place, and you decide that you’re going to fight to get them right, not when everything is going your way and everyone is praising you. – Thisuri Wanniarachchi
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Uplifting quotes for stressful times
Here is the last list of uplifting quotes I prepared for you! I hope these motivational quotes for stressful times will help you relax, release some anxiety, calm down, and feel ready to face the challenges.
92. Problems are not stop signs; they are guidelines. – Robert Schuller
93. If it’s not exactly like you thought it would be, you think it’s a failure. What about the spectrum of colors in between. – Sara Evans
94. Lighten up, just enjoy life, smile more, laugh more, and don’t get so worked up about things. – Kenneth Branagh
95. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from a horse master. He told me to go slow to go fast. I think that applies to everything in life. We live as though there aren’t enough hours in the day but if we do each thing calmly and carefully we will get it done quicker and with much less stress. – Viggo Mortensen
96. We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope. – Martin Luther King
97. We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
Joseph Campbell
98. Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging. – Joseph Campbell
99. I think goals should never be easy, they should force you to work, even if they are uncomfortable at the time. – Michael Phelps
100. What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise. – Oscar Wilde
101. And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. 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
Final thoughts on using uplifting quotes for hard times
This was my list of 101 uplifting quotes for hard times! Use them whenever you need some extra motivation and a reminder to stay strong, and share the most encouraging quotes with friends when they really need it. Also, tell me in the comments which of these sayings has hit home for you!
Remember that hard times are never permanent! And the sun always rises, even after the darkest night.