Life isn’t always easy.
Some days just feel heavy, tired or uninspired. Or you’re overwhelmed and stressed out.
And on some days life just keeps throwing unexpected and unwelcome curveballs.
So to help you with that I’d like to share 125 of the most motivational, joyful and positive quotes about life.
I hope you’ll find something here to share with friends and family to give them a boost, something to ground you and give you hope when you’re having a tough time and simply something to brighten your day.
Positive Quotes About Life to Brighten Your Day
“Life is like a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
– Albert Einstein
“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”
– Alice Walker
“Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.”
– Ashley Smith
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”
– Anaïs Nin
“I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I have lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.”
– Diane Ackerman
“You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.”
– Oprah Winfrey
“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
– George Bernard Shaw
“Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.”
– Emily Dickinson
“We all have two lives. The second one starts when we realize we only have one.”
– Confucius
“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
– John Lennon
“What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others.”
– Nelson Mandela
“No matter what happens in life, be good to people. Being good to people is a wonderful legacy to leave behind.”
– Taylor Swift
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
– Confucius
“Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.”
– Dalai Lama
“Life is in ourselves and not in the external.”
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
“The good life is inspired by love and guided by knowledge.”
– Bertrand Russell
“Life has got all those twists and turns. You’ve got to hold on tight and off you go.”
– Nicole Kidman
“Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay.”
– Simone de Beauvoir
“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
– Winston Churchill
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
– Lao Tzu
“Love life. Engage in it. Give it all you’ve got. Love it with a passion because life truly does give back, many times over, what you put into it.”
– Maya Angelou
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
– Soren Kierkegaard
“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche
“In three words, I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”
– Robert Frost
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Positive Quotes for a Great Morning
“Every morning brings new potential, but if you dwell on the misfortunes of the day before, you tend to overlook tremendous opportunities.”
– Harvey Mackay
“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.”
– Rumi
“Just one small positive thought in the morning can change your whole day.”
– Dalai Lama
“Every day brings new choices.”
– Martha Beck
“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”
– Marcus Aurelius
“Waking up this morning, I smile. 24 brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh
“Each morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.”
– Buddha
“An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.”
– Henry David Thoreau
“The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day.”
– Henry Ward Beecher
“Morning is an important time of day, because how you spend your morning can often tell you what kind of day you are going to have.”
– Lemony Snicket
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
– Anne Frank
“Smile in the mirror. Do that every morning and you’ll start to see a big difference in your life.”
– Yoko Ono
“I get up every morning and it’s going to be a great day. You never know when it’s going to be over so I refuse to have a bad day.”
– Paul Henderson
“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Now that your eyes are open, make the sun jealous with your burning passion to start the day. Make the sun jealous or stay in bed.”
– Malak El Halabi
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”
– Robert Louis Stevenson
“You have to have a dream so you can get up in the morning.”
– Billy Wilder
“You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction.”
– George Horace Lorimer
“Give every day the chance to become the most beautiful day of your life.”
– Mark Twain
“Every morning, I wake up saying, ‘I’m still alive, a miracle.’ And so I keep on pushing.”
– Jim Carrey
Positive Quotes for Work and a Jolt of Motivation
“If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.”
– Dolly Parton
“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.”
– Alexander Graham Bell
“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.”
– Michael Altshuler
“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
“The most difficult thing is the decision to act; the rest is merely tenacity.”
– Amelia Earhart
“Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible.’”
– Audrey Hepburn
“You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.”
– Stephen King
“Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.”
– Tony Robbins
“The secret to getting ahead is getting started.”
– Mark Twain
“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”
– Confucius
“Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.”
– Dale Carnegie
“Success isn’t always about ‘Greatness,’ it’s about consistency. Consistent, hard work gains success. Greatness will come.”
– Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
“No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.”
– Robin Williams
“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.”
– Albert Einstein
“Believe you can, and you’re halfway there.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
“Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.”
– Earl Nightingale
“Be passionate and move forward with gusto every single hour of every single day until you reach your goal.”
– Ava DuVernay
“The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.”
– Vidal Sassoon
“A year from now, you may wish you had started today.”
– Karen Lamb
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined.”
– Henry David Thoreau
Positive Quotes About Living a Happy Life
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
“Life will bring you pain all by itself. Your responsibility is to create joy.”
– Milton Erickson
“Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn’t stop to enjoy it.”
– William Feather
“Every day is a new day, and you’ll never be able to find happiness if you don’t move on.”
– Carrie Underwood
“The most important thing is to enjoy your life – to be happy – it’s all that matters.”
– Audrey Hepburn
“Folks are usually about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
– Abraham Lincoln
“For every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
– Dr. Seuss
“Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.”
– Omar Khayyam
“The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts.”
– Marcus Aurelius
“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh
“Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.”
– Carl Jung
“Don’t waste a minute not being happy. If one window closes, run to the next window – or break down a door.”
– Brooke Shields
“Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”
– Joseph Campbell
“If you want to be happy, be.”
– Leo Tolstoy
“A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.”
– Albert Einstein
“Happiness is not a goal… it’s a by-product of a life well-lived.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt
“Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions.”
– Dalai Lama
“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
“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”
– Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
“The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.”
– James M. Barrie
“It’s the moments that I stopped just to be, rather than do, that have given me true happiness.”
– Richard Branson
“Happiness does not lead to gratitude. Gratitude leads to happiness.”
– David Steindl-Rast
“The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.”
– William Morris
“Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh
Positive Quotes for Spreading the Joy and Optimism
“The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.”
– Mark Twain
“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
“Optimism is a happiness magnet. If you stay positive, good things and good people will be drawn to you.”
– Mary Lou Retton
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
– Martin Luther King Jr.
“Keep your face always toward the sunshine and shadows will fall behind you.”
– Walt Whitman
“I believe we are here on the planet Earth to live, grow up and do what we can to make this world a better place for all people to enjoy freedom.”
– Rosa Parks
“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
“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”
– Marcel Proust
“If you see someone without a smile, give ’em yours.”
– Dolly Parton
“The person who can bring the spirit of laughter into a room is indeed blessed.”
– Bennett Cerf
“Always find opportunities to make someone smile, and to offer random acts of kindness in everyday life.”
– Roy T. Bennett
“Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.”
– Mother Teresa
“The beauty of empowering others is that your own power is not diminished in the process.”
– Andrew Carnegie
“Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.”
– Colin Powell
“Be fanatically positive and militantly optimistic. If something is not to your liking, change your liking.”
– Rick Steves
“Whoever is happy will make others happy too.”
– Anne Frank
“There is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow creatures and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.”
– Charlotte Brontë
“As we work to create light for others, we naturally light our own way.”
– Mary Anne Radmacher
“Positive anything is better than negative nothing.”
– Elbert Hubbard
“Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results.”
– Willie Nelson
Short Positive Quotes About Life
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
– Oscar Wilde
“Light tomorrow with today.”
– Elizabeth Barrett Browning
“Hope is the most exciting thing there is in life.”
– Mandy Moore
“I dwell in possibility.”
– Emily Dickinson
“Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.”
– John W. Gardner
“Done is better than perfect.”
– Sheryl Sandberg
“The power of imagination makes us infinite.”
– John Muir
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist.”
– Oscar Wilde
“A dead end is just a good place to turn around.”
– Naomi Judd
“Life itself is the proper binge.”
– Julia Child
“You cannot find peace by avoiding life.”
– Virginia Woolf
“Say something positive, and you’ll see something positive.”
– Jim Thompson
“Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”
– Roald Dahl
“Each day provides its own gifts.”
– Marcus Aurelius
“What we think, we become.”
– Buddha
Want more motivation and positive energy to brighten your day? Then have a look at these daily motivational quotes, the inspirational workplace quotes here and also this one with short success quotes.