For those who are facing generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), getting through a challenging bout of symptoms can feel impossible. Even those who work with therapists on effective ways to work through anxious thoughts face days where they feel obstacles are insurmountable. In these dark moments, you (or a loved one who cares for you) may reach for a bit of motivation to accept the challenges ahead of you — and to find the energy to try again tomorrow.
It’s true that everyone faces their own adversity in life. But those with mental health conditions may be surprised to hear that some of the most celebrated individuals in history have faced anxious tendencies, too. A fair share of the world’s leaders, cultural trailblazers, prolific writers and celebrated performers have opened up about their journey in facing rumination, anticipation and dread that plagues those suffering from anxiety. And they’ve owned up to the fact that anxiety can definitely cause your life to seemingly unravel at a moment’s notice.
But all of them have also revealed the tenacity they’ve summoned to push past these roadblocks. It takes a certain amount of insight to push past negative thoughts and emotions, to put life into perspective – and this collection of inspiring quotes about anxiety may help you do that, or at the very least, give you a sense of comfort.
These quotes may not be enough to help you find clarity, and if you ever need to talk to someone, there are therapy apps and online support groups at your disposal. Visit mhanational.org if you’re in crisis, and in emergencies, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK or text “NAMI” to 741-741.
Powerful quotes about anxiety:
- “Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.” — Oprah Winfrey
- “The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but on significance — and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning.” — Oprah Winfrey
- “This life is mine alone. So I have stopped asking people for directions to places they’ve never been.” — Glennon Doyle
- “Creating something is what helped me from just spinning apart like an unweighted flywheel. And I haven’t stopped since.” – Stephen Colbert
- “You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” – Maya Angelou
- “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” —Nelson Mandela
- “I think the more people vocalize what they’re going through — their experience or just simply educating themselves so that they can learn more about what they’re talking about — that’s going to be the key to creating a conversation about mental illness and making it more understood.” — Demi Lovato
- “The tough times, the days when you’re just a ball on the floor — they’ll pass. You’re playing the long game, and life is totally worth it.” – Sarah Silverman
Design: Danielle Carson - “The best use of creativity is imagination. The worst use of creativity is anxiety.” – Deepak Chopra
- “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
- “You don’t have to control your thoughts. You just have to stop letting them control you.” – Dan Millman
- “Whatever you do, never run back to what broke you.” – Frank Ocean
- “Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow.” – Swedish Proverb
- “It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.” — Aristotle
Design: Danielle Carson - “When you make a mistake, respond to yourself in a loving way rather than a self-shaming way.” – Ellie Holcomb
- “Breathe darling. This is just a chapter. It’s not your whole story.” – S.C. Lourie
- “You can’t just take Tylenol to deal with anxiety. Being able to be level with people, being honest about your problem – that is a huge help.” – Royce White
- “We just need to be kinder to ourselves. If we treated ourselves the way we treated our best friend, can you imagine how much better off we would be?” — Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex
- “We all have mental health in the same way that we all have physical health. It’s okay to have depression, it’s okay to have anxiety, it’s okay to have an adjustment disorder.” – Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex
Design: Danielle Carson - “All over the world, people are in some kind of mental, psychological, emotional pain. Being able to say, ‘This is what happened what happened to me,’ is crucial.” –
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex
- “Success is not final; failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill
- “Be healthy and take care of yourself, but be happy with the beautiful things that make you, you.” – Beyoncé
- “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.” – President Barack Obama
- “As I started opening up and talking about my issues, I felt strength, not vulnerability.” – Michael Phelps
- “You don’t see [mental illness]: It’s not a mass; it’s not a cyst. But it’s there. Why do you need to prove it? If you can treat it, you treat it.” – Amanda Seyfried
Design: Danielle Carson - “The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but on significance — and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning.” — Oprah Winfrey
- “Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future.” – Deepak Chopra
Design: Danielle Carson - “Anxiety is something that is part of me but it’s not who I am.” – Emma Stone
- “I would tell my younger self that there’s no shame in asking a teacher for help, telling a friend that you’re uncomfortable, and that [anxiety issues] is just the same as falling down and scraping your knee.” — Lena Dunham
- “It’s crazy how your mind will become this database to make you worry about things that are so arbitrary. I have a well-organized life, and I’ve put a lot of thought into the things that I do, and then, you know, my stomach will be… I’ll just be sitting there, totally anxious about something ridiculous. You have to stop yourself during the day and say, ‘It’s just not worth it.’” – Leonardo DiCaprio
- “I’ve suffered through depression and anxiety my entire life, I still suffer with it every single day… I just want these kids to know that that depth that they feel as human beings is normal. We were born that way.” – Lady Gaga
- “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Why should we worry about what others think of us, do we have more confidence in their opinions than we do our own?” – Brigham Young
- “How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you.” – Rupi Kaur
Design: Danielle Carson - “Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest taken between two deep breaths.” — Etty Hillesum
- “Do not anticipate trouble or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.” — Benjamin Franklin
- “Difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations. The best is yet to come.” – Zig Ziglar
- “Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.” – Margaret Mead
- “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” – Anne Lamott
Design: Danielle Carson - “Surrender to what is, let go of what was, and have faith in what will be.” – Sonia Ricotti
- “The life in front of you is far more important than the life behind you.” — Joel Osteen
- “You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” – Maya Angelou
- “If you treat every situation as a life and death matter, you’ll die a lot of times.” – Dean Smith
- “There are these moments you think you won’t survive. And then you survive.” — David Levithan
- “Choose to be optimistic. It feels better.” — Dalai Lama
- “Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.” — Henry Ward Beecher
- “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” — Robert Louis Stevenson
Design: Danielle Carson - “The more you adapt, the more interesting you are.” – Martha Stewart
- “You can have it all. You just can’t have it all at once.” — Oprah Winfrey
- “Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out.” – John Wooden
- “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” — C.S. Lewis
- “Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be.” – Jack Welch
- “Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary.” — Fred Rogers
- “You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.” – Olin Miller
- “You can’t always control what goes on outside. But you can always control what goes on inside.” — Wayne Dyer
- “Don’t be afraid to be afraid.” — Maurice Chevalier
- “It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” – Herman Melville
- “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: It goes on.” — Robert Frost
Design: Danielle Carson - “What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, and more unashamed conversation.” – Glenn Close
- “If we start being honest about our pain, our anger, and our shortcomings instead of pretending they don’t exist, then maybe we’ll leave the world a better place than we found it.” – Russell Wilson
- “You are not your illness. You have an individual story to tell. You have a name, a history, and a personality. Staying yourself is part of the battle.” — Julian Seifter
- “We have seen that two heads are better than one when dealing with a mental health problem.” – Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge
- “Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, but stigma and bias shame us all.” – Bill Clinton
- “Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to the error that counts.” — Nikki Giovanni
- “Mental health is an area where people are embarrassed. They don’t want to talk about it because somehow they feel they’re a failure as a parent or, you know, they’re embarrassed for their child or they want to protect their child, lots of very good reasons, but mental health, I feel, is something that you have to talk about.” – Anna Wintour
- “There is hope, even when your brain tells you there isn’t.” – John Green
- “I’ve seen people go from the darkest moments in their lives to living a happy, fulfilling life. You can do it too. I believe in you. You are not a burden. You will never be a burden.” – Sophie Turner
Design: Danielle Carson - “What people in the world think of you is really none of your business.” – Martha Graham
- “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” – Thomas A. Edison
- “Doing nothing is very hard to do. You never know when you’re finished.” — Leslie Nielsen
- “To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.” —Bertrand Russell
- “Happiness is good health and a bad memory.” — Ingrid Bergman
- “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
- “Life does not have to be perfect to be wonderful.” —Annette Funicello
- “Whatever you do, don’t wake up at 65 years old and think about what you should have done with your life.” – George Clooney
- “Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.” – Babe Ruth
Design: Danielle Carson - “Nobody gets to live life backward. Look ahead — that’s where your future lies.” — Ann Landers
- “A problem is a chance for you to do your best.” — Duke Ellington
- “Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow; it only saps today of its strength.” — A.J. Cronin
- “If you are too careful, you are so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over something.” — Gertrude Stein
- “You can’t turn back the clock. But you can wind it up again.” — Bonnie Prudden
- “Thankfully, perseverance is a great substitute for talent.” — Steve Martin
- “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” — Walt Disney
Design: Danielle Carson - “If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
- “When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
- “Life is ours to be spent, not to be saved.” — D. H. Lawrence
- “Life is trying things to see if they work.” — Ray Bradbury
Design: Danielle Carson - “Keep smiling, because life is a beautiful thing and there’s so much to smile about.” —Marilyn Monroe
- “I promise you nothing is as chaotic as it seems. Nothing is worth diminishing your health. Nothing is worth poisoning yourself into stress, anxiety, and fear.” — Steve Maraboli
- “Present fears are less than horrible imaginings.” – William Shakespeare
- “Worry a little bit every day and in a lifetime you will lose a couple of years. If something is wrong, fix it if you can. But train yourself not to worry. Worry never fixes anything.” – Mary Hemingway
- “So the pie isn’t perfect? Cut it into wedges. Stay in control, and never panic.” – Martha Stewart
- “We’re all spending way too much of our time and energy trying to fight the stuff we can’t change.” — Gayle King
- “There’s only one thing in life, and that’s the continual renewal of inspiration.” – Diana Vreeland
- “Intelligence is composed mostly of imagination and insight, things that have nothing to do with reason.” – Vivienne Westwood
- “No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.” – Virginia Woolf
- “Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.” – Mary Tyler Moore
- “Whatever happens to you belongs to you. Make it yours. Feed it to yourself even if it feels impossible to swallow. Let it nurture you because it will.” — Cheryl Strayed
Design: Danielle Carson - “For fast-acting relief, try slowing down.” — Lily Tomlin
- “The universe doesn’t allow perfection.” — Stephen Hawking
- “Anxiety’s like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you very far.” – Jodi Picoult
- “Instead of worrying about what you cannot control, shift your energy to what you can create.” – Roy Bennett
- “Some days, doing ‘the best we can’ may still fall short of what we would like to be able to do, but life isn’t perfect — on any front — and doing what we can with what we have is the most we should expect of ourselves or anyone else.” – Fred Rogers
Health Editor
Zee Krstic is a health editor for Good Housekeeping, where he covers health and nutrition news, decodes diet and fitness trends and reviews the best products in the wellness aisle. Prior to joining GH in 2019, Zee fostered a nutrition background as an editor at Cooking Light and is continually developing his grasp of holistic health through collaboration with leading academic experts and clinical care providers. He has written about food and dining for Time, among other publications.