51 Life-Changing Quotes You Won’t Forget

READER'S DIGEST

Quotes about life and change

1. “Do what is right, not what is easy nor what is popular.” —Roy T. Bennett

2. “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” —Toni Morrison

3. “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” —Arthur Ashe

4. “By changing nothing, nothing changes.” —Tony Robbins

5. “You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.” —Stephen King

6. “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” —John A. Shedd

7. “Fear is forward. No one is afraid of yesterday.” —Renata Adler

8. “For every minute you are angry, you lose 60 seconds of happiness.” —Unknown

9. “There is nothing brilliant or outstanding in my record, except perhaps this one thing. I do the things I believe ought to be done. And when I make up my mind to do a thing, I act.” —Theodore Roosevelt

10. “We can decide to let our trials crush us, or we can convert them to new forces of good.” —Helen Keller, author

11. “If you’re serious about changing your life, you’ll find a way. If you’re not, you’ll find an excuse.” —Jen Sincero

12. “We build too many walls and not enough bridges.” —James Fort Newton

13. “Do one thing every day that scares you.” —Mary Schmich

14. “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” —Oscar Wilde

15. “Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day, someone might do the same for you.” —Diana, Princess of Wales

16. “You can either waltz boldly onto the stage of life and live the way you know your spirit is nudging you to, or you can sit quietly by the wall, receding into the shadows of fear and self-doubt.” —Oprah Winfrey

17. “The most beautiful and profound way to change yourself is to accept yourself completely, as imperfect as you are.” —Maxime Lagacé

18. “We are all faced with a series of great opportunities—brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.” —John W. Gardner

19. “The Sun himself is weak when he first rises, and gathers strength and courage as the day gets on.” —Charles Dickens

20. “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” —James Baldwin

21. “There are far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” —C.S. Lewis

22. “Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t.” —Bill Nye

23. “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” —Walt Disney

24. “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

25. “If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success.” —James Cameron

READER'S DIGEST

Life-changing quotes

26. “You will face many defeats in life, but never let yourself be defeated.” —Maya Angelou

27. “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” —Thomas A. Edison

28. “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.” —Dr. Seuss

29. “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.” —Albert Einstein

30. “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.” —Henry David Thoreau

31. “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.” —Robert Frost

32. “The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.” —Elbert Hubbard

33. “I’ve spent my whole life learning how to do things that were hard for me.” —Sonia Sotomayor

34. “We can do no great things — only small things with great love.” —Saint Mother Teresa

35. “As soon as anyone starts telling you to be ‘realistic,’ cross that person off your invitation list.” —John Eliot

36. “Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.” —Unknown

37. “Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.” —Fyodor Dostoyevsky

38. “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” —Oscar Wilde

39. “But often faltering feet come surest to the goal, and they who walk in darkness meet the sunrise of the soul.” —Henry van Dyke

40. “We have the power to make the world we seek, but only if we have the courage to make a new beginning, keeping in mind what has been written.” —Barack Obama

41. “Things change. And friends leave. Life doesn’t stop for anybody.” —Stephen Chbosky

42. “Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering — because you can’t take it all in at once.” —Audrey Hepburn

43. “It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.” —Marcus Aurelius

44. “Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” —Terry Pratchett

45. “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” —Søren Kierkegaard

46. “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.” —Unkown

47. “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.” —Albert Einstein

48. “If I am going up a ladder, and a dog begins to bite at my ankles, I can do one of two things — either turn round and kick out at the it, or simply go on up the ladder. I prefer to go up the ladder!”—Maria Montessori

49. “My life is my message.” —Mahatma Gandhi

50. “Certain things, they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone.” —J.D. Salinger

51. “We must not lose our faculty to dare, particularly in dark days.” —Winston Churchill, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom52. “A year from now you will wish you had started today.” —Karen Lamb

Now that you know these life-changing quotes, check out the most inspiring quotes about life.

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At Reader’s Digest, we’ve been sharing our favorite quotes for over 100 years. The sayings and quips that appear in the magazine’s “Quotable Quotes” (formerly “Remarkable Remarks”) are curated from interviews and essays originally published in the magazine, reprints from trusted titles and other verified sources. For this piece, Emily Di Nuzzo tapped her experiences as a reporter and journalist for Reader’s Digest to ensure that all information is accurate. We’ve gone the extra step and had Sharon Boone, a fact-checker with 20-plus years of experience researching for national publications including Glamour, Seventeen, Essence, AARP and more, verify that all quotes are attributed correctly and have credible sourcing. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.