151 Best Quotes To Live By (with Commentary)

Quotes have a unique way of inspiring us and shaping our thoughts. They can motivate us during tough times or remind us of what truly matters in life. Whether it’s a saying from a famous figure or a personal mantra, these words hold power. In this blog, we will share some amazing quotes to live by that can uplift your spirits and guide you through everyday challenges.

Living by certain quotes can change your perspective and improve your daily life. When you embrace these meaningful words, they can provide strength and clarity in difficult moments. A great quote can spark joy, boost your confidence, and help you make better choices. By keeping these quotes in mind, you can create a more positive and purposeful life.

Top Quotes To Live By

Words of wisdom often condense complex feelings into simple truths; these quotes remind the mind to focus, the heart to persevere, and the spirit to grow. They can act as mental anchors that reframe challenges and invite us to respond with intention and courage.

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do.”Steve Jobs

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”Mahatma Gandhi

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

“Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”John Lennon

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”Socrates

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”Theodore Roosevelt

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”Oscar Wilde

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

“The only impossible journey is the one you never begin.”Tony Robbins

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quotes To Live By for Courage

Courage is not absence of fear but the decision to act despite it. These quotes strengthen the mind, reassure the heart, and remind us that bravery often starts small — in daily choices to try, stand, and speak with integrity.

“Courage is grace under pressure.”Ernest Hemingway

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.”Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.”Nelson Mandela

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

“Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.”Brené Brown

“You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.”William Faulkner

“Fortune favors the bold.”Virgil

“The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”Nelson deMille

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”E.E. Cummings

“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself.”Søren Kierkegaard

Quotes To Live By on Love

Love guides choices, heals wounds, and expands our worldview. These quotes illuminate love’s many forms — romantic, familial, and compassionate — and encourage us to act with tenderness, patience, and sincerity.

“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.”Aristotle

“Where there is love there is life.”Mahatma Gandhi

“The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.”Audrey Hepburn

“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.”Maya Angelou

“We accept the love we think we deserve.”Stephen Chbosky

“To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.”David Viscott

“Love does not dominate; it cultivates.”Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”Lao Tzu

“Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.”Mother Teresa

“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”Nat King Cole

Quotes To Live By about Success

Success is shaped by persistence, clarity, and small daily habits. These quotes focus the mind on effort, learning, and resilience rather than on quick wins, reminding us that meaningful success is earned steadily over time.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”Winston Churchill

“Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.”Henry David Thoreau

“Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.”John D. Rockefeller

“I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.”Thomas Jefferson

“The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same.”Colin R. Davis

“If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time.”Steve Jobs

“Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.”Sam Levenson

“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.”Colin Powell

“Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in.”Bill Bradley

“Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”Winston Churchill

Quotes To Live By on Happiness

Happiness often arises from gratitude, perspective, and simple pleasures. These quotes remind us that joy is a practice cultivated by attention, acceptance, and the small choices we make each day.

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.”Dalai Lama

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The most important thing is to enjoy your life—to be happy—it’s all that matters.”Audrey Hepburn

“Happiness depends upon ourselves.”Aristotle

“Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.”John Lennon

“True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of oneself.”Joseph Addison

“Happiness is a direction, not a place.”Sydney J. Harris

“The secret of happiness is freedom, the secret of freedom is courage.”Thucydides

“Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.”Omar Khayyam

“Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn’t know you left open.”John Barrymore

Quotes To Live By for Resilience

Resilience is the capacity to recover from setbacks and to keep moving forward with intention. These quotes teach that setbacks are temporary, and growth often follows struggle when we remain steady and learn from adversity.

“The human capacity for burden is like bamboo — far more flexible than you’d ever believe at first glance.”Jodi Picoult

“Fall seven times, stand up eight.”Japanese Proverb

“Out of difficulties grow miracles.”Jean de La Bruyère

“Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail.”Confucius

“Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.”C.S. Lewis

“The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.”Robert Jordan

“You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.”Margaret Thatcher

“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”Mahatma Gandhi

“Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.”Seneca

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”Viktor E. Frankl

Quotes To Live By on Friendship

Friendship enriches life, grounding us in trust and shared experience. These quotes highlight loyalty, empathy, and the quiet strength found in companions who walk beside us through both joy and hardship.

“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.”Elbert Hubbard

“Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.”Woodrow Wilson

“A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.”Walter Winchell

“Friends show their love in times of trouble, not in happiness.”Euripides

“True friendship comes when the silence between two people is comfortable.”David Tyson

“There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.”Thomas Aquinas

“Friendship multiplies the good of life and divides the evil.”Joseph Addison

“The only way to have a friend is to be one.”Ralph Waldo Emerson

“A single rose can be my garden… a single friend, my world.”Leo Buscaglia

“Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer.”Ed Cunningham

Quotes To Live By about Change

Change invites discomfort but also growth; accepting it intentionally frees us from stagnation. These quotes encourage embracing transformation as a path to renewal and greater self-discovery.

“The only constant in life is change.”Heraclitus

“Change your thoughts and you change your world.”Norman Vincent Peale

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”Leo Tolstoy

“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”Maya Angelou

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”George Bernard Shaw

“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”Albert Einstein

“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”Winston Churchill

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”Mahatma Gandhi

“Change before you have to.”Jack Welch

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”Henry Miller

Quotes To Live By for Confidence

Confidence grows from preparation, self-compassion, and small wins. These quotes remind us to trust our abilities, take risks, and speak our truth with calm assurance.

“Believe you can and you’re halfway there.”Theodore Roosevelt

“With realization of one’s own potential and self-confidence in one’s ability, one can build a better world.”Dalai Lama

“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.”Henry Ford

“Low self-esteem is like driving through life with your hand-brake on.”Maxwell Maltz

“Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong.”Peter T. Mcintyre

“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.”Helen Keller

“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.”William James

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Confidence is preparation. Everything else is beyond your control.”Richard Kline

“Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges.”Nora Roberts

Quotes To Live By on Mindfulness

Mindfulness invites presence and gentle awareness in each moment. These quotes encourage slowing down, observing without judgment, and cultivating inner peace through conscious attention.

“The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion.”Thich Nhat Hanh

“Be happy in the moment, that’s enough. Each moment is all we need, not more.”Mother Teresa

“Mindfulness is a way of befriending ourselves and our experience.”Jon Kabat-Zinn

“Life is available only in the present moment.”Thich Nhat Hanh

“Wherever you are, be there totally.”David Carradine

“Surrender to what is. Let go of what was. Have faith in what will be.”Sonia Ricotti

“The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.”Jiddu Krishnamurti

“Walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet.”Thich Nhat Hanh

“To breathe properly is to live properly.”Gregory D. Barker

“Your calm mind is the ultimate weapon against your challenges.”Bryant McGill

Quotes To Live By about Leadership

Leadership blends vision, humility, and service. These quotes highlight the importance of empathy, integrity, and empowering others to bring shared goals to life through example and collaboration.

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.”John C. Maxwell

“The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets people to do the greatest things.”Ronald Reagan

“Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions.”Harold S. Geneen

“Earn your leadership every day.”Michael Jordan

“The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.”Ralph Nader

“Leaders become great not because of their power but because of their ability to empower others.”John Maxwell

“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”Peter Drucker

“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”Ralph Waldo Emerson

“A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a moulder of consensus.”Martin Luther King Jr.

“People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.”John C. Maxwell

Quotes To Live By on Kindness

Kindness creates ripples that reach farther than we imagine. These quotes encourage everyday compassion, small gestures, and the conviction that gentle acts can transform lives and communities.

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”Aesop

“Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”Mark Twain

“Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward.”Princess Diana

“A warm smile is the universal language of kindness.”William Arthur Ward

“Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.”Dalai Lama

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word.”Leo Buscaglia

“Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.”Eric Hoffer

“What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?”Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“Act with kindness, but do not expect gratitude.”Confucius

“The simplest acts of kindness are by far more powerful than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.”Mahatma Gandhi

Quotes To Live By for Creativity

Creativity thrives on curiosity, play, and the courage to explore the unknown. These quotes celebrate original thinking, experimentation, and the joyful messiness of bringing new ideas to life.

“Creativity is intelligence having fun.”Albert Einstein

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”Maya Angelou

“Every artist was first an amateur.”Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”Albert Einstein

“To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.”Joseph Chilton Pearce

“Creativity takes courage.”Henri Matisse

“An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail.”Edwin Land

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.”Albert Einstein

“Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.”Laurence J. Peter

“Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.”Vincent Van Gogh

Quotes To Live By on Time

Time is our most finite resource; how we spend it defines our priorities. These quotes help reframe urgency, encourage presence, and remind us to invest minutes in what truly matters.

“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”Marthe Troly-Curtin

“Lost time is never found again.”Benjamin Franklin

“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”Leo Tolstoy

“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”Mother Teresa

“Don’t count the days, make the days count.”Mohammad Ali

“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.”William Penn

“The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.”C.S. Lewis

“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.”Michael Altshuler

“Time is the wisest counselor of all.”Pericles

“We must use time creatively, and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.”Martin Luther King Jr.

Final Thoughts

Quotes to live by offer more than clever phrasing; they provide mental shortcuts to values, courage, and clarity. Each phrase we revisit can become a small habit that nudges behavior in meaningful directions, helping us respond better to life’s minor storms and major shifts.

Whether you keep a favorite quote on your desk, recite a line in difficult moments, or share words that uplift others, these sayings work as quiet guides. They help us remember what we value, encourage resilience, and open new perspectives when we need them most.

In the end, the most powerful quotes are the ones you turn into action: let them inspire a kinder choice, a bolder step, or a calmer presence in the moments that matter.

Want more inspiration? Check out these related reads like Stronger Than You Think and explore uplifting Helping Others Quotes for deeper motivation and perspective.