60 Quotes About Strength and Resilience to Help Through Hard Times

Can reading a litany of quotes about resilience and positive inner strength actually lift you up during challenging times, or even just during one of those days? Turns out, yes. When the going gets tough, we all need encouragement and a quick reminder of our deeper reserves. Sure, reaching out to your inner circle helps. So does the best workout or even a brisk walk in the sun. Even the temporary escapism of watching the best action movies for the umpteenth time. But don’t overlook the swift, effective salve of strong encouraging quotes backed by the hard-won wisdom of famous folks who could write the book on grace, grit, and pushing through when it really counts.

Perusing strength quotes can work like a guiding mantra—and, in fact, serve as an encouraging reminder that you are strong, too. The following short quotes about strength in hard times, resilience quotes, and "stay strong" quotes come from figures as varied as Gandhi, Brené Brown, and Steve Jobs. Turns out, they’ve all been there, too. Here are 60 of our favorite strength quotes for whenever you need a wise and timely boost.

Best Quotes About Strength of 2024

If you’re looking for three concise classics that will never fade, here's our strength quote trifecta that's worth memorizing. These three quotes about strength may be just the quick reminder you need that you are strong and this too shall pass. 

• “Perhaps one day it will be pleasing to recall even such hardships.” — Virgil
• “What does not kill me makes me stronger.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
• “Burdens are for shoulders strong enough to carry them.” ― Margaret Mitchell

Best Resilience Quotes

When the going gets tough, the tough tap into their grit, flexibility, and deep inner strengths. Our favorite resilience quotes remind us that it's often through struggle that we grow stronger, wiser, and even happier. 

• “With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt
• “Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving. We get stronger and more resilient.” ― Steve Maraboli
• "No matter how much falls on us, we keep plowing ahead. That's the only way to keep the roads clear." ― Greg Kincaid
• “Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender. That is strength.” ― Arnold Schwarzenegger
• “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” ― Winston Churchill
• “‎Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.” ― Voltaire
• “Ninety-nine percent of failures come from people who make excuses.” ― George Washington
• “Whether it is the best of times or the worst of times, it is the only time we have.” ― Art Buchwald
• “In every battle, there comes a time when both sides consider themselves beaten. Then he who continues the attack wins.” ― Ulysses S. Grant
• “You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice.” ― Bob Marley
• “All great and precious things are lonely.” ― John Steinbeck
• “The jungle is dark but full of diamonds, Willy.” ― Arthur Miller

Best Positive Inner Strength Quotes

When you’re hoping to find some inspiration deep down inside of you, these positive inner strength quotes from literary giants, tech leaders, and global icons fit the bill. Just reading them, you’ll feel a little more sure of yourself and inspired to keep chipping away at your goals.

• “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” — Albert Camus
• “Nobody can hurt me without my permission.” ― Mahatma Gandhi
• “The world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” ― Ernest Hemingway
• “My strength is as the strength of 10, / Because my heart is pure.” ― Alfred Lord Tennyson
• “Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere… Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind, spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies.” ― Robert Louis Stevenson
• "We don't even know how strong we are until we are forced to bring that hidden strength forward." ― Isabel Allende
• “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” ― Viktor E. Frankl
• “I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.” ― Louisa May Alcott
• “Keep your face always toward the sunshine―and shadows will fall behind you.” ― Walt Whitman
• “You can't put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the farther you get.” ― Michael Phelps
• “Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.” ― Steve Jobs

Best Strong Encouraging Quotes

When you need just a little extra oomph to get to wherever you’re going, these quotes of encouragement are the perfect foothold. Share them with a loved one when they need some motivation to persevere.

• “Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.” — Maya Angelou
• “It's not always necessary to be strong, but to feel strong.” ― Jon Krakauer 
• “Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.” ― Robert Louis Stevenson
• “Be strong. Live honorably and with dignity. When you don't think you can, hold on.” ― James Frey
• “We must always deal from strength and insist on verification of every agreement. In my meetings with the General Secretary I repeated several times a Russian proverb: ‘Doveryai no proveryai’—'Trust but verify.’" ― Ronald Reagan
• “It is not the strength but the duration of great sentiments that makes great men.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche
• “The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty.” ― Jean Jacques Rousseau
• “Should I, after tea and cakes and ices / Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?” ― T.S. Eliot
• “It's good to do uncomfortable things. It's weight training for life.” ― Anne Lamott
• “Courage is an inner resolution to go forward in spite of obstacles and frightening situations.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
• “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” — Confucius
• “Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.” ― George R.R. Martin

Best Strength in Hard Times Quotes

Seeking some extra strength words of wisdom during hard times? From Albert Einstein to Roxane Gay, these 10 quotes speak to the virtue of facing challenges with equanimity and even a sense of opportunity. 

• "The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.” ― Robert Jordan
• “The struggles we endure today will be the ‘good old days’ we laugh about tomorrow.” ― Aaron Lauritsen
• “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” ― Albert Einstein
• "There are two ways of meeting difficulties: You alter the difficulties, or you alter yourself to meet them.” ― Phyllis Bottome
• “I am stronger than I am broken.” ― Roxane Gay
• “However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up.” ― Stephen Hawking
• “He knows not his own strength who hath not met adversity.” ― William Samuel Johnson
• “Most great people have attained their greatest success one step beyond their greatest failure.” ― Napoleon Hill
• “Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” ― Joshua J. Marine
• "It isn't the mountains ahead that wear you down. It's the pebble in your shoe." ― Muhammad Ali

Best Short Quotes About Strength

Short quotes about strength are easy to memorize and turn into your new favorite mantra. They make a perfect, pithy fridge note or text to a friend in need. 

• "A brave man acknowledges the strength of others.” ― Veronica Roth
• “Courage isn't having the strength to go on. It is going on when you don't have strength.” ― Napoleon Bonaparte
• “You can't really be strong until you can see a funny side to things.” ― Ken Kesey
• “Rule your mind or it will rule you.” ― Horace
• “You can't get to courage without walking through vulnerability.” ― Brené Brown
• “The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity.” ― Amelia Earhart
• “It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.” ― Babe Ruth
• “Always do what you are afraid to do.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
• “There are certain life lessons that you can only learn in the struggle.” ― Idowu Koyenikan
• “The only failure is not to try” ― George Clooney
• “I knew that, when needed, mountains would move for me.” ― Norman Maclean
• “He who conquers others is strong; he who conquers himself is mighty." ― Lao Tzu