We live in a world where there is so much pressure to do and become. This has resulted in several people now having to cope with living with anxiety. Everyone needs an incentive now and then to keep them going. Whether you have an anxiety illness, have noticed an increase in worry and anxiety recently, or are merely going through a stressful period right now, here are 50+ anxiety quotes that can help you cope with living with anxiety.
Key Takeaways
- Many people also suffer from anxiety because of the challenges and difficulties they experience in everyday life, such as worrying about an ill parent, getting a job, and so on.
- Quotes like “When you feel overwhelmed, remember: A little at a time is how it gets done. One thing, one task, one moment at a time”, can help them define what they’re feeling, ease their fears, and also give them the courage to face life
Living with Anxiety
For people living with anxiety illness, the root might differ but it doesn’t change its effect on them. A person can be living with anxiety as a result of a family illness passed through the family. However, many people also suffer from anxiety because of the challenges and difficulties they experience in everyday life, such as worrying about an ill parent, getting a job, getting married, paying the bills, working in a hostile environment, starting a new project, etc. The result of this includes racing thoughts, loss of breath, headaches, teeth grinding, nausea, panic attacks, depression, sleeplessness, etc.
How Can Quotes Help You Cope with Living with Anxiety?
Many people have come up with famous sayings that address the topic of anxiety and truly help in coping with it. Although these sayings might not provide a permanent cure for people living with anxiety, these quotes help them to define what they’re feeling, ease their fears, and also give them the courage to face life.
50+ Anxiety Quotes To Help You Cope with Living with Anxiety
1. “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
2. “There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.”
—Epictetus
3. “When you feel overwhelmed, remember: A little at a time is how it gets done. One thing, one task, one moment at a time.”
—Anonymous
4. “Maybe you have to know the darkness before you can appreciate the light.”
—Madeleine L’Engle
5. “Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important.”
—Natalie Goldberg
6. “A positive attitude gives you power over your circumstances instead of your circumstances having power over you.”
—Joyce Meyer
7. “Anxiety’s like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you very far.”
—Jodi Picoult
8. “Rule number one: Don’t sweat the small stuff. Rule number two: It’s all small stuff.”
—Robert S. Eliot
9. “It’s not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it.”
—Hans Selye
10. “Surrender to what is, let go of what was, and have faith in what will be.”
—Sonia Ricotti
11. “If you can’t fly, run. If you can’t run, walk. If you can’t walk, crawl, but by all means, keep moving.”
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
12. “No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.”
—Virginia Woolf
13. “Calm mind brings inner strength and self-confidence, so that’s very important for good health.”
—Dalai Lama
14. “Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.”
—Chinese Proverb
15. “My anxiety doesn’t come from thinking about the future but from wanting to control it.”
—Hugh Prather
16. “Good humor is a tonic for mind and body. It is the best antidote for anxiety and depression…It lightens human burdens. It is the direct route to serenity and contentment.”
—Grenville Kleiser
17. “The universe doesn’t allow perfection.”
—Stephen Hawking
18. “You don’t have to control your thoughts; you just have to stop letting them control you.”
—Dan Millman
19. “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
20. “Present fears are less than horrible imaginings.”
—William Shakespeare
21. “Life is ten percent what you experience and ninety percent how you respond to it.”
—Anonymous
22. “The great thing, then, in all education, is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy.”
—William James
23. “Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.”
—Charles Spurgeon
24. “The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.”
—Sydney J. Harris
25. “Actually spending ten minutes clearing off one shelf is better than fantasizing about spending a weekend cleaning out the basement.”
—Gretchen Rubin
26. “The elimination diet: Remove anger, regret, resentment, guilt, blame, and worry. Then watch your health, and life, improve.”
—Charles Glassman
27. “Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.”
—Arthur Somers Roche
28. “Worry in the dark can make it even darker.”
—Camron Wright
29. “Happiness is not a brilliant climax to years of grim struggle and anxiety. It is a long succession of little decisions simply to be happy in the moment.”
—J. Donald Walters
30. “We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
—Joseph Campbell
31. “We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.”
—Mother Teresa
32. “In the end, just three things matter: How well we have lived. How well we have loved. How well we have learned to let go.”
—Jack Kornfield
33. “What else does anxiety about the future bring you but sorrow upon sorrow?”
—Thomas á Kempis
34. “Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow.”
—Swedish proverb
35. “Sometimes the bad things that happen in our lives put us directly on the path to the most wonderful things that will ever happen to us.”
—Nicole Reed
36. “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”
—Maya Angelou
37. “We all have anxiety about things. We all have little insecurities, but eventually, you have to face your fears if you want to be successful, and everybody has some fear of failure.”
—Nick Saban
38. “I just give myself permission to suck…I find this hugely liberating.”
—John Green
39. “Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.”
—Eckhart Tolle
40. “Nothing is permanent in this wicked world—not even our troubles.”
—Charlie Chaplin
41. “The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”
—Confucius
42. “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”
—Anne Lamott
43. “When you walk through a storm hold your head up high, and don’t be afraid of the dark/At the end of the storm is a golden sky, and the sweet silver song of a lark.”
—Oscar Hammerstein II
44. “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
45. “Everything you have ever wanted, is sitting on the other side of fear.”
—George Addair
46. “If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.”
—Frank A. Clark
47. “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
48. “Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action.”
— Walter Anderson
49. “Do not let your difficulties fill you with anxiety, after all, it is only in the darkest nights that stars shine more brightly.”
— Ali Ibn Abi Talib
50. “He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.”
— Michel de Montaigne
51. “Worrying is carrying tomorrow’s load with today’s strength — carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.”
— Corrie ten Boom
52. “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
— Reinhold Niebuhr
53. “Whatever is going to happen will happen, whether we worry or not.”
— Ana Monnar
54. “In the end, it is important to remember that we cannot become what we need to be by remaining where we are.”
— Max De Pree
55. “You must learn to let go. Release the stress. You were never in control anyway.”
—Steve Maraboli
56. “It’s OKAY to be scared. Being scared means you’re about to do something really, really brave.”
—Mandy Hale
57. “Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.”
—Benjamin Franklin
58. “If you treat every situation as a life and death matter, you’ll die a lot of times.”
—Dean Smith
59. “At the end of the day, tell yourself gently: ‘I love you, you did the best you could today, and even if you didn’t accomplish all you had planned, I love you anyway.”
—Anonymous
60. “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
61. “Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest taken between two deep breaths.”
—Etty Hillesum
62. “What people in the world think of you is really none of your business.”
—Martha Graham
63. “I will breathe. I will think of solutions. I will not let my worry control me. I will not let my stress level break me. I will simply breathe. And it will be okay because I don’t quit.”
—Shayne McClendon
More Anxiety Quotes
64. “Stand up to your obstacles and do something about them. You will find that they haven’t half the strength you think they have.”
—Norman Vincent Peale
65. “When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.”
—Winston Churchill
66. “I am reminded of the advice of my neighbor. ‘Never worry about your heart till it stops beating.’”
—E. B. White
67. “He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.”
—Shannon L. Alder
68. “When I let go of what I am, I become what I want to be.”
—Lao Tzu
69. “Anxiety happens when you think you have to figure out everything all at once. Breathe. You’re strong. You got this. Take it day by day.”
—Karen Salmansohn
70. “The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.”
—William James
71. “You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.”
—Olin Miller
72. “You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
—Martin Luther King
73. “Never let life’s hardships disturb you … no one can avoid problems, not even saints or sages.”
—Nichiren Daishonen
74. “You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”
—Maya Angelou
75. “Never fear shadows. They simply mean there’s a light shining somewhere nearby.”
—Ruth E. Renkel
76. “Inner peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions.”
—Pema Chodron
77. “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
78. “Happiness is not a brilliant climax to years of grim struggle and anxiety. It is a long succession of little decisions simply to be happy at the moment.”
—J. Donald Walters
79. “There are far, far better things ahead than anything we leave behind.”
—C. S. Lewis
80. “When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.”
—Henry Ford
81. “Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.”
—William James
82. “Sometimes the bad things that happen in our lives put us directly on the path to the most wonderful things that will ever happen to us.”
—Nicole Reed
What Is the “3-3-3 rule” for Anxiety?
The 333 anxiety rule involves observing three things that you can see, hear, and move or touch. It is a grounding technique — a coping skill for managing overwhelming emotions by shifting the focus away from anxiety and toward the present moment.
How Do I Handle Anxiety?
Anxiety disorders can be managed in different ways, including learning about anxiety, mindfulness, relaxation techniques, proper breathing techniques, dietary adjustments, exercise, assertiveness training, self-esteem building, cognitive therapy, exposure therapy, structured problem solving, medication, and support groups.
Conclusion
While it is perfectly normal to have the occasional stress outburst as a result of a daunting prospect or event, having them repeatedly becomes worrisome and a call for alarm. You should get professional help if you discover that you’re a chronic thinker and/or also suffer from anxiety. You can email us here and book a session with one of our experts.
Also, let us know how helpful these quotes were in helping you to cope with living with anxiety.
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References
