Life is a beautiful journey that is meant to be embraced to the fullest every day. However, that doesn’t mean you always wake up ready to seize the day, and sometimes need a reminder that life is a great gift. Whether a funny quote from a famous celebrity or an encouraging message about giving it your best from a successful business person, we can all use a little motivation and inspiration these days via a life quote.
Allow these 150 inspirational quotes about life to give you an extra pep in your step whenever you may need it. Keep these life quotes bookmarked on your phone or computer to pull up and scroll through whenever you need a little pick me up.
Life Quotes
1. “The purpose of our lives is to be happy.” — Dalai Lama
2. “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” — John Lennon
3. “Get busy living or get busy dying.” — Stephen King
4. “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” — Mae West
5. “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”– Thomas A. Edison
6. “If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.”– Albert Einstein
7. “Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.”– Babe Ruth
8. “Money and success don’t change people; they merely amplify what is already there.” — Will Smith
9. “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
10. “Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing.” — Seneca
11. “If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
12. “The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what is one’s destiny to do, and then do it.”– Henry Ford
13. “In order to write about life first you must live it.”– Ernest Hemingway
14. “The big lesson in life, baby, is never be scared of anyone or anything.”– Frank Sinatra
15. “Sing like no one’s listening, love like you’ve never been hurt, dance like nobody’s watching, and live like it’s heaven on earth.” – (Attributed to various sources)
16. “Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.” – Leo Burnett
17. “Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”– Soren Kierkegaard
18. “The unexamined life is not worth living.” — Socrates
19. “Turn your wounds into wisdom.” — Oprah Winfrey
20. “The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.” —Dolly Parton
21. “Do all the good you can, for all the people you can, in all the ways you can, as long as you can.” — Hillary Clinton (inspired by John Wesley quote)
22. “Don’t settle for what life gives you; make life better and build something.” — Ashton Kutcher
23. “Everybody wants to be famous, but nobody wants to do the work. I live by that. You grind hard so you can play hard. At the end of the day, you put all the work in, and eventually it’ll pay off. It could be in a year, it could be in 30 years. Eventually, your hard work will pay off.” — Kevin Hart
24. “Everything negative – pressure, challenges – is all an opportunity for me to rise.” — Kobe Bryant
25. “I like criticism. It makes you strong.” — LeBron James
26. “You never really learn much from hearing yourself speak.” ― George Clooney
27. “Life imposes things on you that you can’t control, but you still have the choice of how you’re going to live through this.” — Celine Dion
28. “Life is never easy. There is work to be done and obligations to be met – obligations to truth, to justice, and to liberty.” — John F. Kennedy (JFK Quotes)
29. “Live for each second without hesitation.” — Elton John
30. “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” — Albert Einstein
31. “Life is really simple, but men insist on making it complicated.” — Confucius
32. “Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.” — Helen Keller
33. “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.” — Steve Jobs
34. “My mama always said, life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” — Forrest Gump (Forrest Gump Quotes)
35. “Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.”— Lao-Tze
36. “When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life or the life of another.” — Helen Keller
37. “The healthiest response to life is joy.” — Deepak Chopra
38. “Life is like a coin. You can spend it any way you wish, but you only spend it once.” — Lillian Dickson
39. “The best portion of a good man’s life is his little nameless, unencumbered acts of kindness and of love.” — Wordsworth
40. “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: It goes on.” ― Robert Frost
41. “Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.” — Charles Swindoll
42. “Keep calm and carry on.” — Winston Churchill
43. “Maybe that’s what life is… a wink of the eye and winking stars.” — Jack Kerouac
44. “Life is a flower of which love is the honey.” — Victor Hugo
45. “Keep smiling, because life is a beautiful thing and there’s so much to smile about.” — Marilyn Monroe
46. “Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.” — Buddha
47. “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.” — Dr. Seuss
48. “Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.” — Mark Twain
49. “Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.” — Stephen Hawking
50. “Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
51. “The greatest pleasure of life is love.” — Euripides
52. “Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.” — Grandma Moses
53. “Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.” — Benjamin Franklin
54. “Life is about making an impact, not making an income.” — Kevin Kruse
55. “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan
56. “Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.” – Babe Ruth
57. “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” – Mark Twain
58. “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” – Anais Nin
59. “When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” – John Lennon
60. “Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.” – Les Brown
61. “I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine.” —Neil Armstrong
62. “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” —Mahatma Gandhi
63. “If you live long enough, you’ll make mistakes. But if you learn from them, you’ll be a better person.” —Bill Clinton
64. “Life is short, and it is here to be lived.” —Kate Winslet
65. “The longer I live, the more beautiful life becomes.” —Frank Lloyd Wright
66. “Every moment is a fresh beginning.” —T.S. Eliot
67. “When you cease to dream you cease to live.” —Malcolm Forbes
68. “If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you’ll never enjoy the sunshine.” —Morris West
69. “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” —Dr. Seuss
70. “If you can do what you do best and be happy, you’re further along in life than most people.” —Leonardo DiCaprio
71. “We should remember that just as a positive outlook on life can promote good health, so can everyday acts of kindness.” —Hillary Clinton
72. “Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve.” —Mary Kay Ash
73. “It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” —J. K. Rowling
74. “If you’re not stubborn, you’ll give up on experiments too soon. And if you’re not flexible, you’ll pound your head against the wall and you won’t see a different solution to a problem you’re trying to solve.” —Jeff Bezos
75. “The best way to predict your future is to create it.” — Abraham Lincoln
76. “You must expect great things of yourself before you can do them.” —Michael Jordan
77. “Identity is a prison you can never escape, but the way to redeem your past is not to run from it, but to try to understand it, and use it as a foundation to grow.” —Jay-Z
78. “There are no mistakes, only opportunities.” —Tina Fey
79. “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” —Warren Buffett
80. “As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.” —Audrey Hepburn
81. “Sometimes you can’t see yourself clearly until you see yourself through the eyes of others.” —Ellen DeGeneres
82. “You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.” —Mahatma Gandhi
83. “All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
84. “Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes … the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules … You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things … They push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius …” – Steve Jobs
85. “It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.” – Leonardo Da Vinci
86. “Throughout life people will make you mad, disrespect you and treat you bad. Let God deal with the things they do, cause hate in your heart will consume you too.” — Will Smith
87. “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”– Buddha
88. “Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor.” – Sholom Aleichem
89. “If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.” – Bruce Lee
90. When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one that has opened for us. – Alexander Graham Bell
91. “Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.” — Anonymous
92. “Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.” – Omar Khayyam
93. “Happiness is the feeling that power increases — that resistance is being overcome.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
94. “I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.” — John Stuart Mill
95. “The secret of happiness, you see is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.”-Socrates
96. “The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large.” — Confucius
97. “The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.”— Seneca
98. “Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.” — Henry David Thoreau
99. “When it is obvious that goals can’t be reached, don’t adjust the goals, but adjust the action steps.” — Confucius
100. “There may be people who have more talent than you, but there’s no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do – and I believe that.” — Derek Jeter
Quotes About Life
101. “Don’t be afraid to fail. It’s not the end of the world, and in many ways, it’s the first step toward learning something and getting better at it.” — Jon Hamm
102. “Life is very interesting… in the end, some of your greatest pains, become your greatest strengths.” – Drew Barrymore
103. “I think if you live in a black-and-white world, you’re gonna suffer a lot. I used to be like that. But I don’t believe that anymore.” – Bradley Cooper
104. “I don’t believe in happy endings, but I do believe in happy travels, because ultimately, you die at a very young age, or you live long enough to watch your friends die. It’s a mean thing, life.” – George Clooney
105. “It’s never too late – never too late to start over, never too late to be happy.” – Jane Fonda
106. “You’re only human. You live once and life is wonderful, so eat the damned red velvet cupcake.” – Emma Stone
107. “A lot of people give up just before they’re about to make it. You know you never know when that next obstacle is going to be the last one.” – Chuck Norris
108. “Be nice to people on the way up, because you may meet them on the way down.” – Jimmy Durante
109. “I believe you make your day. You make your life. So much of it is all perception, and this is the form that I built for myself. I have to accept it and work within those compounds, and it’s up to me.” – Brad Pitt
110. “The minute that you’re not learning I believe you’re dead.” – Jack Nicholson
111. “Life’s tough, but it’s tougher when you’re stupid.” – John Wayne
112. “Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life — think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.” — Swami Vivekananda
113. “I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living or get busy dying.” — Shawshank Redemption
114. “When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.” — Paulo Coelho
115. “There are three things you can do with your life: You can waste it, you can spend it, or you can invest it. The best use of your life is to invest it in something that will last longer than your time on Earth.” — Rick Warren
116. “You only pass through this life once, you don’t come back for an encore.” — Elvis Presley
117. “In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit.” — Anne Frank
118. “You’re not defined by your past; you’re prepared by it. You’re stronger, more experienced, and you have greater confidence.” — Joel Osteen
119. “We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.” — Jimmy Carter
120. “Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart.” — Seneca
121. “Once you figure out who you are and what you love about yourself, I think it all kinda falls into place.” — Jennifer Aniston
122. “Happy is the man who can make a living by his hobby.” — George Bernard Shaw
123. “Just disconnect. Once in a day sometime, sit silently and from all connections disconnect yourself.” — Yoda (Star Wars Quotes)
124. “Be where you are; otherwise you will miss your life.” — Buddha
125. “Living an experience, a particular fate, is accepting it fully.” — Albert Camus
126. “The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.” — Oprah Winfrey
127. “Your image isn’t your character. Character is what you are as a person.” — Derek Jeter
128. “Football is like life, it requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work sacrifice, dedication and respect for authority.” — Vince Lombardi
129. “As you know, life is an echo; we get what we give.” — David DeNotaris
130. “There are no regrets in life, just lessons.” — Jennifer Aniston
131. “I believe that nothing in life is unimportant every moment can be a beginning.” — John McLeod
132. “Find people who will make you better.” — Michelle Obama
133. “As my knowledge of things grew I felt more and more the delight of the world I was in.” — Helen Keller
134. “Benjamin Franklin was a humanitarian that dedicated his life to making contributions to all humans. He had a clear purpose for himself: improve the human race.” — Paulo Braga
135. “You cannot control everything that happens to you; you can only control the way you respond to what happens. In your response is your power.” — Anonymous
136. “Don’t allow your past or present condition to control you. It’s just a process that you’re going through to get you to the next level.” – T.D. Jakes
137. “You will meet two kinds of people in life: ones who build you up and ones who tear you down. But in the end, you’ll thank them both.” — Anonymous
138. “My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.” – Maya Angelou
139. “If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.” – Gail Sheehy
140. “You choose the life you live. If you don’t like it, it’s on you to change it because no one else is going to do it for you.” – Kim Kiyosaki
141. “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously, that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case you fail by default.” — Anonymous
142. “Life doesn’t require that we be the best, only that we try our best.” – H. Jackson Brown Jr.
143. “The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don’t always soften the bad things, but vice versa, the bad things don’t always spoil the good things and make them unimportant.” – Doctor Who
144. “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain.” – Vivian Greene
145. “I enjoy life when things are happening. I don’t care if it’s good things or bad things. That means you’re alive.” – Joan Rivers
146. “There’s more to life than basketball. The most important thing is your family and taking care of each other and loving each other no matter what.” – Stephen Curry
147. “Today, you have 100% of your life left.” – Tom Landry (Football Quotes)
148. “Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.” – George Halas
149. “Make each day your masterpiece.” – John Wooden
150. “You can’t put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the farther you get.” – Michael Phelps