Quotes

60 quotes for when life feels confusing

Grouped by what you probably need to hear rather than who said it first. Tap the copy icon to save one, or the share icon to send it to someone who's quietly in the same position.

On being lost

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.
Henry David Thoreau
No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the stream of life.
Friedrich Nietzsche
The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.
Alan Watts
Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.
Rumi
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.
Rumi
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
Søren Kierkegaard
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
Henry David Thoreau
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life.
Henry David Thoreau
What you seek is seeking you.
Rumi
Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
James Baldwin

On not knowing yet

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.
Rainer Maria Rilke
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
Socrates
Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.
Socrates
Beware the barrenness of a busy life.
Socrates
Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems.
Epictetus
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
Albert Einstein
I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.
Albert Einstein
One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.
Friedrich Nietzsche
A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
Albert Einstein

On purpose and meaning

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Those who have a 'why' to live can bear with almost any 'how'.
Viktor Frankl
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Viktor Frankl
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.
Viktor Frankl
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
Mary Oliver
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
Annie Dillard
The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.
Attributed to Mark Twain
Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.
Dalai Lama
The purpose of our lives is to be happy.
Dalai Lama
To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
Oscar Wilde

On starting before you're ready

You do not have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step.
Martin Luther King Jr.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
Lao Tzu
The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.
Chinese proverb
It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.
Confucius
The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity.
Amelia Earhart
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do.
Attributed to Mark Twain
Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.
Albert Einstein
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
Albert Einstein
It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up.
Vince Lombardi
Fall seven times, stand up eight.
Japanese proverb

On who you are underneath it

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.
Carl Rogers
The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.
Carl Jung
Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart.
Carl Jung
Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
Carl Jung
I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.
Carl Jung
Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.
Oscar Wilde
I can't go back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.
Lewis Carroll
When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.
Lao Tzu
The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.
Marcus Aurelius
Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.
Rumi

Short lines for a bad day

This too shall pass.
Traditional
The wound is the place where the Light enters you.
Rumi
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
Oscar Wilde
Do one thing every day that scares you.
Attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Eleanor Roosevelt
It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.
Attributed to Aristotle Onassis
Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.
Amelia Earhart
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
Attributed to Confucius
If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.
Attributed to the Dalai Lama
Inhale the future, exhale the past.
Traditional

Quotes help for about an hour

They're good for company and not much good for direction. When you want the other half, the two-minute self-check will tell you which kind of confusion you're actually in.