20 Quotes to Help Stay Strong When Things Feel Tough

No matter who you are, we all experience hard times when nothing seems to go your way. The fact is, that's life, and it's how we respond and move forward that really matters. 

Staying strong and keeping a positive outlook is the best tactic for helping overcome these tough times.

Below are 50 quotes selected to help you when everything seems to be going wrong. Pick one that resonates with you and write it down on a piece of card to carry with you and repeat when needed.

“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”
– Dale Carnegie

“Sometimes you don’t realise your own strength until you come face to face with your greatest weakness.”
– Susan Gale

“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.”
– Louisa May Alcott

 “Stress is caused by being ‘here' but wanting to be ‘there.'
– Eckhart Tolle

“Sometimes our light goes out, but is blown again into instant flame by an encounter with another human being.”
– Albert Schweitzer

“Tough times never last, but tough people do.”
– Robert H. Schuller

“The greatest test of courage on the earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.”
– R. G. Ingersoll 

“We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.”
– J.K. Rowling 

“The more one judges, the less one loves.”
– Honore de Balzac 

“Where there is no struggle, there is no strength”
– Oprah

“When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.”
– Harriet Beecher Stowe

“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

“Our strength grows out of our weaknesses”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Strength is the ability to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands – and then eat just one of those pieces.”
– Judith Viorst

“Concentration is the secret of strength.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Life is very interesting. In the end, some of your greatest pains become your greatest strengths.”
– Drew Barrymore

“A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.”
– Christopher Reeve

“When written in Chinese the word “crisis” is composed of two characters – one represents danger and the other represents opportunity.”
– John F. Kennedy 

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

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

“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.”
– Unknown