It can be hard to see the good things in life when a person is going through depression. You may think you’re alone and that no one understands you. This may not matter to you right now but we want to tell you there is always hope. Always. Here are some inspirational quotes for depression to ease your pain a little. We hope you will read them and hope they will help you forget whatever it is you’re going through, even if it’s just for a moment.
Inspirational Quotes for Depression
1. There is hope, even when your brain tells you there isn’t. – John Green
2. Sometimes, life will kick you around, but sooner or later, you realize you’re not just a survivor. You’re a warrior, and you’re stronger than anything life throws your way. – Brooke Davis
3. And if today all you did was hold yourself together, I’m proud of you.
4. I have endured pain and loss. I have felt broken. I have known hardship, and I have felt lost and alone. But here I stand, trying to move forward, one day at a time. I will remember the lessons in my life because they are making me who I am. Stronger. A warrior.
5. On particularly rough days when I’m sure I can’t possibly endure, I like to remind myself that my track record for getting through bad days so far is 100%, and that’s pretty good.
6. Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I’m not going to make it, but you laugh inside remembering all the times you’ve felt that way. – Charles Bukowski
7. In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer. – Albert Camus
8. Your mental health is more important than the test, the interview, the lunch date, the meeting, the family dinner, and the grocery-run. Take care of yourself.
9. Please take time to recharge yourself today.
10. The sun is a daily reminder that we too can rise again from the darkness, that we too can shine our own light. – Sara Ajna
11. Your mental health is more important than the test, the interview, the lunch date, the meeting, the family dinner, and the grocery-run. Take care of yourself.
12. You are strong for surviving.
13. I have depression. But I prefer to say, I battle depression, instead of I suffer with it. Because depression hits, but I hit back. Battle on.
14. No one realizes how strong someone with depression has to be just to do daily stuff like shower, brush hair or get out of bed.
15. It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do. – Stephen Fry
16. Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul. – John Keats
17. Any fool can be happy. It takes a man with real heart to make beauty out of the stuff that makes us weep. – Clive Barker
18. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all, you don’t know what work these conditions are doing inside you. Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going. Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change. If there is anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien, so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better. – Rainer Maria Rilke
19. I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars. – Og Mandino
20. There are moments when I wish I could roll back the clock and take all the sadness away, but I have the feeling that if I did, the joy would be gone as well. – Nicholas Sparks
21. In times of pain, when the future is too terrifying to contemplate and the past too painful to remember, I have learned to pay attention to right now. The precise moment I was in was always the only safe place for me. – Julia Cameron
22. Keep yourself busy if you want to avoid depression. For me, inactivity is the enemy. – Matt Lucas
23. When you are depressed, you need the love of other people, and yet depression fosters actions that destroy that love. Depressed people often stick pins into their own life rafts. The conscious mind can intervene. One is not helpless. – Andrew Solomon
24. My scars remind me that I did indeed survive my deepest wounds. That in itself is an accomplishment. And they bring to mind something else, too. They remind me that the damage life has inflicted on me has, in many places, left me stronger and more resilient. What hurt me in the past has actually made me better equipped to face the present. – Steve Goodier
25. You say you’re depressed all I see is resilience. You are allowed to feel messed up and inside out. It doesn’t mean you’re defective it just means you’re human. – David Mitchell
26. Listen to the people who love you. Believe that they are worth living for even when you don’t believe it. Seek out the memories depression takes away and project them into the future. Be brave, be strong, take your pills. Exercise because it’s good for you even if every step weighs a thousand pounds. Eat when food itself disgusts you. Reason with yourself when you have lost your reason. – Andrew Solomon
27. Some days are just bad days, that’s all. You have to experience sadness to know happiness, and I remind myself that not every day is going to be a good day, that’s just the way it is. – Dita Von Teese
28. Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any how. – Viktor E. Frankl
29. What makes night within us may leave stars. – Victor Hugo
30. Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today. – Thich Nhat Hanh
31. Even if happiness forgets you a little bit, never completely forget about it. – Jacques Prevert
32. A pearl is a beautiful thing that is produced by an injured life. It is the tear from the injury of the oyster. The treasure of our being in this world is also produced by an injured life. If we had not been wounded, if we had not been injured, then we will not produce the pearl. – Stephan Hoeller
33. We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope. – Martin Luther King
34. Suffering has been stronger than all other teachings and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but I hope into a better shape. – Charles Dickens
35. He knows not his own strength who hath not met adversity. – William Samuel Johnson
36. Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved. – Helen Keller
37. Those with a grateful mindset tend to see the message in the mess. And even though life may knock them down, the grateful find reasons, if even small ones, to get up. – Steve Maraboli
38. A positive attitude gives you power over your circumstances instead of your circumstances having power over you. – Joyce Meyer
39. Tough times never last, but tough people do. – Robert H. Schuller
40. I didn’t want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that’s really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you’re so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare. – Ned Vizzini
41. Getting better from depression demands a lifelong commitment. I’ve made that commitment for my life’s sake and for the sake of those who love me. – Susan Polis Schutz
42. I’ve learned that everything happens for a reason, every event has a why and all adversity teaches us a lesson. Never regret your past. Accept it as the teacher that it is. – Robin Sharma
43. In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on. – Robert Frost
44. The pupil dilates in darkness and in the end finds light, just as the soul dilates in misfortune and in the end finds God. – Victor Hugo
45. Depression is the inability to construct a future. – Rollo May
46. If you don’t think your anxiety, depression, sadness and stress impact your physical health, think again. All of these emotions trigger chemical reactions in your body, which can lead to inflammation and a weakened immune system. Learn how to cope, sweet friend. There will always be dark days. – Kris Carr
47. A big part of depression is feeling really lonely, even if you’re in a room full of a million people. – Lilly Singh
48. It is very hard to explain to people who have never known serious depression or anxiety the sheer continuous intensity of it. There is no off switch. I was overwhelmed by something I did not understand my own brain. – Matt Haig
49. Depression, suffering and anger are all part of being human. – Janet Fitch
50. At times, I feel overwhelmed and my depression leads me into darkness. – Dorothy Hamill
51. We can alleviate physical pain, but mental pain, grief, despair, depression, dementia is less accessible to treatment. It’s connected to who we are our personality, our character, our soul, if you like. – Richard Eyre
52. It’s often difficult for those who are lucky enough to have never experienced what true depression is to imagine a life of complete hopelessness, emptiness and fear. – Susan Polis Schutz
53. Do just once what others say you can’t do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again. – James R. Cook
54. Don’t let life discourage you, everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was. – Richard L. Evans
55. It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly. – Isaac Asimov
56. What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail. – Robert Schuller
57. Start by doing what’s necessary, then do what’s possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible. – St. Francis of Assisi
58. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, dream, discover. – Mark Twain
59. The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can change his life by changing his attitude of mind. – William James
60. Many of life’s failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. – Thomas Edison
61. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. – Wayne Gretzky
62. Accept challenges, so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory. – George S. Patton
63. There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. – Albert Einstein
64. Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget about everything except what you’re going to do now and do it. – William Durant
65. Minds are like parachutes, they function only when open.
66. Pursue, keep up with, circle round and round your life, as a dog does his master’s chaise. Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still. – Thoreau
67. When one door closes, another opens. But we often look so regretfully upon the closed door that we don’t see the one that has opened for us. – Alexander Graham Bell
68. Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.
69. So many words to say and no way to say them.
70. I’m exhausted from trying to be stronger than I feel.
71. Sleep isn’t just sleep anymore, it’s an escape.
72. The worst kind of sad is not being able to explain why.
73. Have you ever been so close to crying but you smile anyways.
74. I lost myself somewhere in the darkness.
75. I hate this feeling like I’m here, but I’m not.
76. Depression is the devils playground.
77. Behind my smile is a hurting heart, behind my laugh I’m falling apart.
78. There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds. – Laurell K. Hamilton
79. I’ll never forget how the depression and loneliness felt good and bad at the same time. – Henry Rollins
80. The bravest thing I have ever done was continuing to live when I wanted to die. – Juliette Lewis
81. Every thought is a battle. Every breath is a war. And I don’t think I am winning anymore.
82. Having depression is being in an abusive relationship with yourself. – Emily Dotterer
83. Depression is a prison where you are both the suffering prisoner and the cruel jailer. – Dorothy Rowe
84. I’m tired of trying, sick of crying, I know I’ve been smiling, but inside I’m dying.
85. Sometimes all you can do is lay in bed & hope to fall asleep before you fall apart. – William C. Hannan
86. If I can’t feel, if I can’t move, if I can’t think, and I can’t care, then what conceivable point is there in living. – Kay Redfield Jamison
87. What is depression like? It’s like drowning, except you can see everyone around you breathing.
88. The only thing more exhausting than being depressed is pretending that you’re not.
89. Depression is living in a body that fights to survive with a mind that tries to die.
90. Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not, and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
91. Getting better from depression demands a lifelong commitment. I’ve made that commitment for my life’s sake and for the sake of those who love me. – Susan Polis Schutz
92. Once you choose hope, anything is possible. – Christopher Reeve
93. A pearl is a beautiful thing that is produced by an injured life. It is the tear from the injury of the oyster. The treasure of our being in this world is also produced by an injured life. If we had not been wounded, if we had not been injured, then we will not produce the pearl. – Stephan Hoeller
94. Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved. – Helen Keller
95. A positive attitude gives you power over your circumstances instead of your circumstances having power over you. – Joyce Meyer
96. Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it. – Fyodor Dostoevsky
97. If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet, how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person. – Fred Rogers
98. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly. – Richard Bach
99. Keep yourself busy if you want to avoid depression. For me, inactivity is the enemy. – Matt Lucas
100. Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy. – Thich Nhat Hanh
101. Maybe you have to know the darkness before you can appreciate the light. – Madeleine L’Engle
102. Good humor is a tonic for mind and body. It is the best antidote for anxiety and depression. It is a business asset. It attracts and keep friends. It lightens human burdens. It is the direct route to serenity and contentment. – Greenville Kleisser
103. Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in. – Leonard Cohen
- There are far, far better things ahead than anything we leave behind. – C. S. Lewis
105. The greatest degree of inner tranquility comes from the development of love and compassion. The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being. – Tenzin Gyatso
106. A section withered and became a scar on the part of your soul that survived. For people like me and echo, our souls contained more scar tissue than life. – Katie McGarry
107. Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul. – John Keats
108. Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden, it is easier to say my tooth is aching than to say my heart is broken. – C.S. Lewis
109. When you’re lost in those woods, it sometimes takes you awhile to realize that you are lost. For the longest time, you can convince yourself that you’ve just wandered off the path, that you’ll find your way back to the trailhead any moment now.
110. Then night falls again and again, and you still have no idea where you are, and it’s time to admit that you have bewildered yourself so far off the path that you don’t even know from which direction the sun rises anymore. – Elizabeth Gilbert
111. That is all I want in life for this pain to seem purposeful. – Elizabeth Wurtzel
112. I’m the girl who is lost in space, the girl who is disappearing always, forever fading away and receding farther and farther into the background. Just like the cheshire cat, someday I will suddenly leave, but the artificial warmth of my smile, that phony, clownish curve, the kind you see on miserably sad people and villains in disney movies, will remain behind as an ironic remnant.
113. I am the girl you see in the photograph from some party someplace or some picnic in the park, the one who is in fact soon to be gone. When you look at the picture again, I want to assure you, I will no longer be there. I will be erased from history, like a traitor in the Soviet Union. Because with every day that goes by, I feel myself becoming more and more invisible. – Elizabeth Wurtzel
114. I believe that words are strong, that they can overwhelm what we fear when fear seems more awful than life is good. – Andrew Solomon
115. I didn’t want my picture taken because I was going to cry. I didn’t know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of my throat and I’d cry for a week. I could feel the tears brimming and sloshing in me like water in a glass that is unsteady and too full. – Sylvia Plath
116. I don’t want to see anyone. I lie in the bedroom with the curtains drawn and nothingness washing over me like a sluggish wave.
117. Whatever is happening to me is my own fault. I have done something wrong, something so huge I can’t even see it, something that’s drowning me. I am inadequate and stupid, without worth. I might as well be dead. – Margaret Atwood
118. Courage, dear heart. – C.S. Lewis
119. They don’t come out smooth and in conjunction with your brain the way normal people’s words do they come out in chunks as if from a crushed-ice dispenser, you stumble on them as they gather behind your lower lip. So you just keep quiet. – Ned Vizzini
120. I don’t want any more of this try, try again stuff. I just want out. I’ve had it. I am so tired. I am twenty and I am already exhausted. – Elizabeth Wurtzel
121. I’ll never forget how the depression and loneliness felt good and bad at the same time. Still does. – Henry Rollins
122. Because wherever I sat on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok, I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air. – Sylvia Plath
123. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don’t know what work these conditions are doing inside you. Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going.
124. Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change. If there is anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better. – Rainer Maria Rilke
125. It’s not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing they are not all bad.