Encouragement Quotes for Letters & Cards
When someone you love is struggling, the right words are hard to find on the spot. These 100 encouragement quotes give you somewhere to begin. Copy one for a message, or use it to open a letter that reminds them what they are capable of.
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What to say when someone is struggling
The instinct is to reassure, and reassurance is usually the least useful thing available — telling someone it will be fine asks them to accept a claim you cannot support. What reliably helps is narrower: naming what you have actually seen them handle, and stating plainly that you are not going anywhere. Evidence beats optimism.
Avoid the phrases that close a conversation
"Everything happens for a reason", "stay positive", and "at least..." all share a structure: they ask the person to feel differently, which reads as a request to stop talking about it. If you want the letter to help, describe what you observed rather than prescribing what they should feel.
Encouragement quotes are a beginning, not the letter
A strong line gets you into the letter. What the person keeps is the specific paragraph after it — the one that proves you were paying attention to their situation rather than to hard times in general. One accurate sentence about what they are actually facing outweighs any number of inspiring ones.
100 encouragement quotes
“It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
— J. K. Rowling
“Keep your face always toward the sunshine, and shadows will fall behind you.”
— Walt Whitman
“At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.”
— Frida Kahlo
“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”
— Maya Angelou
“You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”
— A. A. Milne
“You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice.”
— Bob Marley
“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.”
— Helen Keller
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
— Mahatma Gandhi
“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
— Nelson Mandela
“You have within you right now, everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you.”
— Brian Tracy
“Every day may not be good, but there is something good in every day.”
— Unknown
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”
— Thomas Edison
“The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.”
— Winston Churchill
“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”
— Helen Keller
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”
— Mark Twain
“Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”
— J. K. Rowling
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
“However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.”
— Stephen Hawking
“Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
— Thomas Edison
“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”
— Mahatma Gandhi
“Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.”
— C. S. Lewis
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.”
— Norman Vincent Peale
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
— Winston Churchill
“You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.
“Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, 'I will try again tomorrow.'”
— Mary Anne Radmacher
“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”
— Confucius
“Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle.”
— Christian D. Larson
“Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”
— J. K. Rowling
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
— Chinese Proverb
“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.”
— Walt Disney
“The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.”
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.”
— Helen Keller
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do.”
— H. Jackson Brown Jr.
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt
“Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it.”
— Charles R. Swindoll
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
— Oscar Wilde
“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
— Oliver Goldsmith
“When you have a dream, you've got to grab it and never let go.”
— Carol Burnett
“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”
— Thomas Edison
“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”
— Mark Twain
“Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other.”
— Walter Elliot
“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.”
— Zig Ziglar
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”
— C. S. Lewis
“Just when the caterpillar thought the world was ending, he turned into a butterfly.”
— Unknown
“Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.”
— Robert Collier
“I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.”
— Jimmy Dean
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