When looking for uplift or encouragement, books provide an invaluable resource, offering words and wisdoms to reassure us in times of need or challenge.
Books and literature can provide us with a broadening of, or an escape from, our daily world. Often deepening our understanding of lives, views and thoughts beyond our own. Literature also prompts us to reflect, while rousing our imaginations and a richness of feelings. Oftentimes writers can put into words, thoughts and emotions that we mightn’t be able to express or articulate on our own quite as profoundly. So when looking for uplift or encouragement, books provide an invaluable resource.
Here’s a list of 15 literary quotes that deliver words of encouragement:
- “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” – Anais Nin
- “Don’t look back – you’re not going that way.” Mary Engelbreit
- “In the midst of Winter I found there was, within me, an invincible Summer.” – Albert Camus
- “Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.” Helen Keller
- “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas A. Edison
- “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” – George Eliot
- “Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.” – Paulo Coelho
- “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” – Haruki Murakami
- “Always do what you are afraid to do.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “It’s only those who do nothing that make no mistakes.” – Joseph Conrad
- “We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.” – D.H. Lawrence
- “What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.” – Charles Bukowski
- “I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.” – Jane Austen
- “Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, Whispering ‘it will be happier’…” – Alfred Lord Tennyson
- “You’re off to Great Places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, So… get on your way!” – Dr. Seuss
We like to keep a shortlist of our favourite literary quotes handy, to serve as either a starting point or a poignant addendum to a personal note of encouragement.
What are some of your favourites? Keep a list handy for those occasions that you want to offer uplifting words to someone you care about.
