100 Top Resilience Quotes That’ll Fire You Up Instantly

The most inspiring resilience quotes touch a deep part of our soul. These quotes are so powerful because they speak to the parts of ourselves that are struggling, striving, and wondering if we are good enough.

Whatever you call it— resilience, perseverance, or discipline— it's critical to your path towards success. Resilience is what keeps us going when motivation fails.

When someone bounces back from setbacks and continues to thrive, they are said to be resilient. But resilience is easier said than done. Sometimes it is hard to be resilient and face everything going on in our lives.

In times like these, all we need is to be reminded of the power of our potential. Fortunately, history's greatest minds have left behind some of humanity’s greatest wisdom, which everyone should read at least once in their lives. We've compiled all of this knowledge into a blog that will assist you in recovering from setbacks and inspiring you to keep going.

Here are the top 100 resilience quotes that helped me build my resilience, and I’m positive they’ll inspire you as well!

Image courtesy: Unsplash

1. Steve Maraboli

Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving, we get stronger and more resilient.

2. Angela Duckworth

Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare.

3. Robert Jordan

The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.

4. Elizabeth Edwards

Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it’s less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you’ve lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that’s good.

5. Henry Ward Beecher

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you. Never excuse yourself. Never pity yourself. Be a hard master to yourself-and be lenient to everybody else.

6. Jodi Picoult

The human capacity for burden is like bamboo- far more flexible than you’d ever believe at first glance.

7. Shane Koyczan

If your heart is broken, make art with the pieces.

8. Greg Kincaid

No matter how much falls on us, we keep plowing ahead. That’s the only way to keep the roads clear.

9. Bram Stoker

It is really wonderful how much resilience there is in human nature. Let any obstructing cause, no matter what, be removed in any way, even by death, and we fly back to first principles of hope and enjoyment.

10. Mizuta Masahide

My barn having burned down, I can now see the moon.

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11. Gever Tulley

Persistence and resilience only come from having been given the chance to work through difficult problems.

12. Margaret Thatcher

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.

13. Dieter F. Uchtdorf

It’s your reaction to adversity, not adversity itself that determines how your life’s story will develop.

14. Nelson Mandela

Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.

15. Maya Angelou

I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.

16. J.K. Rowling

Rock bottom became the solid foundation in which I rebuilt my life.

17. Elizabeth Edwards

She stood in the storm and when the wind did not blow her way, she adjusted her sails.

18. Alain de Botton

A good half of the art of living is resilience.

19. Margaret George

You must bear losses like a soldier, the voice told me, bravely and without complaint, and just when the day seems lost, grab your shield for another stand, another thrust forward. That is the juncture that separates heroes from the merely strong.

20. Michelle Obama

Grief and resilience live together.

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21. Ryder Carroll

No matter how bleak or menacing a situation may appear, it does not entirely own us. It can’t take away our freedom to respond, our power to take action.

22. Gregory S. Williams

On the other side of a storm is the strength that comes from having navigated through it. Raise your sail and begin.

23. Gail Borden

I tried and failed. I tried again and again and succeeded.

24. Woodrow Wilson

The difference between a strong man and a weak one is that the former does not give up after a defeat.

25. Bob Richards

It may sound strange, but many champions are made champions by setbacks.

26. Robert F. Kennedy

Only those who dare to fail greatly, can ever achieve greatly.

27. Confucius

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

28. Will Durant

Forget mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you are going to do right now, and do it. Today is your lucky day.

29. Japanese Proverb

Fall seven times, stand up eight.

30. Helen Keller

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.

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31. Winston Churchill

If you’re going through hell, keep going.

32. Jaeda Dewalt

When we learn how to become resilient, we learn how to embrace the beautifully broad spectrum of the human experience.

33. Yasmin Mogahed

Resilience is very different than being numb. Resilience means you experience, you feel, you fail, you hurt. You fall. But, you keep going.

34. Stephen Covey

We are not a product of what has happened to us in our past. We have the power of choice.

35. Wes Fessler

Resilience is the ability to attack while running away.

36. Sharon Salzberg

Resilience is based on compassion for ourselves as well as compassion for others.

37. Mary Anne Radmacher

Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying ‘I will try again tomorrow’.

38. Oprah Winfrey

Turn your wounds into wisdom.

39. Thomas Edison

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.

40. Les Brown

Forgive yourself for your faults and your mistakes and move on.

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41. Catherine DeVrye

Like tiny seeds with potent power to push through tough ground and become mighty trees, we hold innate reserves of unimaginable strength. We are resilient.

42. Eric Greitens

No one escapes pain, fear, and suffering. Yet from pain can come wisdom, from fear can come courage, from suffering can come strength – if we have the virtue of resilience.

43. Jonathan Mills

Successful people demonstrate their resilience through their dedication to making progress every day, even if that progress is marginal.

44. Eric Greitens

We all have battles to fight. And it’s often in those battles that we are most alive: it’s on the frontlines of our lives that we earn wisdom, create joy, forge friendships, discover happiness, find love, and do purposeful work.

45. Og Mandino

Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.

46. Lee Ann Womack

I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance
Never settle for the path of least resistance

47. Jean Chatzky

Resilience isn’t a single skill. It’s a variety of skills and coping mechanisms. To bounce back from bumps in the road as well as failures, you should focus on emphasizing the positive.

48. Mary Holloway

Resilience is knowing that you are the only one that has the power and the responsibility to pick yourself up.

49. Angela Duckworth

As much as talent counts, effort counts twice.

50. Friedrich Nietzsche

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.

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51. Michael Rutter

Resilience is our ability to bounce back from life’s challenges and unforeseen difficulties, providing mental protection from emotional and mental disorders.

52. Ivan Robertson

Resilience represents a constellation of characteristics that protect individuals from the potential negative effect of stressors.

53. Helen Herrman

Definitions have evolved over time but fundamentally resilience is understood as referring to positive adaptation, or the ability to maintain or regain mental health, despite experiencing adversity.

54. Byron Egeland

Resilience has been described as the capacity for positive outcomes despite challenging or threatening circumstances.

55. Cary Cooper

The behavioral component of resilience enables people to remain effective at home and work, able to focus on relevant tasks and goals and carry them out.

56. Christine Agaibi and John Wilson

It is possible to define the property of resilience as a complex repertoire of behavioral tendencies that may be evoked or activated by environmental demands.

57. Laura Campbell-Sills

Resilience is seen as more than simple recovery from insult, rather it can be defined as positive growth or adaptation following periods of homeostatic disruption.

58. Kathryn Connor and Jonathan Davidson

Resilience embodies the personal qualities that enable one to thrive in the face of adversity.

59. Dmitry Davydov

Resilience can be viewed as a defence mechanism, which enables people to thrive in the face of adversity and improving resilience may be an important target for treatment and prophylaxis.

60. David Fletcher and Mustafa Sarkar

When resilience is conceived as a trait, it has been suggested that it represents a constellation of characteristics that enable individuals to adapt to the circumstances they encounter.

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61. Brigid Gillespie

Resilience arises out of a belief in one’s own self-efficacy, the ability to deal with change, and use of a repertoire of problem-solving skills.

62. Hyun Lee and James Cranford

Resilience can refer to positive adjustment in the face of adversity. Resilience has also been defined as the capacity of individuals to cope successfully with significant change, adversity or risk.

63. Rachel Jackson and Chris Watkin

Resilience is fundamentally underpinned by the concept that it is not so much the hard times we face that determine our success or failure as the way in which we respond to those hard times.

64. Emmy Werner

If we want to help vulnerable youngsters become more resilient, we need to decrease their exposure to potent risk factors and increase their competencies and self-esteem, as well as the sources of support they can draw upon.

65. George Bonanno

Resilience to the unsettling effects of interpersonal loss is not rare but relatively common, does not appear to indicate pathology but rather healthy adjustment, and does not lead to delayed grief reactions.

66. Laura Dunn

Stable, healthy, and resilient physicians are also better equipped for the emotionally and physically demanding tasks of providing care, comfort and hope to patients.

67. Brigid Gillespie

Resilience is viewed as a vital attribute for nurses because it augments adaptation in demanding and volatile clinical environments such as operating rooms.

68. Qing Gu and Christopher Day

Firstly, it is unrealistic to expect pupils to be resilient if their teachers, who constitute a primary source of their role models, do not demonstrate resilient qualities.

69. Peter Clough and Doug Strycharczyk

All mentally tough individuals are resilient, but not all resilient individuals are mentally tough.

70. Michele Tugade and Barbara Fredrickson

Being able to move on despite negative stressors does not demonstrate luck on the part of those successful individuals but demonstrates a concept known as resilience.

71. Glenn Schiraldi

Resilience is a process and a staircase. You might be on step four of the staircase, and I might be on step one, but we can both keep moving up the staircase so that our resilience levels will hopefully exceed the rising tide of stress.

72. Meetu Khosla

Resilience is experienced as a global process relating to psychological, social and behavioral qualities involving genetic, developmental and neurochemical mechanisms.

73. Hyun Lee and James Cranford

Family environments characterized by stability, cohesion, organization, and preservation of routines and rituals may be most conducive to resilience among adolescents.

74. Suniya Luthar and Dante Cicchetti

Resilience research has substantial potential to guide the development of effective interventions for diverse at-risk populations … to forces that are protective in nature as well as to those that exacerbate vulnerability, and to the mechanisms that underlie their effects.

75. Lisa Neff and Elizabeth Broady

Individuals who are exposed to moderately stressful experiences and who have the initial resources necessary to overcome those stressors may develop a resilience to the deleterious effects of later stress.

76. Russ Newman

Resilience is a multidimensional and not a unitary concept. There is no one characteristic or trait identified as resilience. Rather, there are many behaviors and actions associated with resilience.

77. Cale Palmer

In terms of fostering resiliency prior to the development of symptoms, current research suggests that certain aspects of military life, such as field training exercises, unit cohesiveness, physical fitness, and leadership may be beneficial as part of preparedness interventions.

78. Joseph Mahoney and Lars Bergman

The study of resilience represents a special subclass of research on positive functioning as it applies to risk populations under adversity… one limitation of resilience research is the neglect of a large range of positive functioning beyond the absence of problems.

79. Ann Masten

The conclusion that resilience is made of ordinary rather than extraordinary processes offers a more positive outlook on human development and adaptation, as well as direction for policy and practice aimed at enhancing the development of children at risk for problems and psychopathology.

80. Audrey Hepburn

Nothing is impossible, the word itself says, I’m possible!

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81. John Skoll

Someone, at some point, came up with this very bad idea that an ordinary individual couldn’t make a difference in the world. I think that’s just a horrible thing.

82. Arthur Ashe

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

83. Steve Schulte

The day is what you make it! So why not make it a great one?

84. Jimmy Johnson

The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.

85. Ayn Rand

The question isn’t who’s going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me?

86. Mark Twain

The secret of getting ahead, is getting started.

87. Sophie Kinsella

There’s no such thing as ruining your life. Life’s a pretty resilient thing, it turns out.

88. Henry J. Kaiser

Trouble is only opportunity in work clothes.

89. Aristotle

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit.

90. Simon Sinek

What good is an idea if it remains an idea? Try. Experiment. Iterate. Fail. Try again. Change the world.

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91. Mahatma Gandhi

You can’t change how people treat you or what they say about you. All you can do is change how you react to it

92. Henry Ford

You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do

93. Steve Goodier

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.

94. Douglas MacArthur

A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent.

95. Bob Nelson

People may take a job for more money, but they often leave it for more recognition.

96. Stephen R. Covey

Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.

97. Abraham Lincoln

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.

98. Komil Toume

The real competitive advantage in any business is one word only, which is ‘people.’

99. Ari Weinzweig

If you don’t create a great, rewarding place for people to work, they won’t do great work.

100. Kilroy J. Oldster

Employees aren’t just workers, they’re the backbone of business and that makes them more important than the boss any day of the week. Good Employees = Good Business.

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Wrapping it up

What you need is a clear vision of reality and total faith in your potential to control it via your own efforts. That is how optimism and resilience are built.

And now that you’ve been motivated share this list of the best resilience quotes with your coworkers and encourage them too.