160 Positive Quotes For Life, Work and to Start and Brighten the Day

Are you looking for some positive and timeless wisdom to get a great start to your morning and add some optimism to brighten your day?

Well, then you’re in the right place, because in today’s post I’d like to share 160 of the most uplifting, motivational and positive quotes about life.

Ones that will help you at work or in school today. Ones that will lift your spirits if you’re having a tough and rough day.

And ones that will simply add a boost of energy, inspiration and positivity to your day.

Positive Quotes for Life (and For Living It Fully)

“What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others.”
– Nelson Mandela

“No matter what happens in life, be good to people. Being good to people is a wonderful legacy to leave behind.”
– Taylor Swift

“The good life is inspired by love and guided by knowledge.”
– Bertrand Russell

“Life has got all those twists and turns. You’ve got to hold on tight and off you go.”
– Nicole Kidman

“Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay.”
– Simone de Beauvoir

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
– George Bernard Shaw

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
– Winston Churchill

“Life is very short and what we have to do must be done in the now.”
– Audre Lorde

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”
– Marie Curie

“Life is like a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
– Albert Einstein

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
– John Lennon

“Your vocation in life is where your greatest joy meets the world’s greatest need.”
– Frederick Buechner

“Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.”
– Emily Dickinson

“Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.”
– Dalai Lama

“Life is in ourselves and not in the external.”
– Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
– Confucius

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”
– Anaïs Nin

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”
– Helen Keller

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist.”
– Oscar Wilde

“Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it.”
– Ernest Holmes

“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche

“Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke

“Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.”
– Jack London

“We can’t plan life. All we can do is be available for it.”
– Lauryn Hill

“Life ought to be a struggle of desire toward adventures whose nobility will fertilize the soul.”
– Rebecca West

“Life is a series of collisions with the future; it is not the sum of what we have been, but what we yearn to be.”
– Jose Ortega y Gasset

“The whole point is to live life and be — to use all the colors in the crayon box.”
– RuPaul

Positive Quotes for Starting Your Day and Having a Good Morning

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”
– Marcus Aurelius

“I get up every morning and it’s going to be a great day. You never know when it’s going to be over so I refuse to have a bad day.”
– Paul Henderson

“Waking up this morning, I smile. 24 brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh

“The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day.”
– Henry Ward Beecher

“An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.”
– Henry David Thoreau

“Focused, productive, successful mornings generate focused, productive, successful days – which inevitably create a successful life.”
– Hal Elrod

“Morning is an important time of day, because how you spend your morning can often tell you what kind of day you are going to have.”
– Lemony Snicket

“Just one small positive thought in the morning can change your whole day.”
– Dalai Lama

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”
– Robert Louis Stevenson

“You have to have a dream so you can get up in the morning.”
– Billy Wilder

“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.”
– Rumi

“Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today.”
– Groucho Marx

“Every day brings new choices.”
– Martha Beck

“Give every day the chance to become the most beautiful day of your life.”
– Mark Twain

“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”
– Confucius

“Each morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.”
– Buddha

“Smile in the mirror. Do that every morning and you’ll start to see a big difference in your life.”
– Yoko Ono

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
– Anne Frank

“My formula for living is quite simple. I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night. In between, I occupy myself as best I can.”
– Cary Grant

“My purpose: to lift your spirit and to motivate you.”
– Mavis Staples

“Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.”
– Napoleon Hill

“To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.”
– Anatole France

“Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.”
– Wayne Dyer

“If you take responsibility for yourself you will develop a hunger to accomplish your dreams.”
– Les Brown

“The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You realize that you control your own destiny.”
– Albert Ellis

“Great acts are made up of small deeds.”
– Lao Tzu

“You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction.”
– George Horace Lorimer

“Today is life – the only life you are sure of. Make the most of today.”
– Dale Carnegie

Positive Quotes for Motivation and Work

“Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.”
– Dale Carnegie

“If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it.”
– Olin Miller

“The secret to getting ahead is getting started.”
– Mark Twain

“Success isn’t always about ‘Greatness’, it’s about consistency. Consistent, hard work gains success. Greatness will come.”
– Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

“All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.”
– Walt Disney

“The most difficult thing is the decision to act; the rest is merely tenacity.”
– Amelia Earhart

“If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.”
– Bruce Lee

“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.”
– Epictetus

“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.”
– Alexander Graham Bell

“I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”
– Thomas Jefferson

“Much of the stress that people feel doesn’t come from having too much to do. It comes from not finishing what they started.”
– David Allen

“What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.”
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.”
– Tony Robbins

“The only time you fail is when you fall down and stay down.”
– Stephen Richards

“Virtually nothing is impossible in this world if you just put your mind to it and maintain a positive attitude.”
– Lou Holtz

“Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.”
– Alexander Graham Bell

“Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get.”
– W.P. Kinsella

“If one advances confidently in the direction of one’s dreams, and endeavors to live the life which one has imagined, one will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”
– Henry David Thoreau

“When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The only thing worse than starting something and failing… is not starting something.”
– Seth Godin

“In a moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing to do, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”
– Theodore Roosevelt

“Figure out who are you separate from your family, and the man or woman you’re in a relationship with. Find who you are in this world and what you need to feel good alone.”
– Angelina Jolie

“Children – and adults – who have a growth mindset are much more successful than those who have a fixed mindset about themselves and the world.”
– Jane Goodall

“Think of many things; do one.”
– Portuguese proverb

“A year from now you may wish you had started today.”
– Karen Lamb

Positive Quotes for Life and Happiness

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.”
– Dalai Lama

“It is a happiness to wonder; it is a happiness to dream.”
– Edgar Allan Poe

“The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer someone else up.”
– Mark Twain

“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
– E. M. Forster

“Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.”
– Carl Jung

“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself.”
– Soren Kierkegaard

“The most important thing is to enjoy your life – to be happy – it’s all that matters.”
– Audrey Hepburn

“Live life to the fullest, and focus on the positive.”
– Matt Cameron

“Folks are usually about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
– Abraham Lincoln

“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh

“Happiness is holding someone in your arms and knowing you hold the whole world.”
– Orhan Parnuk

“Keep your face always toward the sunshine and shadows will fall behind you.”
– Walt Whitman

“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”
– Marcel Proust

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.”
– Anne Frank

“Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.”
– Ayn Rand

“One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.”
– Rita Mae Brown

“Happiness is not the absence of problems, it’s the ability to deal with them.”
– Steve Maraboli

“Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.”
– Guillaume Apollinaire

“All happiness depends on courage and work.”
– Honoré de Balzac

“The power of finding beauty in the humblest things makes home happy and life lovely.”
– Louisa May Alcott

“Choose to be optimistic, it feels better.”
– Dalai Lama

“I have a simple philosophy: Fill what’s empty. Empty what’s full. Scratch where it itches.”
– Alice Roosevelt Longworth

“The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.”
– George Eliot

“When you have balance in your life, work becomes an entirely different experience. There is a passion that moves you to a whole new level of fulfillment and gratitude.”
– Cara Delevingne

“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”
– Marthe Troly-Curtin

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
– George Eliot

Positive Quotes About Life to Brighten Your Day

“Light tomorrow with today.”
– Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“Lead from the heart, not the head.”
– Princess Diana

“Say something positive, and you’ll see something positive.”
– Jim Thompson

“Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”
– Roald Dahl

“Hope is the most exciting thing there is in life.”
– Mandy Moore

“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”
– Babe Ruth

“The power of imagination makes us infinite.”
– John Muir

“Anything is possible with sunshine and a little pink.”
– Lilly Pulitzer

“I dwell in possibility.”
– Emily Dickinson

“Keep your face to the sunshine, keep negativity out and only let positive energy in.”
– Rip Miller

“Everything you can imagine is real.”
– Pablo Picasso

“As we work to create light for others, we naturally light our own way.”
– Mary Anne Radmacher

“When the sun is shining, I can do anything; no mountain is too high, no trouble too difficult to overcome.”
– Wilma Rudolph

“Great things happen to those who don’t stop believing, trying, learning, and being grateful.”
– Roy T. Bennett

“Be fanatically positive and militantly optimistic. If something is not to your liking, change your liking.”
– Rick Steves

“Confidence isn’t optimism or pessimism, and it’s not a character attribute. It’s the expectation of a positive outcome.”
– Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“Only when we’re drowning do we understand how fierce our feet can kick.”
– Amanda Gorman

“No matter where you’re from, your dreams are valid.”
– Lupita Nyong’o

“You will face many defeats in life, but never let yourself be defeated.”
– Maya Angelou

“When life hands you a difficult situation where you feel undervalued and disrespected, be bold and brave enough to know your worth.”
– Yai Vargas

“The sun himself is weak when he first rises; and gathers strength and courage as the day gets on.”
– Charles Dickens

“Done is better than perfect.”
– Sheryl Sandberg

“Delete the negative; accentuate the positive!”
– Donna Karan

“Throughout life people will make you mad, disrespect you and treat you bad. Let God deal with the things they do, cause hate in your heart will consume you too.”
– Will Smith

“I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw some things back.”
– Maya Angelou

“Say yes, and you’ll figure it out afterward.”
– Tina Fey

“If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.”
– Dolly Parton

Short Positive Quotes for Life

“Do one thing every day that scares you.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt

“Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results.”
– Willie Nelson

“To me, if life boils down to one thing, it’s movement. To live is to keep moving.”
– Jerry Seinfeld

“Think and wonder. Wonder and think.”
– Dr. Seuss

“What we think, we become.”
– Buddha

“Whoever is happy will make others happy too.”
– Anne Frank

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
– Mahatma Gandhi

“Most people are nice when you finally see them.”
– Harper Lee

“Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.”
– John W. Gardner

“You cannot find peace by avoiding life.”
– Virginia Woolf

“The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.”
– E. E. Cummings

“Open your eyes, look within. Are you satisfied with the life you’re living?”
– Bob Marley

“Success is falling nine times and getting up ten.”
– Jon Bon Jovi

“Life itself is the proper binge.”
– Julia Child

“People are like music. Some speak the truth, and others are just noise.”
– Bill Murray

“I am an artist… I am here to live out loud.”
– Emile Zola

“A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it is not open.”
– Frank Zappa

“Everything has been figured out, except how to live.”
– Jean-Paul Sartre

“If you live long enough, you’ll make mistakes. But if you learn from them, you’ll be a better person.”
– Bill Clinton

“Empathy begins with understanding life from another person’s perspective.”
– Sterling K. Brown

“The truth is you don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. Life is a crazy ride, and nothing is guaranteed.”
– Eminem

“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”
– George Bernard Shaw

“There is no way to be perfect and no fun in being perfect.”
– Alicia Keys

“Life is a work in progress.”
– Jeff Rich

Want more inspirational help on living a positive and happy life?  Then have a look at these short happy quotes, this post filled with good vibes quotes and also this one that’s all about feel good quotes.