Dec. 18, 2024, 12:45 a.m.
In a world that constantly demands our attention, it's all too easy to find ourselves tangled in the web of worry. Whether it's concerns about the future, regrets from the past, or the never-ending flow of daily stressors, worry has a way of creeping into our lives and taking hold. Letting go of worry is not just about freeing ourselves from anxiety; it's about making space for peace, serenity, and a positive outlook on life. In this blog post, we introduce a thoughtfully curated collection of 109 quotes that serve as gentle reminders and powerful affirmations to release the burdens of worry, encouraging you to embrace the present and find solace in the journey. Each quote offers a unique perspective, empowering you to relinquish your fears and step into a world of tranquility and reassurance.
1. “Life is in Fate's hands now. You made your choice to stay... it's too late to change that, so stop agonizing over it.... You're making my scales itch.Saphira, from "Eragon” - Christopher Paolini
2. “It's not time to worry yet” - Harper Lee
3. “If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it's not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.” - Dalai Lama XIV
4. “If there is no solution to the problem then don't waste time worrying about it. If there is a solution to the problem then don't waste time worrying about it.” - Dalai Lama XIV
5. “You probably wouldn’t worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do.” - Olin Miller
6. “Worry is a misuse of the imagination.” - Dan Zadra
7. “If we are worried about the future, then we must look today at the upbringing of children.” - Gordon B. Hinckley
8. “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.” - Corrie Ten Boom
9. “Drag your thoughts awayfrom your troubles...by the ears, by the heels,or any other way you can manage it.” - Mark Twain
10. “According to Vedanta, there are only two symptoms of enlightenment, just two indications that a transformation is taking place within you toward a higher consciousness. The first symptom is that you stop worrying. Things don't bother you anymore. You become light-hearted and full of joy. The second symptom is that you encounter more and more meaningful coincidences in your life, more and more synchronicities. And this accelerates to the point where you actually experience the miraculous. (quoted by Carol Lynn Pearson in Consider the Butterfly)” - Deepak Chopra
11. “If you have fear of some pain or suffering, you should examine whether there is anything you can do about it. If you can, there is no need to worry about it; if you cannot do anything, then there is also no need to worry.” - Dalai Lama XIV
12. “Times will change for the better when you change.” - Maxwell Maltz
13. “Worry is most often a prideful way of thinking that you have more control over life and its circumstances than you actually do.” - June Hunt
14. “..when someone says "please pray for me," they are not just saying "let's have lunch sometime." They are issuing an invitation into the depths of their lives and their humanity- and often with some urgency. And worry is not a substitute for prayer. Worry is a starting place, but not a staying place. Worry invites me into prayer. As a staying place, worry can be self-indulgent, paralyzing, draining, and controlling. When I take worry into prayer, it doesn't disappear, but it becomes smaller.” - Sybil MacBeth
15. “Worry is the secret weapon perpetrated upon us by the dark forces of the world that lurk in the shape of fear, uncertainty, confusion, and loss.We, on the other hand, have our own secret weapon against these incorporeal fiends.It is laughter.” - Vera Nazarian
16. “And do you not think less of me for making my fortune insuch a way?” After all, her own sister did.He gave her an odd look. “There is no shame in being themistress of a king. It’s a position of great power and influence. I think less of Louis for letting you go.” - Jenna Maclaine
17. “A medicine cat has no time for doubt. Put your energy into today and stop worrying about the past.” - Erin Hunter
18. “Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.” - Leo Buscaglia
19. “The more you pray, the less you'll panic. The more you worship, the less you worry. You'll feel more patient and less pressured.” - Rick Warren
20. “If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change.” - Ray Bradbury
21. “Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.” - Marcus Aurelius
22. “If the problem can be solved why worry? If the problem cannot be solved worrying will do you no good.” - Shantideva
23. “Never worry alone. When anxiety grabs my mind, it is self-perpetuating. Worrisome thoughts reproduce faster than rabbits, so one of the most powerful ways to stop the spiral of worry is simply to disclose my worry to a friend... The simple act of reassurance from another human being [becomes] a tool of the Spirit to cast out fear -- because peace and fear are both contagious.” - John Ortberg
24. “We tend to be preoccupied by our problems when we have a heightened sense of vulnerability and a diminished sense of power. Today, see each problem as an invitation to prayer.” - John Ortberg
25. “There are very few things in the mind which eat up as much energy as worry. It is one of the most difficult things not to worry about anything. Worry is experienced when things go wrong, but in relation to past happenings it is idle merely to wish that they might have been otherwise. The frozen past is what it is, and no amount of worrying is going to make it other than what it has been. But the limited ego-mind identifies itself with its past, gets entangled with it and keeps alive the pangs of frustrated desires. Thus worry continues to grow into the mental life of man until the ego-mind is burdened by the past. Worry is also experienced in relation to the future when this future is expected to be disagreeable in some way. In this case it seeks to justify itself as a necessary part of the attempt to prepare for coping with the anticipated situations. But, things can never be helped merely by worrying. Besides, many of the things which are anticipated never turn up, or if they do occur, they turn out to be much more acceptable than they were expected to be. Worry is the product of feverish imagination working under the stimulus of desires. It is a living through of sufferings which are mostly our own creation. Worry has never done anyone any good, and it is very much worse than mere dissipation of psychic energy, for it substantially curtails the joy and fullness of life.” - Meher Baba
26. “When 1:45 came, half the class left, and Danny Hupfer whispered, "If she gives you a cream puff after we leave, I'm going to kill you" - which was not something that someone headed off to prepare for his bar mitzvah should be thinking.When 1:55 came and the other half of the class left, Meryl Lee whispered, "If she gives you one after we leave, I'm going to do Number 408 to you." I didn't remember what Number 408 was, but it was probably pretty close to what Danny Hupfer had promised.Even Mai Thi looked at me with narrowed eyes and said, "I know your home." Which sounded pretty ominous.” - Gary D. Schmidt
27. “Worrying was painful .... but compared to the alternative, a privilege” - Laura Moriarty
28. “She tried to worry that something terrible had happened to him, but didn't believe it for a moment. Nothing terrible ever happened to him, though she was beginning to think that it was time it damn well did. If nothing terrible happened to him soon maybe she'd do it herself. Now there was an idea.” - Douglas Adams
29. “I am reminded of the advice of my neighbor. "Never worry about your heart till it stops beating. ” - E.B. White
30. “Let me assure you that my intent is not to offend or merely be provocative. I'm simply worried.” - Sam Harris
31. “News of Daniel's disappearance does not alarm me as it might have done a week ago. Given recent events, very little alarms me as it might have done a week ago. I feel as if my supply of alarm has been exhausted, at least temporarily.” - Patricia C. Wrede
32. “That porch is a happy-looking place, and my father - burdened, stoop-shouldered, cadaverously thin - doesn't seem to belong on it.” - Margaret Peterson Haddix
33. “If I'd thought she was uninterested, I never would have worried so much - the prospect of screwing something up is much more daunting than that of screwing nothing up. I definitely thought there was something there, and so there was something to lose, you see.” - Adam Levin
34. “It makes me . . . anxious . . . to be away from you.” - Stephenie Meyer
35. “People who are diagnosed as having "generalized anxiety disorder" are afflicted by three major problems that many of us experience to a lesser extent from time to time. First and foremost, says Rapgay, the natural human inclination to focus on threats and bad news is strongly amplified in them, so that even significant positive events get suppressed. An inflexible mentality and tendency toward excessive verbalizing make therapeutic intervention a further challenge.” - Winifred Gallagher
36. “Whatever is going to happen will happen, whether we worry or not.” - Ana Monnar
37. “Sometimes I tend to worry too much and at the end of all the preoccupation nothing goes wrong.” - Ana Monnar
38. “It's about the quality of the worry," I said. "I have happier worries now than I used to.” - David Gilmour
39. “Ninety-nine per cent of traditional English literature concerns people who never have to worry about money at all. We always seem to be watching or reading about emotional crises among folk who live in a world of great fortune both in matters of luck and money; stories and fantasies about rock stars and film stars, sporting millionaires and models; jet-setting members of the aristocracy and international financiers.” - James Kelman
40. “Roger. Be Safe. We'll be there when we can, over.” - Kalee Thompson
41. “Within certain limits, it is actually true that the less money you have, the less you worry.” - George Orwell
42. “There were many terrible things in my life and most of them never happened.” - Michel de Montaigne
43. “Worry is itself an illness, since worry is an accusation against Divine Wisdom, a criticism of Divine Mercy.” - Said Nursi
44. “Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no useful purpose” - Eckhart Tolle
45. “If I was a worrier I'd worry, but not being a worrier I'm just sort of confused and pissed off.” - Mykle Hansen
46. “Unpopular, lonely and loving, Elinor need not trouble, For if she were not so loving, She would not be so miserable.” - Stevie Smith
47. “Basically, if the mind stays in the present, it’s impossible to worry. Upon careful consideration, it becomes clear that human beings are capable of worrying only about an event that has already transpired or one that may take place in the future (although the occurrence might have just happened or may be about to happen in the next instant). The present moment contains no time or space for worry.” - H.E. Davey
48. “worrying gets you nowhere” - Trinity
49. “Remember to delight yourself first, then others can be truly delighted."This was my mantra when I published my first book in 1990, and still holds true. When we focus on the song of our soul and heart, then others will be touched similarly. Sometimes people wonder or worry whether people will like or approve of their creative expression. It's none of your business. It's your business to stay present and focused for the work of your deepest dreams. It might look crooked or strange, or be very odd-but if it delights you, then it is yours, and will find it's way into other hearts.” - SARK
50. “Sorrow looks back, Worry looks around, Faith looks up” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
51. “I wanted to get away,' said she; 'everybody wants to plague and worry me about nothing. They'll be all right tomorrow. What's worrying them?''They are sacrificing to our Canadian God,' said Solly. 'We all believe that if we fret and abuse ourselves sufficiently, Providence will take pity and smile upon anything we attempt. A light heart, or a consciousness of desert, attracts ill luck. You have been away from your native land too long. You have forgotten our folkways. Listen to that gang over there; they are scanning the heavens and hoping aloud that it won't rain tomorrow. That is to placate the Mean Old Man in the Sky, and persuade him to be kind to us.” - Robertson Davies
52. “The most important thing is not to think very much about oneself. To investigate candidly the charge; but not fussily, not very anxiously. On no account to retaliate by going to the other extreme -- thinking too much.” - Virginia Woolf
53. “You worry too much. Eat some bacon...what? No, I got no idea if it'll make you feel better, I just made too much bacon.” - Justin Halpern
54. “Each moment of worry, anxiety or stress represents lack of faith in miracles, for they never cease.” - T.F. Hodge
55. “Of all your troubles, great and small, the greatest are the ones that don't happen at all.” - Thomas Carlyle
56. “Am I worried about the future? I don't know. When I think of the word it's like seeing a cavity, a space where a tooth used to be.” - Kirsty Eagar
57. “To me, comedy is a great occupation because I don't really worry that much about what other people think of me.” - Joe Rogan
58. “Worry was my mother's mechanic, her mechanism for engaging with the machinery of living. Worry was an anchor for her, a hook, something to clutch on to in the world. Worry was a box to live inside of, worry a mechanism for evading the present, for re-creating the past, for dealing with the future.” - Charles Yu
59. “Don't lose today by worrying about tomorrow!!!” - John F. Herbert
60. “Don't worry. Worry is useless. I worried anyway” - John Green
61. “When dreaded outcomes are actually imminent we don't worry about themwe take action. Seeing lava from the local volcano make its way down the street toward our house does not cause worry it causes running. Also we don't usually choose imminent events as subjects for our worrying and thus emerges an ironic truth: Often the very fact that you are worrying about something means that it isn't likely to happen.” - Gavin De Becker
62. “So I saw that there was only me. There was only me who could worry about what was happening here, inside these walls of my life. Other people had their own worlds to worry about, and in the end, they had to fend for themselves, just like us.” - Markus Zusak
63. “Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.” - Keith Caserta
64. “Worry is like a rocking-chair. It gives you something to do buy gets you nowhere.” - Wayne Bennett
65. “Worry divides the mind.” - Max Lucado
66. “Pray, hope, and don't worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer.” - Padre Pio
67. “All this wondering was the weather vane on top of the building of unrest and of discontent” - Steinbeck
68. “It ain't no use putting up your umbrella till it rains!” - Alice Caldwell Rice
69. “I watch worry and anxiety being pandered to through technology which is neutral.” - Brian Richardson
70. “She knows that feeling too. Of believing that each time someone says her name, it’s to tell her that something bad has happened.” - Melina Marchetta
71. “When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened” - Winston S. Churchill
72. “Life...as God intended it enables us to live above the drag of fear, superstition, shame, pessimism, guilt, anxiety, worry, and all the negativity that keeps people from seizing each day as a gift from Him.” - Swindoll Charles R.
73. “The devil, darkness, and death may swagger and boast, the pangs of life will sting for a while longer, but don't worry; the forces of evil are breathing their last. Not to worry...He's risen!” - Swindoll Charles R.
74. “God has called His creation to find satisfaction in a personal relationship with Him, and stop trying to manage the world by conforming it to our expectations, and to allow Him to govern His creation. He continues to say through an ancient Hebrew worship song, "Be still and know that I am God!” - Swindoll Charles R.
75. “Don’t worry about the little stuff. None of it matters. Only love matters. If you remember this, that love is always present; it will be a good life” - Bronnie Ware
76. “I have always felt that fear possesses such great power, enough to paralyze and quake an individual. Pondering this, I realized that the source of fear's power comes from within me. So, I ask myself, does that not make me the powerful one?” - Richelle E. Goodrich
77. “...I'm constantly agitated, restless - I work moments like worry beads until I see your face...” - John Geddes
78. “Blessed is the person who is too busy to worry in the daytime and too sleepy to worry at night.” - Leo Aikman
79. “You worry about hurting me, but you never seem to worry about me hurting you. And I’m the one with the killer touch.” - Jennifer L. Armentrout
80. “Sometimes, even when I'm trying to keep the load light it just feels so heavy. Like the sky is a ton of bricks waiting to fall and anything I might do, think or feel could cause it to come crashing down.” - Jane Devin
81. “He might have been encased in a thick glass bubble, so separate did he feel from his three dining companions. It was a sensation with which he was only too familiar, that of walking in a giant sphere of worry, enclosed by it, watching his own terrors roll by, obscuring the outside world.” - J.K. Rowling
82. “Worry is like a rocking chair-it keeps you busy but gets you nowhere.” - Katie Dale
83. “Let's worry like mad. Shall we start on a worldwide basis and work down to ourselves, or start with ourselves and spread?""I'm going to do me-and-Peter and that dead man.""All right. I'm just going to do a wee one about Bunny and then I'll join you. Always creeping around telling tales and stealing people's tights! How can anyone be that scrofulous and live? Now if somebody bumped him off, that would make sense.” - Pamela Branch
84. “The person doing the worrying experiences it as a form of love; the person being worried about experiences it as a form of control.” - John Lanchester
85. “Ain't you thinkin' what's it gonna be like when we get there? Ain't you scared it won't be nice like we thought?No, she said quickly. No, I ain't. You can't do that. I can't do that. It's too much - livin' too many lives. Up ahead they's a thousan' lives we might live, but when it comes, it'll on'y be one.” - John Steinbeck
86. “Don't go looking for worry. It finds you on its own.” - Autumn Jordon
87. “Life is too precious to worry about what could or will happen. Life is..what you make it” - E'yen A. Gardner
88. “Stop crying to the ocean, stop crying over me. Stop worrying over nothing, stop worrying over me. So it's been so long since you said, well I know what I want and what I want's right here with you.” - Tegan Quin
89. “Worry is absence of faith.” - Paul Palnik
90. “Worry is momentary atheism crying out for correction by trust in a good, sovereign God. Suffering breaks self-reliance.” - Randy Alcorn
91. “Why are we worried!" Rolf said suddenly. "This is God's work. He'll make a way for us.” - Brother Andrew
92. “Q: When is the perfect time? A: Who can say, but probably somewhere between haste and delay - and it's usually most wise to start today.” - Rasheed Ogunlaru
93. “The apprehension of this blessed truth (God's faithfulness) will check our murmurings. The Lord knows what is best for each of us, and one effect or resting on this truth will be the silencing of our petulant complainings. God is greatly honored when, under trial and chastening, we have good thoughts of Him, vindicate His wisdom and justice, and recognize His love in His very rebukes.” - A. W. Pink
94. “I was terrified of death by the time I was three or four, actively if not lucidly. I had frequent nightmares about snakes and scary neighbors. By the age of four or five, I was terrified by my thoughts. By the time I was five, the migraines began. I was so sensitive about myself and the world that I cried or shriveled up at the slightest hurt. People always told me, "You've got to get a thicker skin," like now they might say, jovially, "Let go and let God." Believe me, if I could, I would, and in the meantime I feel like stabbing you in the forehead. Teachers wrote on my report cards that I was too sensitive, excessively worried, as if this were an easily correctable condition, as if I were wearing too much of the violet toilet water little girls wore then.” - Anne Lamott
95. “I had not the least idea of a gamekeeper's occupation being so dangerous - there had never been such a person employed on the Longbourn estate - and just as I had spent half the previous night wondering about Peter, I spent half the next one worrying about him.” - Jennifer Paynter
96. “When I was young I wanted so much to be like her. What a blessing are those moments when there is nothing to worry about, no thought of trouble or grief in the world.” - Belinda Jeffrey
97. “We are, perhaps uniquely among the earth’s creatures, the worrying animal. We worry away our lives, fearing the future, discontent with the present, unable to take the idea of dying, unable to sit still.” - Lewis Thomas
98. “Let your cares drive you to God. I shall not mind if you have many of them if each one leads you to prayer. If every fret makes you lean more on the Beloved, it will be a benefit.” - Charles H. Spurgeon
99. “For every evil under the sun,There is a remedy, or there is none.If there be one, try and find it;If there be none, never mind it.” - Mother Goose Rhymes
100. “We imagine that a little anxiety and worry is an indication of how wise we really are; it may be an indication of how wicked we really are.” - Oswald Chambers
101. “Rather than having regrets over events in the past, or worrying whether or not the future will bring you what you need or desire, allow yourself to rest in the present, the now. Understand that all that has transpired has brought you to this moment, and in this very moment, riches that far outweigh those of the world already lie within you.” - Kristi Bowman
102. “It is no good worrying about things that are out of your hands” - Matt Thomas
103. “One of life's great truths is this: when one is about to be struck by a speeding six-hundred pound Coke machine, one need worry about little else.” - Stephen King
104. “If you would stop worrying about things you don’t control and release what God has put into you, you will change everything around you.” - Steve Maraboli
105. “Memphis found his smile. 'You know me, sir. I don't wear worry.” - Libba Bray
106. “Paranoia is at most annoying!” - Anthony Liccione
107. “Worry acts like a squatter, sneaks in and tries to stay without paying rent!" EL.” - Evlinda Lepins
108. “Don't panic. Say, Hey, no problem. Run a hand through your hair like the whiteboys do even though the only thing that runs easily through your hair is Africa.” - Junot Diaz
109. “She inhaled a worry. She exhaled a prayer." Mary Lou Quinlan, author” - Mary Lou Quinlan