132 Quotes About Overcoming Worry

In a world where uncertainty often lurks around every corner, worry can easily become a constant companion, overshadowing our daily lives. Yet, the power to rise above anxiety and embrace peace lies within each of us. Delving into the wisdom of those who have traversed this path, our curated collection of 132 quotes serves as both inspiration and guidance. Each quote is a beacon of hope, offering insights and encouragement to help transform worry into resilience and tranquility. Whether you're seeking solace for the soul or motivation for the mind, these powerful words offer a reminder that a calm heart and a clear mind are within reach.

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. “Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.” - Benjamin Franklin

5. “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

6. “You probably wouldn’t worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do.” - Olin Miller

7. “Worry is a misuse of the imagination.” - Dan Zadra

8. “If we are worried about the future, then we must look today at the upbringing of children.” - Gordon B. Hinckley

9. “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.” - Corrie Ten Boom

10. “Drag your thoughts awayfrom your troubles...by the ears, by the heels,or any other way you can manage it.” - Mark Twain

11. “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

12. “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

13. “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them have never happened.” - Mark Twain

14. “Times will change for the better when you change.” - Maxwell Maltz

15. “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

16. “Worrying is carrying tomorrow's load with today's strength- carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.” - Corrie Ten Boom

17. “..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

18. “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

19. “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

20. “A medicine cat has no time for doubt. Put your energy into today and stop worrying about the past.” - Erin Hunter

21. “Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.” - Leo Buscaglia

22. “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

23. “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

24. “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

25. “If the problem can be solved why worry? If the problem cannot be solved worrying will do you no good.” - Shantideva

26. “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

27. “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

28. “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

29. “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

30. “Worrying was painful .... but compared to the alternative, a privilege” - Laura Moriarty

31. “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

32. “I am reminded of the advice of my neighbor. "Never worry about your heart till it stops beating. ” - E.B. White

33. “What will be left of all the fearing and wanting associated with your problematic life situation that every day takes up most of your attention? A dash, one or two inches long, between the date of birth and date of death on your gravestone.” - Eckhart Tolle

34. “Let me assure you that my intent is not to offend or merely be provocative. I'm simply worried.” - Sam Harris

35. “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

36. “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

37. “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

38. “Temperamentally anxious people can have a hard time staying motivated, period, because their intense focus on their worries distracts them from their goals.” - Winifred Gallagher

39. “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

40. “Whatever is going to happen will happen, whether we worry or not.” - Ana Monnar

41. “Sometimes I tend to worry too much and at the end of all the preoccupation nothing goes wrong.” - Ana Monnar

42. “It's about the quality of the worry," I said. "I have happier worries now than I used to.” - David Gilmour

43. “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

44. “Roger. Be Safe. We'll be there when we can, over.” - Kalee Thompson

45. “Within certain limits, it is actually true that the less money you have, the less you worry.” - George Orwell

46. “There were many terrible things in my life and most of them never happened.” - Michel de Montaigne

47. “We would worry less if we praised more. Thanksgiving is the enemy of discontent and dissatisfaction.” - Harry A. Ironside

48. “Worry is itself an illness, since worry is an accusation against Divine Wisdom, a criticism of Divine Mercy.” - Said Nursi

49. “Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no useful purpose” - Eckhart Tolle

50. “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?So do not worry, saying, ``What shall we eat?'' or ``What shall we drink?'' or ``What shall we wear?'' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.- Matthew 6:25-34” - Anonymous

51. “If I was a worrier I'd worry, but not being a worrier I'm just sort of confused and pissed off.” - Mykle Hansen

52. “Only 8% of our worry will come to pass. 92% of our worry is wasted. DON'T PANIC” - Mark Gorman

53. “Unpopular, lonely and loving, Elinor need not trouble, For if she were not so loving, She would not be so miserable.” - Stevie Smith

54. “Her forehead was a maze of anxious little grooves, from a lifetime of wondering about whether everyone within range was OK.” - Tana French

55. “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

56. “To live by worry is to live against reality” - E. Stanley Jones

57. “worrying gets you nowhere” - Trinity

58. “It would be so nice to be wanted by someone with the courage to get his hat or stay as he damn pleased, and who gave her credit for the same. Someone who didn't worry about her.” - Thomas Harris

59. “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

60. “Sorrow looks back, Worry looks around, Faith looks up” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

61. “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

62. “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

63. “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

64. “Each moment of worry, anxiety or stress represents lack of faith in miracles, for they never cease.” - T.F. Hodge

65. “Of all your troubles, great and small, the greatest are the ones that don't happen at all.” - Thomas Carlyle

66. “It wasn't that the Gospel proved useful for my many worries but that the Gospel proved the uselessness of my worries and so refocused my whole attention.” - Henri J.M. Nouwen

67. “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

68. “The whole thing is quite hopeless, so it's no good worrying about tomorrow. It probably won't come.” - J. R. R. Tolkien

69. “To me, comedy is a great occupation because I don't really worry that much about what other people think of me.” - Joe Rogan

70. “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

71. “Don't worry much about the after-life, Just like you don't worry about your before-Life. Worry (and be grateful) about THIS life. This one DOES count” - Pablo

72. “Don't lose today by worrying about tomorrow!!!” - John F. Herbert

73. “Don't worry. Worry is useless. I worried anyway” - John Green

74. “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

75. “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

76. “Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.” - Keith Caserta

77. “Worry is like a rocking-chair. It gives you something to do buy gets you nowhere.” - Wayne Bennett

78. “Worry divides the mind.” - Max Lucado

79. “Pray, hope, and don't worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer.” - Padre Pio

80. “All this wondering was the weather vane on top of the building of unrest and of discontent” - Steinbeck

81. “It ain't no use putting up your umbrella till it rains!” - Alice Caldwell Rice

82. “When I don't have something to worry about, I worry. Nothing comes so naturally to a human being as anxiety and worry.” - Brian Richardson

83. “I watch worry and anxiety being pandered to through technology which is neutral.” - Brian Richardson

84. “For most of my life I've been a listener. At least in the beginning, I think the reason I listened so intently was to have a chance of hearing the train before it ran over me.” - Steve Rasnic Tem

85. “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

86. “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

87. “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.

88. “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.

89. “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.

90. “Worrying doesn't make any difference, but working does and spirituality gives one the strength to work” - Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

91. “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

92. “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

93. “...I'm constantly agitated, restless - I work moments like worry beads until I see your face...” - John Geddes

94. “Blessed is the person who is too busy to worry in the daytime and too sleepy to worry at night.” - Leo Aikman

95. “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

96. “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

97. “Instinctively I started to panic when Dr. Martinez strapped my arm down, andthen the panic just melted away, la la la.Someone took my other hand. Fang. I felt his calluses, his bones, hisstrength.“I’m so glad you’re here,” I slurred, smiling dopily up at him. I took inhis startled, worried expression but dismissed it. “I know everything’s fineif you’re here.”I thought I saw his cheeks flush, but I wasn’t too sure of anything anymore.” - James Patterson

98. “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

99. “Worry is like a rocking chair-it keeps you busy but gets you nowhere.” - Katie Dale

100. “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

101. “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

102. “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

103. “Don't go looking for worry. It finds you on its own.” - Autumn Jordon

104. “The speaker indicts our unbelieving responses to Jesus' COMMAND not to worry. We take it less seriously than His commands about overt actions and justify ourselves that we would not worry if He kept us from any circumstance we might worry about.” - Jim Savastio

105. “Life is too precious to worry about what could or will happen. Life is..what you make it” - E'yen A. Gardner

106. “The way to misuse our possessions is to use them as an insurance against the morrow. Anxiety is always directed to the morrow, whereas goods are in the strictest sense meant to be used only for to-day.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

107. “Our worst misfortunes never happen, and most miseries lie in anticipation.” - Honoré de Balzac

108. “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

109. “Worry is absence of faith.” - Paul Palnik

110. “Worry is momentary atheism crying out for correction by trust in a good, sovereign God. Suffering breaks self-reliance.” - Randy Alcorn

111. “Why are we worried!" Rolf said suddenly. "This is God's work. He'll make a way for us.” - Brother Andrew

112. “Worry is down payment on a problem that hasn't happened. Trust Jesus!” - Jarrid Wilson

113. “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

114. “Dwell in the past, worry about the future and find misery in the present.” - Wayne Gerard Trotman

115. “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

116. “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

117. “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

118. “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

119. “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

120. “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

121. “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

122. “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

123. “It is no good worrying about things that are out of your hands” - Matt Thomas

124. “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

125. “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

126. “Memphis found his smile. 'You know me, sir. I don't wear worry.” - Libba Bray

127. “Paranoia is at most annoying!” - Anthony Liccione

128. “Greater is Your care for me than all the care I am able to take from myself.” - Thomas A. Kempis

129. “Worry acts like a squatter, sneaks in and tries to stay without paying rent!" EL.” - Evlinda Lepins

130. “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

131. “Petunia only ever went to the doctor reluctantly, and her motive in doing so was always the same: she did it in order to feel less anxious about things. The doctor was supposed to make the worry go away; she did quite enough worrying without actually having something to worry about. When she came out feeling no less anxious, as this time, something had gone wrong. The basic contract had been broken.” - John Lanchester

132. “She inhaled a worry. She exhaled a prayer." Mary Lou Quinlan, author” - Mary Lou Quinlan