41 Inspirational Moving On Quotes

Moving on can be one of life's most challenging yet transformative experiences. Whether you're navigating a career change, the end of a relationship, or a new personal journey, finding the right words can provide the comfort and motivation needed to embrace the future. In this collection, we have curated 41 of the most inspirational quotes about moving on. These quotes, from various thinkers and visionaries, serve as powerful reminders that letting go of the past opens up new paths and endless possibilities. Dive in, and discover the inspiration you need to take that step forward with confidence and grace.

1. “To be bitter is to attribute intent and personality to the formless, infinite, unchanging and unchangeable void. We drift on a chartless, resistless sea. Let us sing when we can, and forget the rest..” - H.P. Lovecraft

2. “Cry me a river, build a bridge, and get over it.” - Justin Timberlake

3. “Sooner or later we've all got to let go of our past.” - Dan Brown

4. “You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could've, would've happened... or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move the fuck on.” - Tupac Shakur

5. “That was the only time, as I stood there, looking at that strange rubbish, feeling the wind coming across those empty fields, that I started to imagine just a little fantasy thing, because this was Norfolk after all, and it was only a couple of weeks since I’d lost him. I was thinking about the rubbish, the flapping plastic in the branches, the shore-line of odd stuff caught along the fencing, and I half-closed my eyes and imagined this was the spot where everything I'd ever lost since my childhood had washed up, and I was now standing here in front of it, and if I waited long enough, a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across the field, and gradually get larger until I'd see it was Tommy, and he'd wave, maybe even call. The fantasy never got beyond that --I didn't let it-- and though the tears rolled down my face, I wasn't sobbing or out of control. I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be.” - Kazuo Ishiguro

6. “There comes a point at which you stop giving things up. That is what i won't give up. None of it will i give up, for my beautiful sister Ivy who lies in bed. Ivy who used to be alive. Ivy who used to be. Ivy who used. Ivy who. Ivy-who-is-not-me.Not me. Not me. Not me.” - Alison McGhee

7. “We are set in our ways, bound by our perspectives and stuck in our thinking.” - Joel Osteen

8. “Well, nowIf little by little you stop loving meI shall stop loving youLittle by littleIf suddenly you forget meDo not look for meFor I shall already have forgotten youIf you think it long and mad the wind of banners that passes through my lifeAnd you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have rootsRememberThat on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my armsAnd my roots will set off to seek another land” - Pablo Neruda

9. “The great courageous act that we must all do, is to have the courage to step out of our history and past so that we can live our dreams.” - Oprah Winfrey

10. “Sometimes you can’t let go of the past without facing it again.” - Gail Tsukiyama

11. “At some point, to counter the list of the dead, I had begun keeping my own list of the living. It was something I noticed Len Fenerman did too. When he was off duty he would note the young girls and elderly women and every other female in the rainbow in between and count them among the things that sustained him. The young girl in the mall whose pale legs had grown too long for her now too-young dress and who had an aching vulnerability that went straight to both Len's and my own heart. Elderly women, wobbling with walkers, who insisted on dyeing their hair unnatural versions of the colors they had in youth. Middle-aged single mothers racing around in grocery stores while their children pulled bags of candy off the shelves. When I saw them, I took count. Living, breathing women. Sometimes I saw the wounded- those who had been beaten by husbands or raped by strangers, children raped by their fathers- and I would wish to intervene somehow. Len saw these wounded women all the time. They were regulars at the station, but even when he went somewhere outside his jurisdiction he could sense them when they came near. The wife in that bait-'n'-tackle shop had no bruises on her face but cowered like a dog and spoke in apologetic whispers. The girl he saw walk the road each time he went upstate to visit his sisters. As the years passed she'd grown leaner, the fat from her cheeks had drained, and sorrow had loaded her eyes in a way that made them hang heavy and hopeless inside her mallowed skin. When she was not there it worried him. When she was there it both depressed and revived him. ~Len Fenerman on stepping back/letting go/giving uppgs 271-272” - Alice Sebold

12. “Don't go through life; grow through life.” - Eric Butterworth

13. “Change has to come for life to struggle forward.” - Helen Hollick

14. “Time will make it worse! You're...the other half of his soul. He's never going to get over you. And no matter how much you hope that you will... you'll never get over him. You're going to wake up one day and realize what you've done, and you're going to regret the time you wasted apart from him for the rest of your life.” - Jamie McGuire

15. “The person who hurt you--who raped you or killed your family--is also here. If you are still angry at that person, if you haven't been able to forgive, you are chained to him. Everyone could feel the emotional truth of that: When someone offends you and you haven't let go, every time you see him, you grow breathless or your heart skips a beat. If the trauma was really severe, you dream of revenge. Above you, is the Mountain of Peace and Prosperity where we all want to go. But when you try to climb that hill, the person you haven't forgiven weighs you down. It's a personal choice whether or not to let go. No one can tell you how long to mourn a death or rage over a rape. But you can't move forward until you break that chain.” - Leymah Gbowee

16. “And I'm ill with the thought of your kiss, coffee-laced intoxicating on her lips... shut it out, I've got no claim on you now, I'm not allowed to wear you freedom down” - Fine Frenzy

17. “Being different is a revolving door in your life where secure people enter and insecure exit.” - Shannon L. Alder

18. “I thought, possibly, that what I really needed was to go where nobody knew me and start over again, with none of my previous decisions, conversations, or expectations coming with me.” - Maggie Stiefvater

19. “She took a step and didn't want to take any more, but she did.” - Markus Zusak

20. “And I told him, I said: "One day you're going to miss the subway because it's not going to come. One of these days, it's going to break down and it's not going to come around and everyone else will just wait for the next one or will take the bus, or walk, or run to the next station: they will go on with their lives. And you're not going to be able to go on with your life! You'll be standing there, in the subway station, staring at the tube. Why? Because you think that everything has to happen perfectly and on time and when you think it's going to happen! Well guess what! That's not how things happen! And you'll be the only one who's not going to be able to go on with life, just because your subway broke down. So you know what, you've got to let go, you've got to know that things don't happen the way you think they're going to happen, but that's okay, because there's always the bus, there's always the next station...you can always take a cab.” - C. JoyBell C.

21. “Grudges are for those who insist that they are owed something; forgiveness, however, is for those who are substantial enough to move on.” - Criss Jami

22. “I will not deny that my heart has long occupied itself with the most tender feelings for another. So strong were these impulses that I indulged myself by thinking that if I could not have him whom I admired whom I will admit it now when I would not before I loved then I would never want another. However those are sentiments best saved for one of Lily's romances. The heart is a far more practical thing and in its life is happily capable of more than a single attachment.” - Galen Beckett

23. “It's me. I chose this. I chose all of this — this rock has been waiting for me my entire life. I’ve been moving towards it my whole life.” - Aron Ralston

24. “If you have one parent who loves you, even if they can't buy you clothes, they're so poor and they make all kinds of mistakes and maybe sometimes they even give you awful advice, but never for one moment do you doubt their love for you--if you have this, you have incredibly good fortune.If you have two parents who love you? You have won life's Lotto.If you do not have parents, or if the parents you have are so broken and so, frankly, terrible that they are no improvement over nothing, this is fine.It's not ideal because it's harder without adults who love you more than they love themselves. But harder is just harder, that's all.” - Augusten Burroughs

25. “I wore your promise on my finger for one yearI'll wear your name on my heart til I dieBecause you were my boy, you were my only boy forever.” - Coco J. Ginger

26. “You will find that it is necessary to let things go; simply for the reason that they are heavy. So let them go, let go of them. I tie no weights to my ankles.” - C. JoyBell C.

27. “I will run every mile, i will saveevery line, i will say i reached thetop and i will fall back down standing.I will write down every thing, the goodand the bad,I will wake up one day andgo back to the start. I will noticethat the good ones were nothing but mybeautiful lines, were everything paintedby my mind. I will notice that the badones were nothing but pieces of mypain that should have been crumbled and thrown away the first time i started torain. I will leave home and i won'tmind, i will miss some beating piecesbut i will survive.the sky will stayin place, mountains won't shake and mymind will go nowhere.the stars will take my side not yours, and the new airin your chest will feel forever cold. Iwill donate a piece of my heart to hurtyou forever and a lifelong lastingquestion about what you have lost.Myhands won't ever fit in yours and myfaith says that crown on your head willhurt you the most.One day i won't overlook anythinganymore. One day i won't rememberanything anymore.I will stoppretending i'm ice cold and i willlearn how to be strong.one day I willgrow out of this, i will grow out ofus.” - Mennah al refaey

28. “There is no such thing as a "broken family." Family is family, and is not determined by marriage certificates, divorce papers, and adoption documents. Families are made in the heart. The only time family becomes null is when those ties in the heart are cut. If you cut those ties, those people are not your family. If you make those ties, those people are your family. And if you hate those ties, those people will still be your family because whatever you hate will always be with you.” - C. JoyBell C.

29. “Well, I just get as close as I can to a happy ending, then I shut the door behind me and move on.” - James Goss

30. “And my biggest fear would be forevermissing a piece. You see our story wasnever complete, and it's supposed to befinished but you haven't yet heard allof me.So listen because my biggest fear would be missing out on how ittruly feels . I will forever miss atouch though i never tried it on myface; i might miss how cold it is and imight miss how warm it left me, i mightmiss how it perfectly traces every lineand i might miss how it gets losteverytime. I will forever miss a handthat held my heart, one that onlylearnt how to wave goodbye, one thatonly learnt how to part, i will neverknow how your fingers interlaced withmine, though i have been always surethat they fit perfectly inside. And Iknow i will definitely miss waking upto your eyes, i will miss knowing theysee right through me, i will misshaving that subtle silent starereassure my heart. And a very longplaylist will go to waste, no slowdancing not on the kitchen floor andnever once in the rain.Just know Ialready miss having your back, but youare the one who turned yours and idon't know if i should ever forgivethat.” - Mennah al refaey

31. “Then he remembered Ralph's words--"no point in fighting your war over and over until you get it right.” - M.L. Stedman

32. “You think it's so great to die and make everyone cry and carry on. Well it ain't.” - Katherine Paterson

33. “It was strange walking through the empty apartment. My battered purple room was gone, Brittany’s bruised blue was gone. Two coats covered everything. It was like none of it had ever happened.” - Kimberly Novosel

34. “Sometimes, in order to find happiness, one must allow some old bridges to collapse, in order to build better ones.” - Lionel Suggs

35. “Simply put, the best revenge is to live an awesome life.” - Ramon Bautista

36. “Explain it to me."But I couldn't. I'd had to learn it my own way, and so had my mother. Jason would eventually, as well. No one could tell you: you just had to go through it on your own. If you were lucky, you came out on the other side and understood., If you didn't, you kept getting thrust back, retracing those steps, until you finally got it right.” - Sarah Dessen

37. “The world isn’t perfect, and some days it wears you down. You can either accept that, and face it, and be a help to others instead of a hindrance. Or you can decide the rules are too tough and they shouldn’t apply to you, and you can ignore them and make things harder for everybody else. Sometimes life is about being sad and doing things anyway. Sometimes it’s about being hurt and doing things anyway. The point isn’t perfection. The point is doing it anyway.” - Chloe Neill

38. “We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there.” - Pascal Mercier

39. “Not forever does the bulbul singIn balmy shades of bowers,Not forever lasts the springNor ever blossom the flowers.Not forever reigneth joy,Sets the sun on days of bliss,Friendships not forever last,They know not life, who know not this.” - Khushwant Singh

40. “If you spend your time hoping someone will suffer the consequences for what they did to your heart, then you're allowing them to hurt you a second time in your mind.” - Shannon L. Alder

41. “There comes a time in your life when you have to choose to turn the page, write another book or simply close it.” - Shannon L. Alder