61 Inspiring Anxiety Quotes

In today's fast-paced world, anxiety has become a common challenge that many people face. Whether it's due to personal struggles, professional pressures, or societal expectations, these feelings can often feel overwhelming. However, words have the power to comfort, inspire, and provide a sense of connection and reassurance. In this article, we've curated a collection of 61 profound quotes that offer insight, encouragement, and solace to those grappling with anxiety. Through the wisdom of authors, thinkers, and leaders, these quotes aim to remind you that you are not alone and that there is always hope and strength to be found even in the most challenging times.

1. “…there is also an underlying, less specific fear - what some might call an ontological or existential anxiety - that shrouds our days and seeps into our dreams. We feel empty and seek meaning. We feel empty and seek meaning. We yearn and know not what we yearn for. There is a black hole at the center of our understanding that engulfs and crushes our every attempt to explore it. Something is missing. ” - Jesse Browner

2. “Anxiety is love's greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic.” - Anais Nin

3. “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

4. “Some part of me can't wait to see what life's going to come up with next! Anticipation without the usual anxiety. And underneath it all is the feeling that we both belong here, just as we are, right now.” - Alexander Shulgin

5. “He was agitated for some reason that he could not name. (page 35)” - kate dicamillo

6. “Creating is living doubly. The groping, anxious quest of a Proust, his meticulous collecting of flowers, of wallpapers, and of anxieties, signifies nothing else.” - Albert Camus

7. “So why do we worry? Why do we worry about food and clothing About finances and money? About security and the needs of life? We have Jehovah-Rohi! We have the Lord as our caring Shepherd. When fears regarding the cares of this world set in, we need to confidently lean on God's promise to care for us. Then we can declare to God, "Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You" (Psalm 56:3)” - Elizabeth George

8. “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

9. “If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.” - Amit Ray

10. “I sat down and tried to rest. I could not; though I had been on foot all day, I could not now repose an instant; I was too much excited. A phase of my life was closing tonight, a new one opening tomorrow: impossible to slumber in the interval; I must watch feverishly while the change was being accomplished.” - Charlotte Brontë

11. “Chronic anxiety is a state more undesirable than any other, and we will try almost any maneuver to eliminate it. Modern man is living in anxious anticipation of destruction. Such anxiety can be easily eliminated by self-destruction. As a German saying puts it: 'Better an end with terror than a terror without end.” - Robert E. Neale

12. “Some people feel guilty about their anxieties and regard them as a defect of faith. I don't agree at all. They are afflictions, not sins. Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the Passion of Christ” - C.S. Lewis

13. “A Jewish man with his parents alive is half the time a helpless infant!” - Philip Roth

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

15. “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

16. “The novice in the military art flew from point to point, retarding his own preparations by the excess of his violent and somewhat distempered zeal; while the more practiced veteran made his arrangements with a deliberation that scorned every appearance of haste” - James Fenimore Cooper

17. “While fear depletes power, faith gives wings for the soul’s elevation.” - T.F. Hodge

18. “The punishment of every disordered mind is its own disorder.” - St. Augustine of Hippo

19. “Free curiosity has greater power to stimulate learning than rigorous coercion. Nevertheless, the free ranging flux of curiosity is channeled by discipline under Your Law.” - St. Augustine of Hippo

20. “Good God, but life could be less than easy, not that he was unaware that it could certainly be a lot worse, but to go about in such a state, pulse high, face red, worried sick that someone would notice how nervous one was, was certainly less than ideal, and he felt sure that his body was secreting all kinds of harmful chemicals and that the more he worried about the harmful chemicals the faster they were pouring out of wherever it was they came from.” - George Saunders

21. “his face, though lined, bore few traces of anxiety. But, perhaps the confidential bachelor clerks in Tellson's Bank were principally occupied with the cares of other people; and perhaps second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, come easily off and on.” - Charles Dickens

22. “It was that sort of sleep in which you wake every hour and think to yourself that you have not been sleeping at all; you can remember dreams that are like reflections, daytime thinking slightly warped.” - Kim Stanley Robinson

23. “When my sons arrived in the family, their legal status was not ambiguous at all. They were our kids. But their wants and affections were still atrophied by a year in the orphanage. They didn't know that flies on their faces were bad. They didn't know that a strange man feeding them their first scary gulps of solid food wasn't a torturer. Life in the cribs alone must have seemed to them like freedom. That's what I was missing about the biblical doctrine of adoption. Sure it's glorious in the long run. But it sure seems like hell in the short run. . . .” - Russell D. Moore

24. “I was moving in a narrow range between busy distractedness and a pervasive sadness whose granules seemed to enter each cell, weighing it down... I ghosted between islands of anxiety... a fatigue that dulled my zest, decanted it. Sorrow felt like a marble coat I couldn’t shed.” - Diane Ackerman

25. “I had the chance to make every possible mistake and figure out a way to recover from it. Once you realize there is life after mistakes, you gain a self-confidence that never goes away.” - Bob Schieffer

26. “Knowing about God is crucially important for the living of our lives. As it would be cruel to an Amazonian tribesmen to fly him to London, put him down without explanation in Trafalgar Square and leave him, as one who knew nothing of English or England, to fend for himself, so we are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing about the God whose world it is and who runs it .The world becomes a strange, mad, painful place, and life in it a disappointing and unpleasant business, for those who do not know about God. Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfold, as it were , with no sense of direction, and no understanding of what surrounds you. This way you can waste your life and lose your soul.” - J.I. Packer

27. “If you trade your authenticity for safety, you may experience the following: anxiety, depression, eating disorders, addiction, rage, blame, resentment, and inexplicable grief.” - Brené Brown

28. “I've spent most of my life and most of my friendships holding my breath and hoping that when people get close enough they won't leave, and fearing that it's a matter of time before they figure me out and go.” - Shauna Niequist

29. “What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn't much better than tedious disease.” - George Dennison Prentice

30. “The largest part of what we call 'personality' is determined by how we've opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness".” - Alain De Botton

31. “There's no work so tirin' as danglin' about an' starin' an' not rightly knowin' what you're goin' to do next; and keepin' your face i' smilin' order like a grocer o' market-day for fear people shouldna think you civil enough.” - George Eliot

32. “In bed our yesterdays are too oppressive: if a man can only get up, though it be but to whistle or to smoke, he has a present which offers some resistance to the past—sensations which assert themselves against tyrannous memories.” - George Eliot

33. “One source of frustration in the workplace is the frequent mismatch between what people must do and whatpeople can do. When what they must do exceeds their capabilities, the result is anxiety. When what they must do falls short of their capabilities,the result is boredom. But when thematch is just right, the results can be glorious. This is the essence of flow.” - Daniel H. Pink

34. “There are times when I'm caught up in everything and I have to say to myself, "Please feel good; please feel better; everything's okay; you're fine; things aren't falling apart; take a second; get back to a place where you realize that you don't actually have real problems." That happens. You never know when those tables are gonna turn... For me, confidence is something that can come crashing down in one second.” - Taylor Swift

35. “Freedom is anxiety's petri dish. If routine blunts anxiety, freedom incubates it. Freedom says, "Even if you don't want to make choices, you have to, and you can never be sure you have chosen correctly." Freedom says, "Even not to choose is to choose." Freedom says, "So long as you are aware of your freedom, you are going to experience the discomfort that freedom brings." Freedom says, "You're on your own. Deal with it.” - Daniel B. Smith

36. “Perfect prayer does not consist in many words, silent remembering and pure intention raises the heart to that supreme Power.” - Amit Ray

37. “Keep making noise, I prayed, laughing. Bang drums. Clamor and ring bells for I cannot stand to hear the tired beating of this almost heart.” - Meg Howrey

38. “I like to read and write because it is the ONLY thing that takes my mind off of the real world and my spinning worries. It is a time I can be free of anxiety, worry, and stress. When my life gets hectic I HAVE to read and write or I'll drown.” - Shandy L. Kurth

39. “Essentially, almost all humans are born with a fear of the unknown. It casts a pall of anxiety which pushes us into the arms of religions and soothsayers and their made-up answers.” - Mario Stinger

40. “Schoolboy days are no happier than the days of afterlife, but we look back upon them regretfully because we have forgotten our punishments at school and how we grieved when our marbles were lost and our kites destroyed – because we have forgotten all the sorrows and privations of the canonized ethic and remember only its orchard robberies, its wooden-sword pageants, and its fishing holidays.” - Mark Twain

41. “Life is like a game of chess.To win you have to make a move.Knowing which move to make comes with IN-SIGHTand knowledge, and by learning the lessons that areacculated along the way.We become each and every piece within the game called life!” - Allan Rufus

42. “Do you remember what I forgot?” - Erica Goros

43. “It is the most ambitious and driven among us who are the most sorely in need of having our reckless hopes dampened through immersive dousings in the darkness which religions have explored. This is a particular priority for secular Americans, perhaps the most anxious and disappointed people on earth, for their nation infuses them with the most extreme hopes about what they may be able to achieve in their working lives and relationships.” - Alain De Botton

44. “It felt like this was never going to end. The world wasn't going to stop crashing down until there was nothing left of me but dust.” - Keary Taylor

45. “Feelings and stories of unworthiness and shame are perhaps the most binding element in the trance of fear. When we believe something is wrong with us, we are convinced we are in danger. Our shame fuels ongoing fear, and our fear fuels more shame. The very fact that we feel fear seems to prove that we are broken or incapable. When we are trapped in trance, being fearful and bad seem to define who we are. The anxiety in our body, the stories, the ways we make excuses, withdraw or lash out—these become to us the self that is most real.” - Tara Brach

46. “I lay on my floor crying again… shaking. Searching for inner strength and coming up empty. My eyes burned and my mouth was dry as I sucked on air that seemed to keep getting thicker and harder to breathe. I tried to leave again, but ended up leaning my forehead against the door, feeling defeated and wishing the Grim Reaper would come for me in all his silky, black glory.” - Nathan Daniels

47. “It’s been my experience that people always assume that generalized anxiety disorder is preferable to social anxiety disorder, because it sounds more vague and unthreatening, but those people are totally wrong. For me, having generalized anxiety disorder is basically like having all of the other anxiety disorders smooshed into one. Even the ones that aren’t recognized by modern science. Things like birds-will-probably-smother-me-in-my-sleep anxiety disorder and I-keep-crackers-in-my-pocket-in-case-I-get-trapped-in-an-elevator anxiety disorder. Basically I’m just generally anxious about f***ing everything. In fact, I suspect that’s how they came up with the name.” - Jenny Lawson

48. “So close to the powers of evil she must have lived that she still breathed more freely in their air.” - Edith Wharton

49. “Almost everything that I've ever worried about has never happened ..” - Ian Tucker

50. “She felt happy these days, yet there was always an undercurrent of sadness just below the surface” - Diane Chamberlain

51. “Panic---a deep abiding, free-floating anxiety, often without any reason or logical basis.” - Nelson DeMille

52. “Sabbath, in the first instance, is not about worship. It is about work stoppage. It is about withdrawal from the anxiety system of Pharaoh, the refusal to let one’s life be defined by production and consumption and the endless pursuit of private well-being.” - Walter Brueggemann

53. “Memory is a barricade against forgetting; light is a bulwark against darkness; life is a flex against the stillness of the grave. Maybe that's what I'm trying to do here, clear a space in all the debris, through all the anxieties and worries, where I can just exist, easily and simply, entire, for as long as I have left.” - Helen Humphreys

54. “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

55. “Anxiety was born in the very same moment as mankind. And since we will never be able to master it, we will have to learn to live with it—just as we have learned to live with storms.” - Paulo Coelho

56. “He felt like normal. Filled with anxiety, dread, sure. But even that wasn't unusual...” - John Ajvide Lindqvist

57. “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

58. “Mary Lou suddenly realizes that Mack calls the temperature number because he is afraid to talk on the telephone, and by listening to a recording, he doesn’t have to reply. It’s his way of pretending that he’s involved. He wants it to snow so he won’t have to go outside. He is afraid of what might happen. But it occurs to her that what he must really be afraid of is women. Then Mary Lou feels so sick and heavy with her power over him that she wants to cry. She sees the way her husband is standing there in a frozen pose. Mack looks as though he could stand there all night with the telephone receiver against his ear.” - Bobbie Ann Mason

59. “I felt so weak and unhappy that I buried my face in the ground: I could not bear the strain of seeing around me the things of the earth. I felt convinced that every movement and every thought was forced, and that one had to be on one's guard against them.” - Franz Kafka

60. “God does not regret saving you. There is no sin which you commit which is beyond the cross of Christ.” - Matt Chandler

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