91 Letting Go Quotes

In life's journey, the ability to let go of what no longer serves us is a crucial skill for personal growth, healing, and moving forward. Whether it's releasing past hurts, stale relationships, or self-limiting beliefs, letting go opens up space for new experiences and possibilities. To inspire and guide you on this path, we've curated a collection of the top 91 letting go quotes. These powerful words of wisdom from various authors, thinkers, and leaders offer profound insights and encouragement, helping you embrace the art of letting go with grace and confidence.

1. “Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.” - Stephen King

2. “The best skill at cards is knowing when to discard.” - Baltasar Gracian

3. “Inner peace can be reached only when we practice forgiveness. Forgiveness is letting go of the past, and is therefore the means for correcting our misperceptions.” - Gerald G. Jampolsky

4. “When we think we have been hurt by someone in the past, we build up defenses to protect ourselves from being hurt in the future. So the fearful past causes a fearful future and the past and future become one. We cannot love when we feel fear.... When we release the fearful past and forgive everyone, we will experience total love and oneness with all.” - Gerald G. Jampolsky

5. “Most things are forgotten over time. Even the war itself, the life-and-death struggle people went through is now like something from the distant past. We’re so caught up in our everyday lives that events of the past are no longer in orbit around our minds. There are just too many things we have to think about everyday, too many new things we have to learn. But still, no matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away. They remain with us forever, like a touchstone.” - Haruki Murakami

6. “No matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories.” - Haruki Murakami

7. “The greatest step towards a life of simplicity is to learn to let go.” - Steve Maraboli

8. “You must learn to let go. Release the stress. You were never in control anyway.” - Steve Maraboli

9. “The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.” - Steve Maraboli

10. “If people refuse to look at you in a new light and they can only see you for what you were, only see you for the mistakes you've made, if they don't realize that you are not your mistakes, then they have to go.” - Steve Maraboli

11. “If letting go, if letting people and things work themselves out in the way that they needed to without your help was the most important thing, then it was also the hardest.” - Deb Caletti

12. “Letting go doesn't mean that you don't care about someone anymore. It's just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself.” - Deborah Reber

13. “So I placed my heart under lock and key To take some time, and take care of me But I turn around and you're standing here” - Deborah Cox

14. “Change can be good but its always tough to let go of the past” - Emily Giffin

15. “I don't need to be any place else, because the music takes me to the only place I want to be right now. To the place where I am and have always been wholly me, the only church I've ever belonged to, the only place I've ever prayed.” - Daisy Whitney

16. “I've been burdened with blame trapped in the past for too long, I'm moving on” - Rascal Flatts

17. “Sometimes letting go is simply changing the labels you place on an event. Looking at the same event with fresh eyes.” - Steve Maraboli

18. “Laine taped the last box shut. That was it, then: All of Gavin's belongings put away; some for charity, some for the dump, some to be saved for a happier 'one day' that Laine felt, right now, was as distant as the stars.” - Stephen M. Irwin

19. “Il ne savait pas encore s'il souffrait parce qu'il suivait une pente et que l'avenir venait à lui sans qu'il eût à s'en saisir. Quand on s'abandonne on ne souffre pas. Quand on s'abandonne même à la tristesse on ne souffre plus.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

20. “Sometimes the hardest part isn't letting go but rather learning to start over.” - Nicole Sobon

21. “Love is forgiving, accepting, moving on, embracing, and all encompassing. And if you’re not doing that for yourself, you cannot do that with anyone else.” - Steve Maraboli

22. “What if you could pick one day of your life, and everything would stop changing, every day would be similar and comparable to that one day, you'd always have the same people with you? If you could do that, would you do it? Would you pick that day and make that choice? We crave for things to stop changing, we wish that things would never change. But if we got what we wanted, there are so many things that are better, that we would never, ever know about. Sure, things would stay the same as that one wonderful day, but then there would be nothing else out there, ever. So can you remember the very first day when everything really did begin to change? Is there a thing that can remind you? Mine is a blue rose, and that's when everything began to change because that's the day I began to believe in things I never believed in before; the day I found three blue roses. Think about your first day of change, can you remember all the new heights you've soared since that day? All the new people? All the better things and times? Would you throw all of that time away? I wouldn't. Instead, I want to finally accept all the things that I couldn't change, which led to me being right here, right now. Maybe we all carry around inside us one day we wish we could keep forever, something we wished never did change. It's time to let go of that day, and soar.” - C. JoyBell C.

23. “My father taught me that you can you read a hundred books on wisdom and write a hundred books on wisdom, but unless you apply what you learned then its only words on a page. Life is not lived with intentions, but action.” - Shannon Alder

24. “Cry. Forgive. Learn. Move on. Let your tears water the seeds of your future happiness.” - Steve Maraboli

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

26. “Inutile piangere sul latte versato. (No use crying over spilled milk.)” - Francesca Marciano

27. “We are not meant to die merely in order to be dead. God could not want that for the creatures to whom He has given the breath of life. We die in order to live.” - Elisabeth Elliot

28. “A star falls from the sky and into your hands. Then it seeps through your veins and swims inside your blood and becomes every part of you. And then you have to put it back into the sky. And it's the most painful thing you'll ever have to do and that you've ever done. But what's yours is yours. Whether it’s up in the sky or here in your hands. And one day, it'll fall from the sky and hit you in the head real hard and that time, you won't have to put it back in the sky again.” - C. JoyBell C.

29. “I drift off for a while. I don't know how long, but when I open my eyes, the Oscars are still on and Alex tells me that Sid has gone and this makes me a little sad. Whatever the four of us had is over. He is my daughter's boyfriend now, and I am a father. A widower. No pot, no cigarettes, no sleeping over. They'll have to find inventive ways to conduct their business, most likely in uncomfortable places, just like the rest of them. I let him and my old ways go. We all let him go, as well as who we were before this, and now it's really just the three of us. I glance over at the girls, taking a good look at what's left.” - Kaui Hart Hemmings

30. “The day I understood everything, was the day I stopped trying to figure everything out. The day I knew peace was the day I let everything go.” - C. JoyBell C.

31. “When someone you love says goodbye you can stare long and hard at the door they closed and forget to see all the doors God has open in front of you.” - Shannon Alder

32. “Thank God I found the GOOD in goodbye” - Beyoncé Knowles

33. “Letting go means to come to the realization that some people are a part of your history, but not a part of your destiny.” - Steve Maraboli

34. “Do you know what pain is, Cammie? It’s thebody’s physical response to imminent harm.It is the mind’s way of telling us to move ourhand off the stove or let go of the brokenglass.” - Ally Carter

35. “When you leave,weary of me,without a word I shall gently let you go.” - Kim Sowol

36. “His being there was stirring up a lot of memories she'd have been happier to leave as sentimental sediment. Not that they weren't good memories. That was the trouble.” - Diana Killian

37. “You should get out of here. Have a good life.” - Bree Despain

38. “Sometimes you have to stop trying to control everything and let life happen the way it's supposed to, Tess. Even if it's not exactly the way you wanted.But what if it's not even a little like you wanted?Then you deal with it and keep going.” - Lord, Cynthia

39. “A Plan B life can be just as good or better than a Plan A life. You just have to let go of that first dream and realize that God has already written the first chapter of the new life that awaits you. All you have to do is start reading!” - Shannon Alder

40. “The art is not one of forgetting but letting go. And when everything else is gone, you can be rich in loss.” - Rebecca Solnit

41. “Forgiveness is the one gift you don't give to others. Rather, it is the gift you give yourself, so you can finally be free.” - Shannon Alder

42. “Let go of certainty. The opposite isn't uncertainty. It's openness, curiosity and a willingness to embrace paradox, rather than choose up sides. The ultimate challenge is to accept ourselves exactly as we are, but never stop trying to learn and grow.” - Tony Schwartz

43. “The secret to life is to have no fear. When you can let go of what others think about you, how something is going to turn out, or how your past will affect your future, then you are finally living life free.” - Shannon L. Alder

44. “--I truly and deeply wanted to kill him. And I believe I could have done it, with nothing but my hands. But all of a sudden, out of nowhere, Peter had an arm around me. "Let it go, Kade," he was whispering very gently, though his arm was nearly crushing me. "Open your fists," he said, "and let go of the coals.” - David James Duncan

45. “It's time, Perry". He let her go. She took a step back, taking in his face one last time. His green eyes. The bend in his nose and the scars on his cheek. All the tiny inperfections that made him beautiful. Without a word, she turned and made her way downhill.” - Veronica Rossi

46. “It's the way you fall you. Gotta let yourself go.” - Melville Shavelson

47. “Quitting is not giving up, it's choosing to focus your attention on something more important. Quitting is not losing confidence, it's realizing that there are more valuable ways you can spend your time. Quitting is not making excuses, it's learning to be more productive, efficient and effective instead. Quitting is letting go of things (or people) that are sucking the life out of you so you can do more things that will bring you strength.” - Osayi Osar-Emokpae

48. “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.

49. “Last night I lost the world, and gained the universe.” - C. JoyBell C.

50. “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.

51. “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

52. “I’ll never let go of you again,” she whispered. “I swear it.” - Dianna Hardy

53. “The problem is that I am in the wrong century to burn things. I am the wrong generation to let it go.” - Edmund de Waal

54. “Please do not break your heart over the withering of a dream you once held, that never became yours! After all, the shattered dream could have very well been a nightmare and not a dream at all, you wouldn't really know because you didn't have it yet! Let the sparks fade, let the flame dim and die, you'll never know it wasn't poison.” - C. JoyBell C.

55. “I commit her to memory. When I'm alone, I feel a strange yearning, the hunger of a man fasting not because he believes but because he's ashamed. Not the cleansing hunger of the devout, but the feverish hunger of the hypocrite. I let her go every evening only because there's nothing I can do to stop her.” - Mohsin Hamid

56. “Spiritual growth involves giving up the stories of your past so the universe can write a new one.” - Marianne Williamson

57. “They say when you really love someone, you should be willing to set them free. So that is what I am doing. I will step back and you will move on. I will let you go. ... Your happiness means everything to me. I will listen for your voice in the distance. I will look at the moon. I will keep you in my pocket. I will carry your smile with me everywhere, like a warm and comforting glow.” - Tabitha Suzuma

58. “Si ce que tu as trouvé est fait de matière pure, cela ne pourrira jamais. Et tu pourras y revenir un jour. Si ce n’est qu’un instant de lumière, comme l’explosion d’une étoile, alors tu ne retrouveras rien à ton retour. Mais tu auras vu une explosion de lumière. Et cela seul aura déjà valu la peine d’être vécu.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

59. “I eventually came to understand that in harboring the anger, the bitterness and resentment towards those that had hurt me, I was giving the reins of control over to them. Forgiving was not about accepting their words and deeds. Forgiving was about letting go and moving on with my life. In doing so, I had finally set myself free.” - Isabel Lopez

60. “In order to pick something up, you've got to put something down.” - Todd Stocker

61. “I don't understand women that call themselves a "bitch". It doesn't empower a woman. Rather, it reveals to everyone that you were deeply hurt at one time. Because of the pain your still carrying, you will continue to hurt anyone that reminds you of those moments when you let your guard down and were fooled. Sadly, it sends a clear message to the observant that you are still hurt. If only women would realize that "we all" have moments of stupidity then they would stop comparing themselves to the masses.” - Shannon L. Alder

62. “Your heart’s strength is measured by how hard it holds on. Your self worth and faith is measured by finally letting go. However, your peace is measured by how long you don’t look back.” - Shannon L. Alder

63. “I could simply kill you now, get it over with, who would know the difference? I could easily kick you in, stove you under, for all those times, mean on gin, you rammed words into my belly. (p. 52)” - Barbara Blatner

64. “oh. she heard it too-no waters coursing, canyon empty, sun soundless- and the beast your life nowhere hiding (p. 103)” - Barbara Blatner

65. “Neither alive nor dead; No one lets up, No one wins.” - Dejan Stojanovic

66. “Think differently, BE better!” - Darren L Johnson

67. “Sophia sat in meditation on the riverbank when a student bent down to place two enormous pearls at her feet as a gift. She opened her eyes to see the pearls. She picked one up, but dropped it. It rolled down the hill upon which she was sitting and into the river. The student chased after it and looked all afternoon, diving, coming up for air, diving back down. “Sophia,” he asked. “Could you show me where it went in? I can’t find it.” “Right there,” she said throwing the other pearl in the river.” - David W. Jones

68. “If you are ready to trade the hollow self-made beauty of this world for the glorious Christ-built beauty of a set-apart young woman, this is where it all begins. Denying self, taking up your cross, and following the Lamb wherever He leads. In other words, letting go of all preoccupation with self: our comfort, our pleasure, our agenda, our popularity, our ability to gain the world's approval, even our own dreams and desires. And, as Paul did, treating all those things as rubbish for the excellence of the knowledge of Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings (Philippians 3:7-9).” - Leslie Ludy

69. “I realized how hard it that must have been, how much hurt when you know the only way to help someone is to give him distance. So I let him go.” - Katie Kacvinsky

70. “He cried that night for all that he had lost, but he would say it taught him a valuable lesson: that holding on to things "will only break your heart.” - Mitch Albom

71. “Holding on to weight (i.e. anger, bitterness, the past, hatred) will not only hold you back, but also block your blessings. You've got to let some things go to move forward.” - Yvonne Pierre

72. “You think when someone you love passes away, everything becomes clearer, that your priorities and perspectives align in a way they’ve never aligned before because of the sobriety of it all. But it doesn’t. Those revelations just become skewed and distorted until you’re forced to rewrite them entirely. You can’t walk straight on a new path when you have too much luggage on your back. You just keep swerving, trying to find a way to accommodate the weight, but it’s all dead and you know it’s going to take you down. The only answer is to reroute.-Emma” - Rachael Wade

73. “Don’t hang onto anything too tightly – all things must change and you have to allow room for them to grow and blossom.” - Rachael Bermingham

74. “Even as I hold you, I am letting you go.” - Alice Walker

75. “When he left, you spent all your energy holding on to him. You could be happy if you let go.” - Stephenie Meyer

76. “I love you, and I want you to be happy, I want you to have the life you deserve. And if that means … if that means I have to stand here and watch you walk away, then I’ll do it. I won’t be happy about it. It’ll break my heart. But … if that’s what you really need, then we’re done.” - Charles Sheehan-Miles

77. “Closing The CycleOne always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters - whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents' house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden?You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened. You can tell yourself you won't take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that. But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister, everyone will be finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill.None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we cannot for ever be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who has gone away and has not the least intention of coming back.Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away. That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home. Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts - and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place.Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood. Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the "ideal moment." Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person - nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust. Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.” - Paulo Coelho

78. “Don't allow someone not worth it to have the power to occupy your thoughts. If they don't find you worth the effort or the time, why should you waste yours?” - Donna Lynn Hope

79. “She had hope in her heart but after a while, with each step forward, hope stepped back. And for the first time in months, the first time ever, she began to weep, and as she did she knew that with the retreat of hope her heart had finally caught up with her head. And as each tear spilled over she let them go, she was letting go.” - Donna Lynn Hope

80. “I can only miss the true and I can only mourn the brave. Cowards make it easy to let go because you're not losing anything worth having.” - Donna Lynn Hope

81. “If I learned anything in this life, I've learned that you can't cling on.” - Michael Morpurgo

82. “One day," she told us, "you'll have to leave here and go out into the big world out there and earn your living like everyone else. To do that you need to learn. The more you learn now, the more interesting your life will be.” - Michael Morpurgo

83. “Life is not about control or making things happen in the ways we think they should happen. In fact, it's rather arrogant for us to be on this planet that's been here for so long and expect to be able to control life on it. If we want to see changes, then our task is to set things in motion, not to micromanage and make them happen in the ways we think they should. If we have something that is possessing us, such as alcohol or our television sets or our cell phones, then it could be time to let it go and move on with our lives. If we're holding on to resentment and anger, we're simply raising our own stress levels and blood pressure, but we're not contributing anything positive to the situation--and it's time to let it go.” - Tom Walsh

84. “Every woman that finally figured out her worth, has picked up her suitcases of pride and boarded a flight to freedom, which landed in the valley of change.” - Shannon L. Alder

85. “Maybe it is desperation," I say. "Maybe we can't let things fall apart without trying. We can't let go of the people we love."He looks at me, and in the sunlight his eyes come alive with greens and golds. "Sometimes we can," he says.” - Lauren DeStefano

86. “The art of letting go is simply about personal empowerment. Realizing what you’re in charge of, realizing what you control, and more importantly, what you don’t control.” - Steve Maraboli

87. “Life moves forward. The old leaves wither, die and fall away, and the new growth extends forward into the light.” - Bryant McGill

88. “Every relationship that has hit a crossroads has asked, “What is it that you want from me?” - Shannon L. Alder

89. “I know what you are. I've always known from the beginning, Kushiel's Chosen. It is folly, to make claim on one whom the gods have marked for their own. And unlike the others, I am no fool, to grasp at that which burns to the touch. What you have given..." she raised one hand, palm upward, the garnet seal dangling at her wrist, "... I hold in an open hand.” - Jacqueline Carey

90. “This is a story about survival.Letting go and learning to let in. Getting along and moving on. The truth about life.The things left unsaid...” - Nadège Richards

91. “The clock ticks; the taunting rhythm serving as a reminder that forward is the only way we can go. The mechanical heartbeat of the darkness, a cold ellipsis, punctuating years gone by. Arising unchained.No glorious hymn, just the steady beat of the illusion of time. We heal or we carry forward the weight of our wounds... To believe otherwise is the mendacity of desperation. Arising honestly. The miles behind are littered with the weight of nostalgia, but too many miles lay ahead us to carry the weight. In the end, even echoes fade away. Pen in hand...Arising to write the next chapter.(MU Articles 2013, Dedication to Joey)” - Shannon L. Alder