Mental health is an essential aspect of overall well-being and should be given the same attention and care as physical health. Mental illness affects one in five people in America each year — and can have a profound impact on an individual's life.
At Good Good Good, we take mental health seriously — celebrating mental health activists, advances in psychological and medical support, opportunities for proactive self-care, and more conversations about mental health that help destigmatize mental illnesses.
Over the course of years, the Good Good Good team has slowly collected our favorite mental health-related quotes and we’re sharing the curated list all in one place for the first time. Dive into these quotes about mental health:
Please know that asking for help is a sign of strength — not weakness. If you’re in a crisis, please dial 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. If you’re looking for professional help or looking for specific support, we encourage you to use Good Good Good’s Mental Health Resources Guide. You can also text HOME to 741-741 to instantly connect with a trained crisis counselor, 24/7, for free.
Explore these quotes about mental health —
Famous Quotes
“What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, and more unashamed conversation.”
— Glenn Close
“We would never tell someone with a broken leg that they should stop wallowing and get it together. We don’t consider taking medication for an ear infection something to be ashamed of. We shouldn’t treat mental health conditions any differently.”
— Michelle Obama
“There is hope, even when your brain tells you there isn’t.”
— John Green
“There is no normal life that is free of pain. It’s the very wrestling with our problems that can be the impetus for our growth.”
— Fred Rogers
“You are not alone. You are seen. I am with you. You are not alone.”
— Shonda Rhimes
“You don’t have to control your thoughts. You just have to stop letting them control you.”
— Dan Millman
“You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”
— Buddha
Short Quotes
“The best way out is always through.”
— Robert Frost
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”
— Frederick Douglas
“Nothing can dim the light that shines from within.”
— Maya Angelou
“Death will come for all of us but let us fight to live.”
— Jamie Tworkowski, If You Feel Too Much
“If you are broken, you do not have to stay broken.”
— Selena Gomez, in her acceptance speech at the AMAs
“Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts.”
— Buddha
“Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.”
— Henry David Thoreau
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
— Winston Churchill
Positive Quotes
“Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness.”
— Brené Brown
“In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer.”
— Albert Camus
“When you take care of yourself, you’re a better person for others. When you feel good about yourself, you treat others better.”
— Solange Knowles
→ Read more ‘everything will be OK’ quotes
For Kids
“Mental health problems don’t define who you are. They are something you experience. You walk in the rain and you feel the rain, but, importantly, you are not the rain.”
— Matt Haig
“You are not your illness. You have an individual story to tell. You have a name, a history, a personality. Staying yourself is part of the battle.”
— Julian Seifter
“Love belongs to the people who feel they are not enough. Love belongs to the kids who grow up wondering why they’re different. Love belongs to the person reading this right now. Love is for everyone.”
— Erin Kingham
Self Care Quotes
“Self-care is one of the active ways that I love myself. When you can and as you can, in ways that feel loving, make time and space for yourself.”
— Tracee Ellis Ross
“As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.”
— Maya Angelou
“Slow, deep breathing is important… It’s like an anchor in the midst of an emotional storm: the anchor won’t get rid of the storm, but it will hold you steady until it passes.”
— Russ Harris
“Rest and self-care are so important. When you take time to replenish your spirit, it allows you to serve others from the overflow. You cannot serve from an empty vessel.”
— Eleanor Brownn
By Famous People
“The advice I’d give to somebody that’s silently struggling is, you don’t have to live that way. You don’t have to struggle in silence. You can be un-silent. You can live well with a mental health condition, as long as you open up to somebody about it, because it’s really important you share your experience with people so that you can get the help that you need.”
— Demi Lovato
“Women have to take the time to focus on our mental health — take time for self, for the spiritual, without feeling guilty or selfish. The world will see you the way you see you, and treat you the way you treat yourself.”
— Beyoncé, in an interview with Elle
“I found that with depression, one of the most important things you can realize is that you’re not alone. You’re not the first to go through it, you’re not gonna be the last to go through it,”
— Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
“People feel so much shame about [mental health], so if, by talking about it, I can even have an impact on one person, that would be awesome”
— Sophie Turner, in an interview with Net-A-Porter
“Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary.”
— Fred Rogers
“I think it’s really important to take the stigma away from mental health… My brain and my heart are really important to me. I don’t know why I wouldn’t seek help to have those things be as healthy as my teeth.”
— Kerry Washington, in an interview with HuffPost
“Part of my identity is saying no to things I don’t want to do… I check in with myself throughout the day and I say, ‘Do I really want to do this?’ and if the answer is no, then I don’t do it. And you shouldn’t either.”
— Lady Gaga
“What I love about therapy is that they’ll tell you what your blind spots are. Although that’s uncomfortable and painful, it gives you something to work with.”
— Pink
From Literature
“Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”
— Christopher Robin
“Better not to give in to it. It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.”
— Finnick Odair
“And sometimes I have kept my feelings to myself, because I could find no language to describe them in.”
— Marianne Dashwood
“I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship.”
— Amy March
“Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”
— Albus Dumbledore
Funny
“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”
— Anne Lamott
“I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous — everyone hasn’t met me yet.”
— Rodney Dangerfield
“When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.”
— Mark Twain
Take Care of Your Mental Health Quotes
“Your mental health is everything — prioritize it. Make the time like your life depends on it, because it does.”
— Mel Robbins
“If we start being honest about our pain, our anger, and our shortcomings instead of pretending they don’t exist, then maybe we’ll leave the world a better place than we found it.”
— Russell Wilson
“Allow yourself the things you need right now. Whether that’s space, rest, support, or something else, know that you are not a burden for taking care of yourself.”
— TWLOHA
It’s Okay To Not Be Okay Quotes
“It is okay to have depression, it is okay to have anxiety and it is okay to have an adjustment disorder. We need to improve the conversation. We all have mental health in the same way we all have physical health.”
— Prince Harry
“It’s ok not to be okay, but it’s not okay to stay that way.”
— Perry Noble
“It’s okay to not be perfect and not to have everything figured out. It’s okay to feel things that are shameful, hate, and feel guilty. I feel like the message we’ve tried to stand by, is that it’s basically okay to have scars and to show them. To show that you’ve been through all sorts of things and have come out a different and better person because of it.”
— Hayley Williams
“It’s okay, you know? It’s okay to be you. It’s okay to just not be okay. It’s okay to not be okay.”
— Kristen Stewart
“It’s healthy to admit you’re not ok. ‘It’s ok not to be ok’ it’s brave. But don’t let it win. Be sad. Have your moment, your day, or week. Then do something about it and be happy. For yourself.”
— Jessie J
Strength Quotes
“If you were born with the weakness to fall, you were born with the strength to rise.”
— Rupi Kaur
“My dark days made me stronger. Or maybe I already was strong, and they made me prove it.”
— Emery Lord
“Many survivors insist they’re not courageous: ‘If I were courageous I would have stopped the abuse.’ ‘If I were courageous, I wouldn’t be scared’… Most of us have it mixed up. You don’t start with courage and then face fear. You become courageous because you face your fear.”
— Laura Davis
“Being vulnerable is actually a strength and not a weakness — that’s why more and more mental health is such an important thing to talk about. It’s the same as being physically sick. And when you keep all those things inside, when you bottle them up, it makes you ill.”
— Cara Delevingne
“The strongest people are not those who show strength in front of the world but those who fight and win battles that others do not know anything about.”
— Jonathan Harnisch
“I hope you live a life you are proud of. If you find that you are not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald
“To anyone out there who’s hurting — it’s not a sign of weakness to ask for help. It’s a sign of strength.”
— Barack Obama
“If you can’t fly, run. If you can’t run, walk. If you can’t walk, crawl, but by all means, keep moving.”
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
→ Read more ‘stay strong’ quotes
On Darkness & Light
“There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”
— Leonard Cohen
“It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.”
— John Steinbeck
“The shadow is the greatest teacher for how to come to the light.”
— Ram Dass
“I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars.”
— Og Mandino
“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.”
— Aristotle
→ Read more quotes about darkness, quotes about light, and quotes about light in the darkness
Suicide Quotes
“Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.”
— Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“Don’t give up. Don’t give up on your story. Don’t give up on the people you love. Hope is real. Love is real. It’s all worth fighting for.”
— Jamie Tworkowski, If You Feel Too Much
“You can’t see the future coming — not the terrors, for sure, but you also can’t see the wonders that are coming, the moments of light-soaked joy that await each of us.”
— John Green
“The bravest thing I ever did was continuing my life when I wanted to die.”
— Juliette Lewis
“Life is waiting for you. You might be stuck here for a while, but the world isn’t going anywhere. Hang on in there if you can. Life is always worth it.”
— Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive
→ Read more quotes about suicide
Depression Quotes
“Depression is being colorblind and constantly told how colorful the world is.”
— Atticus, Lvoe.: Poems, Epigrams & Aphorisms
“Depression is so exhausting. It takes up so much of your time and energy, and silence about it, it really does make the depression worse.”
— Andrew Solomon, in his TED Talk, Depression, The Secret We Share
“My depression isn’t something that I suffer from, but it’s not something that I’m cured of. It’s just a thing I have to manage. And so the more I learn about it, the more I learn about myself, the more I learn about my traumas and triggers, the better I am at being proactive and heading it off before it can, you know, cause a lot of damage.”
— John Moe, in a podcast
“The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality.”
— Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
“If more people understand the reality of mental illness and get disabused of the Hollywood myths about it, the stigma about getting help will diminish, and then we’ll live in a healthier society.”
— John Moe, The Hilarious World of Depression
→ Read more quotes about depression
More Quotes & Captions About Mental Health
“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”
— Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
“There is so much pain in the world, and most of these people keep theirs secret, rolling through agonizing lives in invisible wheelchairs, dressed in invisible bodycasts.”
— Andrew Solomon
“We are not our trauma. We are not our brain chemistry. That’s part of who we are, but we’re so much more than that.”
― Sam J. Miller
“Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I’m not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you’ve felt that way.”
— Charles Bukowski
“Mental health affects every aspect of your life. It’s not just this neat little issue you can put into a box.”
— Shannon Purser
“If you know someone who’s depressed please resolve to never ask them why. Depression isn’t a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather. Try to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness and loneliness they’re going through. Be there for them when they come through the other side. It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest and best things you will ever do.”
— Stephen Fry
“Take a shower, wash off the day. Drink a glass of water. Make the room dark. Lie down and close your eyes. Notice the silence. Notice your heart. Still beating. Still fighting. You made it, after all. You made it, another day. And you can make it one more. You’re doing just fine.”
— Charlotte Eriksson
You might also like…
…some hope: Explore our list of 30+ reasons why everything will be okay and quotes about hope
…some self-care: Check out 101 self-care ideas & the best self-care quotes (that aren’t all toxic positivity… ugh)
…some good news: We send daily emails filled with good news and even better — a monthly snail mail Goodnewspaper
…some opportunities to make a difference: Learn how to help somebody struggling with suicide, how to ask hard questions (because they matter), & how to celebrate Mental Health Awareness Month and Suicide Prevention Month
