71 Best Resilience Quotes for Bouncing Back

Resilience is an essential trait that bolsters our spirits during life’s greatest tests. It’s about navigating through hardships, bouncing back from setbacks, and maintaining a positive outlook no matter the circumstances. 

This power of human adaptability serves as a beacon of hope, encouraging us to face adversity with courage and determination. It’s not just about weathering the storm, but also learning to dance in the rain.

Our resilience is often fueled by the wisdom of those who’ve walked challenging paths before us and emerged stronger. Countless thinkers, leaders, and survivors have shared their thoughts on resilience, providing comfort and inspiration for us to draw upon when needed. 

They’ve shared their words of wisdom about resilience and we’ve curated their most impactful quotes today.

These words serve as a testament to the indomitable spirit of humanity — illuminating the power of resilience in navigating life’s challenges. 

Whether you’re currently experiencing hardship or simply want to bolster your mental and emotional fortitude, these quotes will provide insights and inspiration to nurture your resilience. 

Read on to draw strength from the wisdom of resilient souls:

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The Best Resilience Quotes

Famous Quotes

“It is really wonderful how much resilience there is in human nature. Let any obstructing cause, no matter what, be removed in any way, even by death, and we fly back to first principles of hope and enjoyment.”
— Bram Stoker, Dracula‍

“The human capacity for burden is like bamboo — far more flexible than you’d ever believe at first glance.”
— Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper

“You can’t change how people treat you or what they say about you. All you can do is change how you react to it.”
— Mahatma Gandhi

“Persistence and resilience only come from having been given the chance to work through difficult problems.”
— Gever Tulley

“It is our attitude toward events, not events themselves, which we can control. Nothing is by its own nature calamitous — even death is terrible only if we fear it.”
— Epictetus

“I do believe in the old saying, “What does not kill you makes you stronger.” Our experiences, good and bad, make us who we are. By overcoming difficulties, we gain strength and maturity.”
— Angelina Jolie

“Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.”
— Nelson Mandela

“Although wrongs have been done to me, I live in hopes.”
— Black Kettle

“Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.”
— Arnold Schwarzenegger

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For Students

“We gain strength and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face… we must do that which we think we cannot.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt

“A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.”
— Christopher Reeve

“Students must have initiative. They should not be mere imitators. They must learn to think and act for themselves — and be free.”
— Cesar Chavez

“I do have reasons for hope: our clever brains, the resilience of nature, the indomitable human spirit, and above all, the commitment of young people when they’re empowered to take action.”
— Jane Goodall

“All things are difficult before they are easy.”
— Thomas Fuller

“You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.
I’m sorry to say so but, sadly, it’s true
And hang-ups can happen to you…
And when you’re in a Slump, you’re not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself is not easily done…
But on you will go though the weather be foul
On you will go though your enemies prowl…
On and on you will hike and I know you’ll hike far
And face up to your problems whatever they are…”
— Dr. Seuss

“Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don’t fight them. Just find a new way to stand.”
— Oprah Winfrey

“It’s okay to make mistakes sometimes. Everyone does — even grown-ups! That’s how we learn.”
— Todd Parr, It’s Okay to Make Mistakes

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”
— Arthur Ashe

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For Work

“No matter what your current condition, how or where you grew up, or what education or training you feel you lack, you can be successful in your chosen endeavor. It is spirit, fortitude, and hardiness that matter more than where you start.”
— Jack Ma

“Fear of failure is the fuel of achievement. If you weren’t afraid to fail, you probably wouldn’t be highly motivated to work at the level that most of us have to work at to do well.”
— Ruth Simmons

“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.”
— Henry Ford

“When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this: you haven’t.”
— Thomas A. Edison

“Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire.”
— Oprah Winfrey

“Successful people demonstrate their resilience through their dedication to making progress every day, even if that progress is marginal.”
— Jonathan Mills

“Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare.”
— Angela Duckworth

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→ Read more quotes about small businesses

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Inspirational Quotes

“Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.”
— Marie Curie

“To experience peace does not mean that your life is always blissful. It means that you are capable of tapping into a blissful state of mind amidst the normal chaos of a hectic life.”
— Jill Bolte Taylor

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”
— Helen Keller

“Sometimes we have to do the work even though we don’t yet see a glimmer on the horizon that it’s actually going to be possible.”
— Angela Davis

“I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.”
— Carl Jung

“If your heart is broken, make art with the pieces.”
— Shane Koyczan

“Be the cactus, a proof of unsubmission, and blossom amidst the fiercest environment.”
— Abhijit Naskar

“Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it’s less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you’ve lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that’s good.”
— Elizabeth Edwards

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In Adversity

“Definitions have evolved over time but fundamentally resilience is understood as referring to positive adaptation, or the ability to maintain or regain mental health, despite experiencing adversity.”
— Helen Herrman

“As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.”
— Vincent van Gogh

“Everyone has the ability to increase resilience to stress. It requires hard work and dedication, but over time, you can equip yourself to handle whatever life throws your way without adverse effects on your health. Training your brain to manage stress won’t just affect the quality of your life, but perhaps even the length of it.”
— Amy Morin

“When we tackle obstacles, we find hidden reserves of courage and resilience we did not know we had. And it is only when we are faced with failure do we realise that these resources were always there within us. We only need to find them and move on with our lives.”
— A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

“It’s not the strongest of a species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most resilient and responsive to change.”
— Charles Darwin

“Failing well is a skill. Letting [people] do it gives them critical practice coping with a negative experience. It also gives them the opportunity to develop a kind of confidence and resilience that can only be forged in times of challenge.”
— Rachel Simmons

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→ Read more quotes about courage

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By Maya Angelou 

“We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated.”
— Maya Angelou

“Develop enough courage so that you can stand up for yourself and then stand up for somebody else. I not only have the right to stand up for myself, but I have the responsibility. I can’t ask somebody else to stand up for me if I won’t stand up for myself. And once you stand up for yourself, you’d be surprised that people say, ‘Can I be of help?’”
— Maya Angelou

“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”
— Maya Angelou

“I did get knocked down flat in front of the whole world, and I rose. I didn’t run away — I rose right where I’d been knocked down. And then that’s how you get to know yourself.”
— Maya Angelou

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”
— Maya Angelou

“Look what you’ve already come through! Don’t deny it. You’ve already come through some things, which are very painful. If you’ve been alive until you’re 35, you have gone through some pain. It cost you something. And you’ve come through it. So at least look at that. And have a sense to look at yourself and say, ‘Well, wait a minute. I’m stronger than I thought I was.’”
— Maya Angelou

“Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between.”
— Maya Angelou

→ Read more quotes by Maya Angelou

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On Strength

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”
— Mark Twain

“You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
— Marcus Aurelius

“There are two kinds of strength. Power and the ability to wield it is obvious, but resilience, the ability to resist power, is the other.”
— Raymond E. Feist, Magician’s End

“We are pow­er­ful because we have sur­vived, and that is what it is all about — sur­vival and growth.”
— Audre Lorde

“Few men during their lifetime come anywhere near exhausting the resources dwelling within them. There are deep wells of strength that are never used.”
— Richard E. Byrd

“Strong people alone know how to organize their suffering so as to bear only the most necessary pain.”
— Emil Dorian

“Stress will break people altogether if they are in the beginning too weak to stand distress, or else, if they are already strong enough to take the stress in the first place, that same stress, if they come through it, will strengthen them, temper them, and make them stronger.”
— Abraham Maslow

“We don’t even know how strong we are until we are forced to bring that hidden strength forward.”
— Isabel Allende

“The difference between a strong man and a weak one is that the former does not give up after a defeat.”
— Woodrow Wilson

“Whatever is in me is stronger than what is out there to defeat me.”
— Caroline Myss

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→ Read more quotes about staying strong

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Short Quotes

“Each one of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”
— Sheryl Sandberg, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy

“You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.”
— Margaret Thatcher

“Failure is an important part of your growth and developing resilience.”
— Michelle Obama

“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”
— Robert F. Kennedy

“Sometimes carrying on, just carrying on, is the superhuman achievement.”
— Albert Camus

“Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.”
— Robert Jordan

“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.”
— Louisa May Alcott

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More Quotes

“When fear rushed in, I learned how to hear my heart racing but refused to allow my feelings to sway me. That resilience came from my family. It flowed through our bloodline.”
— Coretta Scott King

“Our first teacher is our own heart.”
— Cheyenne Tribe

“Resilience is very different than being numb. Resilience means you experience, you feel, you fail, you hurt. You fall. But, you keep going.”
— Yasmin Mogahed

“Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.”
— C.S. Lewis

“Nothing is more beautiful than the smile that has struggled through the tears.”
— Demi Lovato

“The truth is that falling hurts. The dare is to keep being brave and feel your way back up.”
— Brené Brown, Rising Strong: The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution

“Of course, trans women find joy and plea­sure in our lives and accom­plish incred­i­ble things. We have always been very resilient — but our resilience doesn’t mean that our lives are ever ‘easy.’”
— Gwen Benaway

“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
— Joseph Campbell