200 Best Quotes for a Bad Day to Lift Your Spirits Fast

You don’t have to read them all at once. Find one line that sounds like what you feel, sit with it, and let it do its work. Psychologists have long noted that a hopeful outlook helps people cope with stress, Wikipedia’s overview of optimism is a good primer on why mindset matters.

Bookmark this page for the next rough day, share a favorite with someone who’s struggling, and remember: a bad day is an event, not an identity.

Quotes for a Bad Day to Lift Your Spirits

Some days start heavy and stay that way. These quotes for a bad day are here to lighten the load: small reminders that tough hours pass and better ones follow.

1. “Bad days are just one page in the story of your life — keep turning the page.” — Unknown
2. “You’ve survived 100% of your bad days so far. That’s a pretty good track record.” — Unknown
3. “Sometimes the bad days are there to remind us how good the good ones are.” — Unknown
4. “Just because today was bad doesn’t mean tomorrow can’t be beautiful.” — Unknown
5. “Where there is hope, there is faith. Where there is faith, miracles happen.” — Unknown
6. “Even the smallest light can cut through the darkest darkness.” — Unknown
7. “When it rains, look for rainbows. When it’s dark, look for stars.” — Unknown
8. “Bad days don’t define you. How you rise from them does.” — Unknown
9. “The moon stays bright even when it doesn’t avoid the night.” — Unknown
10. “When the world says, ‘Give up,’ Hope whispers, ‘Try it one more time.’” — Unknown
11. “Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.” — E.B. White
12. “The heart’s memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good.” — Gabriel García Márquez
13. “Never underestimate the big importance of small things.” — Matt Haig
14. “One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began.” — Mary Oliver
15. “Everything is waiting for you.” — David Whyte
16. “May the nourishment of the earth be yours, may the clarity of light be yours, may the fluency of the ocean be yours.” — John O’Donohue
17. “Hope is the belief that what we do matters even though how and when it may matter, who and what it may impact, are not things we can know beforehand.” — Rebecca Solnit
18. “The stars we are given. The constellations we make.” — Rebecca Solnit
19. “Inside the word ’emergency’ is ’emerge’; from an emergency new things come forth.” — Rebecca Solnit
20. “Every time you leave home, another road takes you into a world you were never in.” — John O’Donohue

Short Quotes for a Bad Day

When you don’t have the energy for much, a single line can be enough. These short quotes for a bad day say a lot in very few words.

1. “It’s okay not to be okay.” — Unknown
2. “Diamonds are made under pressure.” — Unknown
3. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
4. “Breathe in courage, breathe out fear.” — Unknown
5. “Feelings are just visitors. Let them come and go.” — Mooji
6. “Even broken crayons still color.” — Unknown
7. “If you are a dreamer, come in.” — Shel Silverstein
8. “The most beautiful part of your body is wherever your mother‘s shadow falls.” — Ocean Vuong
9. “Always do your best.” — Don Miguel Ruiz
10. “I am a goddamn cheetah.” — Glennon Doyle
11. “Walk on air against your better judgement.” — Seamus Heaney
12. “I accept the universe.” — Margaret Fuller
13. “Man plans, God laughs.” — Yiddish proverb
14. “Treat people with kindness.” — Harry Styles
15. “If knowledge is power, knowing what we don’t know is wisdom.” — Adam Grant
16. “Goodnight room. Goodnight moon.” — Margaret Wise Brown
17. “A creative life is an amplified life. It’s a bigger life, a happier life, an expanded life, and a hell of a lot more interesting life.” — Elizabeth Gilbert
18. “I am a lover of what is.” — Byron Katie
19. “A human being is a deciding being.” — Viktor Frankl
20. “We real cool. We left school.” — Gwendolyn Brooks

Funny Quotes for a Bad Day

Laughter won’t fix everything, but it makes a bad day far easier to survive. These funny quotes for a bad day bring the grin back.

1. “If you can laugh at it, you can live with it.” — Erma Bombeck
2. “I have not seen anyone dying of laughter, but I know millions who are dying because they are not laughing.” — Dr. Madan Kataria
3. “I’m not having a bad day. I’m having a character-building day.” — Unknown
4. “If each day is a gift, I’d like to know where I can return Mondays.” — John Wagner
5. “Today’s forecast: 100% chance of me needing coffee before I deal with people.” — Unknown
6. “Dear bad day, you don’t stand a chance. Sincerely, me.” — Unknown
7. “Plot twist: the bad day ends, and you win.” — Unknown
8. “Bad days build better stories.” — Unknown
9. “A bad day is just a good story waiting to be told later.” — Unknown
10. “Someday you’ll laugh about this. Might as well start now.” — Unknown
11. “Life is like a roller coaster. It has its ups and downs, but it’s your choice to scream or enjoy the ride.” — Unknown
12. “Music is the strongest form of magic.” — Marilyn Manson
13. “A good playlist can fix almost anything.” — Unknown
14. “Don’t try to win over the haters; you are not a jackass whisperer.” — Brené Brown
15. “I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’” — Kurt Vonnegut
16. “Take it easy, take it easy, don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy.” — Eagles
17. “There’s power in looking silly and not caring that you do.” — Amy Poehler
18. “If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. It’s the hard that makes it great.” — Tom Hanks
19. “How many slams in an old screen door? Depends how loud you shut it. How many slices in a bread? Depends how thin you cut it.” — Shel Silverstein
20. “I will not play at tug o’ war, I’d rather play at hug o’ war.” — Shel Silverstein

Inspirational Quotes for Bad Days

For the days that test you, these inspirational quotes for bad days are about digging in, standing tall, and refusing to stay down.

1. “You were given this life because you are strong enough to live it.” — Unknown
2. “There is no storm strong enough to knock you down if you refuse to fall.” — Unknown
3. “You do not need to be good all the time. It’s okay to have a bad day and still be a good person.” — Unknown
4. “You’re allowed to scream, you’re allowed to cry, but do not give up.” — Unknown
5. “We need to be allowed to convince ourselves that we’re more than the mistakes we made yesterday.” — Fredrik Backman
6. “They say that a person’s personality is the sum of their experiences. But that isn’t true, at least not entirely, because if our past was all that defined us, we’d never be able to put up with ourselves.” — Fredrik Backman
7. “You will learn a lot about yourself if you stretch in the direction of goodness, of bigness.” — Cheryl Strayed
8. “Be brave enough to break your own heart.” — Cheryl Strayed
9. “Let yourself be gutted. Let it open you. Start there.” — Cheryl Strayed
10. “This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something.” — Elizabeth Gilbert
11. “Every time you’re given a choice between disappointing someone else and disappointing yourself, your duty is to disappoint that someone else.” — Glennon Doyle
12. “We don’t know where we’re going, we don’t know what’s going to happen, but no one can take away from you what you put in your own mind.” — Edith Eger
13. “Time doesn’t heal. It’s what you do with the time.” — Edith Eger
14. “The antidote to exhaustion is not rest. The antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness.” — David Whyte
15. “There is nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind — you are the one who hears it.” — Michael Singer
16. “Don’t take anything personally. Nothing others do is because of you.” — Don Miguel Ruiz
17. “Maybe we have to be bored with ourselves before we can be happy with ourselves.” — Matt Haig
18. “Look at the sky. Remind yourself of the cosmos. Seek vastness at every opportunity in order to see the smallness of yourself.” — Matt Haig
19. “You can’t change what happened, you can’t change what you did or what was done to you. But you can choose how you live now.” — Edith Eger
20. “I knew that if I allowed fear to overtake me, my journey was doomed.” — Cheryl Strayed

Quotes About Hope on Hard Days

Hope is quiet, but it is stubborn. These quotes about hope are for the hard days when you need to believe tomorrow can be kinder.

1. “Healing takes time, and asking for help is a courageous step.” — Mariska Hargitay
2. “The lotus blooms most beautifully from the deepest and thickest mud.” — Buddhist proverb
3. “Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.” — Kahlil Gibran
4. “Sorrow is only a wall between two gardens.” — Kahlil Gibran
5. “We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.” — Richard Rohr
6. “The most amazing fact about Jesus, unlike almost any other religious founder, is that he found God in disorder and imperfection — and told us that we must do the same.” — Richard Rohr
7. “Only in growth, reform, and change, paradoxically enough, is true security to be found.” — Anne Morrow Lindbergh
8. “’What do you want to be when you grow up?’ ‘Kind,’ said the boy.” — Charlie Mackesy
9. “Sometimes just getting up and carrying on is brave and magnificent.” — Charlie Mackesy
10. “Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others.” — Etty Hillesum
11. “We have to fight them daily, like fleas, those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies.” — Etty Hillesum
12. “Critical thinking without hope is cynicism. Hope without critical thinking is naïveté.” — Maria Popova
13. “The obstacle in the path becomes the path. Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition.” — Ryan Holiday
14. “I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers flow in the right direction, will the earth turn as it was taught, and if not, how shall I correct it?” — Mary Oliver
15. “Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?” — Mary Oliver
16. “Somewhere a black bear has just risen from sleep and is staring down the mountain.” — Mary Oliver
17. “Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous to be understood.” — Mary Oliver
18. “It is hard to have hope. It is harder as you grow old, for hope must not depend on feeling good.” — Wendell Berry
19. “The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.” — W.E.B. Du Bois
20. “When your eyes are tired the world is tired also; when your vision has gone no part of the world can find you.” — David Whyte

Self-Compassion Quotes for Tough Days

You would never talk to a friend the way you talk to yourself on a bad day. These self-compassion quotes are a reminder to be gentle with you.

1. “Give yourself the same care and attention that you give to others and watch yourself bloom.” — Attributed to The Buddha
2. “Sometimes you just need to give yourself permission to not be okay.” — Unknown
3. “Just breathe. You’re going to be okay. Breathe and remember that you’ve been in this place before.” — Unknown
4. “This feeling will pass. Emotions are like waves — you can’t stop them, but you can learn to surf.” — Jon Kabat-Zinn
5. “Take a rest. A field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.” — Ovid
6. “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
7. “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is.” — Frederick Buechner
8. “We are not at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves, and we are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God.” — Thomas Merton
9. “Our humanity comes to its fullest bloom in giving. We become beautiful people when we give whatever we can give.” — Henri Nouwen
10. “The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen.” — Rachel Naomi Remen
11. “Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.” — Parker Palmer
12. “Go out in the woods, go out. If you don’t go out in the woods nothing will ever happen and your life will never begin.” — Clarissa Pinkola Estés
13. “Within every woman there is a wild and natural creature, a powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity, and ageless knowing.” — Clarissa Pinkola Estés
14. “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” — Anne Lamott
15. “Nothing ever goes away until it teaches us what we need to know.” — Pema Chödrön
16. “The most fundamental aggression to ourselves is to remain ignorant by not having the courage to look at ourselves honestly and gently.” — Pema Chödrön
17. “The difference between misery and happiness depends on what we do with our attention.” — Sharon Salzberg
18. “When you argue with reality, you lose — but only 100% of the time.” — Byron Katie
19. “Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths.” — Etty Hillesum
20. “To be passive is to let others decide for you. To be aggressive is to decide for others. To be assertive is to decide for yourself.” — Edith Eger

Comforting Words for a Really Bad Day

Some days are just plain awful, and platitudes don’t help. These comforting words meet you where you are, no pep talk required.

1. “You can’t calm the storm, but you can calm yourself. The storm will pass.” — Unknown
2. “There are no happy endings. Endings are the saddest part. So just give me a happy middle and a very happy start.” — Shel Silverstein
3. “There should be a place where only the things you want to happen, happen.” — Maurice Sendak
4. “Ah! There is nothing like staying at home, for real comfort.” — Jane Austen
5. “Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.” — Oscar Wilde
6. “No matter where you are, the moon is never bigger than your thumb.” — Banana Yoshimoto
7. “We are all strangers in a strange land, longing for home, but not quite knowing what or where home is.” — Madeleine L’Engle
8. “No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away.” — Terry Pratchett
9. “Many human beings say that they enjoy the winter, but what they really enjoy is feeling proof against it.” — Richard Adams
10. “It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.” — Lewis Carroll
11. “We all can dance, when we find music that we love.” — Giles Andreae
12. “This is the first time there’s ever been you, so I wonder what wonderful things you will do.” — Emily Winfield Martin
13. “I wish you more ups than downs, more give than take, more love than hate.” — Amy Krouse Rosenthal
14. “For there is no friend like a sister in calm or stormy weather; to cheer one on the tedious way, to fetch one if one goes astray.” — Christina Rossetti
15. “I am — yet what I am none cares or knows; my friends forsake me like a memory lost.” — John Clare
16. “Love is the answer to everything. It’s the only reason to do anything.” — Ray Bradbury
17. “A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom.” — Bob Dylan
18. “Be nice to everyone, always smile, and appreciate things because it could all be gone tomorrow.” — Ed Sheeran
19. “Discovering the truth about ourselves is a lifetime’s work, but it’s worth the effort.” — Fred Rogers
20. “The connections we make in the course of a life — maybe that’s what heaven is.” — Fred Rogers

Quotes for a Bad Day From Beloved Authors

Great writers have all known bad days. These lines come from beloved authors whose words have steadied readers for generations.

1. “There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can circumvent or hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul.” — Ella Wheeler Wilcox
2. “Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to ‘jump at the sun.’ We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.” — Zora Neale Hurston
3. “Autumn leaves don’t fall, they fly. They take their time and wander on this, their only chance to soar.” — Delia Owens
4. “Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.” — Anthony Doerr
5. “We always think there’s enough time to do things with other people. Time to say things to them. And then something happens and then we stand there holding on to words like ‘if’.” — Fredrik Backman
6. “The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal.” — Cheryl Strayed
7. “Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go.” — Cheryl Strayed
8. “Nobody will protect you from your suffering. You can’t cry it away or eat it away or starve it away or walk it away or punch it away or even therapy it away.” — Cheryl Strayed
9. “Seeing is believing, but sometimes the most real things in the world are the things we can’t see.” — Chris Van Allsburg
10. “In Vietnamese, the word for missing someone and remembering them is the same: nhớ.” — Ocean Vuong
11. “Too much joy, I swear, is lost in our desperation to keep it.” — Ocean Vuong
12. “The world is increasingly designed to depress us. Happiness isn’t very good for the economy.” — Matt Haig
13. “We are volcanoes. When we women offer our experience as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change.” — Ursula K. Le Guin
14. “Here today, up and off to somewhere! Here tomorrow, up and off to somewhere else!” — Kenneth Grahame
15. “Look at that sea, girls — all silver and shadow and vision of things not seen.” — L.M. Montgomery
16. “Some people talk to animals. Not many listen though. That’s the problem.” — A.A. Milne
17. “Put something silly in the world that ain’t been there before.” — Shel Silverstein
18. “You must be a friend to have a friend.” — Don Freeman
19. “And she loved a boy very, very much — even more than she loved herself.” — Shel Silverstein
20. “Never let go of that fiery sadness called desire.” — Patti Smith

Quotes for a Bad Day at Work

Deadlines, difficult people, endless meetings: work can serve up some truly bad days. These quotes are for getting through the 9-to-5 kind.

1. “One small positive thought in the morning can change your whole day.” — Dalai Lama
2. “Today is a new day. Even if you were wrong yesterday, you can get it right today.” — Dwight Howard
3. “The day is what you make it! So why not make it a great one?” — Steve Schulte
4. “The only way to learn is to live.” — Matt Haig
5. “You’ll never do a whole lot unless you’re brave enough to try.” — Dolly Parton
6. “There’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.” — Susan Cain
7. “The question of what you want to own is actually the question of how you want to live your life.” — Marie Kondo
8. “Just make a mark and see where it takes you.” — Peter H. Reynolds
9. “Those who will not slip beneath the still surface on the well of grief will never know the source from which we drink, the secret water, cold and clear.” — David Whyte
10. “Above the mountains the geese turn into the light again, painting their black silhouettes on an open sky.” — David Whyte
11. “The avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering. The avoidance of struggle is a struggle.” — Mark Manson
12. “Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people.” — Anne Lamott
13. “Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.” — Kurt Vonnegut
14. “It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it’s called Life.” — Terry Pratchett
15. “In the book of life, the answers aren’t in the back.” — Charles Schulz
16. “It’s not denial. I’m just selective about the reality I accept.” — Bill Watterson
17. “When I was young, my ambition was to be one of the people who made a difference in this world.” — Jim Henson
18. “All know that the drop merges into the ocean, but few know that the ocean merges into the drop.” — Kabir
19. “Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy.” — John Denver
20. “I’m a pout-pout fish with a pout-pout face, so I spread the dreary-wearies all over the place.” — Deborah Diesen

Uplifting Quotes to End a Bad Day Well

However today went, it gets to end. These uplifting quotes are for closing out a bad day and walking into tomorrow a little lighter.

1. “Silly old fox, doesn’t he know? There’s no such thing as a gruffalo.” — Julia Donaldson
2. “Sometimes I feel lost, said the boy. Me too, said the mole, but we love you, and love brings you home.” — Charlie Mackesy
3. “Don’t make assumptions.” — Don Miguel Ruiz
4. “Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.” — C.S. Lewis
5. “A man that flies from his fear may find that he has only taken a short cut to meet it.” — J.R.R. Tolkien
6. “When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse.” — Mary Oliver
7. “It doesn’t have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones.” — Mary Oliver
8. “Another morning and I wake with thirst for the goodness I do not have.” — Mary Oliver
9. “I awoke this morning in the gold light turning this way and that, thinking for a moment it was one day like any other.” — David Whyte
10. “In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake, coming back to this life from the other more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world.” — David Whyte
11. “In out-of-the-way places of the heart, where your thoughts never think to wander, this beginning has been quietly forming, waiting until you were ready to emerge.” — John O’Donohue
12. “The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.” — Rainer Maria Rilke
13. “Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring.” — Simone Weil
14. “Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.” — The Dhammapada
15. “Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too went for a ride in a flying shoe.” — Shel Silverstein
16. “Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone.” — Ella Wheeler Wilcox
17. “My life closed twice before its close; it yet remains to see if Immortality unveil a third event to me.” — Emily Dickinson
18. “Well, son, I’ll tell you: life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.” — Langston Hughes
19. “Wild nights! Wild nights! Were I with thee, wild nights should be our luxury.” — Emily Dickinson
20. “We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion-year-old carbon.” — Joni Mitchell

Editor’s Picks: Best Quotes for a Bad Day

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a good quote for a bad day?

A good quote for a bad day names what you’re feeling and offers a way through it. Lines like “It’s okay not to be okay” work because they give you permission to feel bad without piling on guilt. Pick the one that sounds most like your own voice.

How can I cheer myself up on a bad day?

Start small: step outside for five minutes, text someone you trust, or read a few comforting quotes until one lands. Bad days often shrink when you name what’s wrong and do one kind thing for yourself: a walk, a nap, or a favorite song.

What should I say to someone having a bad day?

Keep it simple and honest: “I’m sorry today is rough. I’m here.” Avoid rushing them toward cheerfulness. Sharing one of these quotes with a short personal note shows you care without pretending you can fix it.

Can quotes really help on a bad day?

They can’t erase what’s wrong, but the right words can steady you. A quote gives shape to feelings you couldn’t phrase yourself, and that small sense of being understood is often enough to get through the next hour.

More to Explore

• hope quotes — light for the road ahead
• faith quotes — trust for uncertain days
• strength quotes — courage when you feel weak
• gratitude quotes — small joys worth noticing
• self-love quotes — kindness toward yourself
• life quotes — wisdom for the journey
• motivational quotes for success — fuel for your goals
• positive quotes for hard times — comfort when days feel heavy
• self-care quotes — rest as a radical act
• encouraging quotes for a friend — words to send someone you love
• self-love quotes for women — strength in her own words
• quotes for new moms — for the exhausting beautiful days
• inspirational quotes for life — uplifting words for tough seasons
• Bible verses about strength — scripture for weary hearts