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Looking for strength in the face of adversity? These strength quotes show what it means to be strong and face whatever life is throwing at you.
Challenging times are inevitable, but facing them and overcoming them is what makes us strong and leads to a more fulfilling life.
Being strong isn’t just about being able to get through tragedy. It’s also about preparing yourself physically and mentally for the tests you have to face.
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Top 10 Strength Quotes
Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.
Niccolò Machiavelli
Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.
J.K. Rowling
One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity.
Albert Schweitzer
Courage isn’t having the strength to go on, it is going on when you don’t have the strength.
Napoleon Bonaparte
That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Friedrich Nietzsche
People do not lack strength, they lack will.
Victor Hugo
Strength of mind is exercise, not rest.
Alexander Pope
Quotes about Strength
Developing the emotional and mental toughness allows us to overcome our pain and be beacons of strength for others. These strength quotes show all the benefits of being strong, getting stronger, and enduring what life throws at us.
You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.
Marcus Aurelius
There are two ways of exerting one’s strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.
Booker T. Washington
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
Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal: my strength lies solely in my tenacity.
Louis Pasteur
The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.
Thomas Paine
Where there is no struggle, there is no strength.
Oprah Winfrey
Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
Lao Tzu
Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.
Harriet Tubman
If you haven’t the strength to impose your own terms upon life, then you must accept the terms it offers you.
T.S. Eliot
Sometimes you don’t realize your own strength until you come face to face with your greatest weakness.
Susan Gale
Freedom comes from strength and self-reliance.
Lisa Murkowski
Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.
Samuel Johnson
Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.
John Locke
The LORD is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him.
Psalm 28:7, ESV
My strength is as the strength of ten, because my heart is pure.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.
Vincent Van Gogh
Do not pray for an easy life. Pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.
Bruce Lee
Fortitude is the marshal of thought, the armor of the will, and the fort of reason.
Francis Bacon
The human capacity for burden is like bamboo – far more flexible than you’d ever believe at first glance.
Jodi Picoult
Nothing is more beautiful than the smile that has struggled through the tears.
Demi Lovato
We don’t even know how strong we are until we are forced to bring that hidden strength forward.
Isabel Allende
With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.
Eleanor Roosevelt
And one has to understand that braveness is not the absence of fear but rather the strength to keep on going forward despite the fear.
Paulo Coelho
Mastering others is strength, mastering yourself is true power.
Lao Tzu
Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.
Napoleon Hill
If an ant carries an object a hundred times its weight, you can carry burdens many times your size.
Matshona Dhliwayo
The spirit of hope, inner strength, enthusiasm, and persistent determination are the pillars for any success.
Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great
What makes you different or weird, that’s your strength.
Meryl Streep
Mental strength is something you either have, or you haven’t.
Katie Taylor
Building mental strength is the key to reaching our full potential in life.
Amy Morin
Go within every day and find the inner strength so that the world will not blow your candle out.
Katherine Dunham
Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.
Phil Jackson
A calm mind brings inner strength and self-confidence.
Dalai Lama
Strength is the ability to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands – and then eat just one of those pieces.
Judith Viorst
Tears shed for self are tears of weakness, but tears shed for others are a sign of strength.
Billy Graham
Religion brings to man an inner strength, spiritual light, and ineffable peace.
Alexis Carrel
Virtue is inner strength. It expands your nature.
John Bradshaw
Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.
Mother Teresa
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
Mahatma Gandhi
Whatever is in me is stronger than what is out there to defeat me.
Caroline Myss
Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength.
Corrie Ten Boom
Developing Strength
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
Khalil Gibran
The undertaking of a new action brings new strength.
Richard L. Evans
Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage.
William Ellery Channing
Believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.
Rainer Maria Rilke
There is a saying in Tibetan, ‘Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength.”No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that’s our real disaster.
Dalai Lama
We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The harder you fall, the heavier your heart; the heavier your heart, the stronger you climb; the stronger you climb, the higher your pedestal.
Criss Jami
I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection.
Thomas Paine
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
Kahlil Gibran
When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure.
Peter Marshall
In times of crisis, people reach for meaning. Meaning is strength. Our survival may depend on our seeking and finding it.
Dawna Markova
The world is the great gymnasium where we come to make ourselves strong.
Swami Vivekananda
The awareness of our own strength makes us modest.
Paul Cezanne
He knows not his own strength that has not met adversity.
Ben Jonson
The hard times that you go through build character, making you a much stronger person.
Rita Mero
All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me…. You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.
Walt Disney
Tolerance is a virtue that depends upon peace and strength.
Charles Lindbergh
The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves.
Leonardo da Vinci
Talents are best nurtured in solitude, but character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
It is worth remembering that the time of greatest gain in terms of wisdom and inner strength is often that of greatest difficulty.
Dalai Lama
Faith gives you an inner strength and a sense of balance and perspective in life.
Gregory Peck
Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
Helen Keller
The pain you feel today will be the strength you feel tomorrow.
Anonymous
In solitude, the mind gains strength and learns to lean upon itself.
Laurence Sterne
Failure gave me strength. Pain was my motivation.
Michael Jordan
Anyone can give up; it is the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone would expect you to fall apart, now that is true strength.
Chris Bradford
Qualities of Strong People
Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Be patient and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you.
Ovid
Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength.
St. Francis de Sales
Strength lies in differences, not in similarities.
Stephen Covey
The more you care, the stronger you can be.
Jim Rohn
Silence is a source of great strength.
Lao Tzu
This is the mark of a really admirable man: steadfastness in the face of trouble.
Ludwig van Beethoven
A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.
Christopher Reeve
Humble souls are fearful of their own strength.
William Gurnall
Yielding will overcome anything superior to itself; its strength is boundless.
Bruce Lee
Leverage the strength that you have: that no one else can be you.
Todd Wheatland
Unity is strength… when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved.
Mattie Stepanek
Strong people are ones who can smile for others’ happiness.
Veronica Purcell
You have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have.
J.R.R. Tolkien
We are stronger, gentler, more resilient, and more beautiful than any of us imagine.
Mark Nepo
Solitude is the strength of being alone. It’s where we become our best company.
Jay Shetty
The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
Nelson Mandela
A truly strong person does not need the approval of others any more than a lion needs the approval of sheep.
Vernon Howard
Insincerity is always weakness; sincerity even in error is strength.
George Henry Lewes
Strong women don’t have ‘attitudes’, we have standards.
Marilyn Monroe
The most beautiful people I’ve known are those who have known trials, have known struggles, have known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
The strength of criticism lies in the weakness of the thing criticized.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.
Hermann Hesse
Anyone can hide. Facing up to things, working through them, that’s what makes you strong.
Sarah Dessen
Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character.
Baruch Spinoza
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
Mahatma Gandhi
Taking care of yourself makes you stronger for everyone in your life – including you.
Kelly Rudolph
The resistance that you fight physically in the gym and the resistance that you fight in life can only build a strong character.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Permanence, perseverance, and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.
Thomas Carlyle
Only strength can cooperate. Weakness can only beg.
Dwight Eisenhower
Some people believe holding on and hanging in there are signs of great strength. However, there are times when it takes much more strength to know when to let go and then do it.
Ann Landers
Our strength grows out of our weaknesses.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Being Strong Quotes
The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.
Ernest Hemingway
He who believes is strong; he who doubts is weak.
Louisa May Alcott
I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.
Audrey Hepburn
Life is very interesting. In the end, some of your greatest pains become your greatest strengths.
Drew Barrymore
You can’t really be strong until you see a funny side to things.
Ken Kessey
You never know how strong you are, until being strong is your only choice.
Bob Marley
Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue. Realize the strength, move on.
Henry Rollins
A strong woman is a woman determined to do something others are determined not be done.
Marge Piercy
We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down.
Eleanor Roosevelt
I’ve never met a strong person with an easy past.
Atticus
Stand up to your obstacles and do something about them. You will find that they haven’t half the strength you think they have.
Norman Vincent Peale
Life is full of happiness and tears; be strong and have faith.
Karina Kapoor Khan
It’s your reaction to adversity, not adversity itself that determines how your life’s story will develop.
Dieter F. Uchtdorf
This is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure.
Winston Churchill
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.
Joshua 1:9, ESV
Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.
Cayla Mills
Make up your mind that no matter what comes your way, no matter how difficult, no matter how unfair, you will do more than simply survive. You will thrive in spite of it.
Joel Osteen
Be very strong… be very methodical in your life if you want to be a champion.
Alberto Juantorena
You can’t really be strong until you can see a funny side to things.
Ken Kesey
It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.
Edmund Hillary
Choose rather to be strong of soul than strong of body.
Pythagoras
I want my girls to be strong and self-sufficient.
Angie Harmon
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.
Henry Ford
Be strong, be fearless, be beautiful. And believe that anything is possible when you have the right people there to support you.
Misty Copeland
You have to be strong and calm to overcome difficult moments.
Dani Alves
You can be strong and true to yourself without being rude or loud.
Paula Radcliffe
When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
Joe Kennedy
A single twig breaks, but the bundle of twigs is strong.
Tec*mseh
We hope these quotes give you a boost and help you find more strength when you need it.
There will be times in your life where you’re challenged, where nothing seems to be going right, where tragedy strikes and you’re left to pick up the pieces. But that’s no reason to stay down for long.
No matter what you’re going through, these strength quotes show other people have gone through the same or worse and come out stronger.
