It takes more than reading a good quote to overcome a fear—especially when that fear is a fear of change, of the unknown, of potential failure.
Nothing is scarier than venturing out into new territory, and it often takes a solid push to do it. But if you’re trying to build up the strength to push yourself—or just glancing in the direction of change—let these quotes guide your way.
1. “If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.”
– Anatole France
2. “To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often.”
– Winston Churchill
3. “They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”
– Andy Warhol
4. “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
– Rumi
5. “Without remaining open to change, we cannot remain open to life.”
– Ram Dass
6. “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.'”
— Eleanor Roosevelt
7. “I've learned that fear limits you and your vision. It serves as blinders to what may be just a few steps down the road for you. The journey is valuable, but believing in your talents, your abilities, and your self-worth can empower you to walk down an even brighter path. Transforming fear into freedom—how great is that?”
8. “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
— Dr. Seuss
9. “If I am an advocate for anything, it is to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river.”
— Anthony Bourdain
10. “The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.”
— William Arthur Ward
11. “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”
— George Bernard Shaw
12. “To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.”
— Henri Bergson
13. “Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.”
— Anais Nin
14. “Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.”
— Dr. Seuss
15. “Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don’t recognize them.”
— Ann Landers
16. “You can waste your life drawing lines. Or you can live your life crossing them.”
— Meredith Grey, Grey’s Anatomy
17. “For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock.”
— James Baldwin
18. “On the precipice of any great change, we can see with terrifying clarity the familiar firm footing we stand to lose, but we fill the abyss of the unfamiliar before us with dread at the potential loss rather than jubilation over the potential gain of gladnesses and gratifications we fail to envision because we haven’t yet experienced them.”
19. "Life is about change. Sometimes it's painful. Sometimes it's beautiful. But most of the time, it's both."
— Lana Lang, Smallville
20. "We cannot become what we want by remaining what we are."
— Max De Pree
21. "The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind."
― Friedrich Nietzsche
22. "Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman."
― Maya Angelou
23. "And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time."
24. "The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance."
— Alan Wilson Watts
25. “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”
— John F. Kennedy
26. “We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.”
— C.S. Lewis
27.“The art of life is a constant readjustment to our surroundings.”
— Kakuzo Okakura
28. "People will try to tell you that all the great opportunities have been snapped up. In reality, the world changes every second, blowing new opportunities in all directions, including yours."
— Ken Hakuta
29. “Courage is fear that has said its prayers.”
— Anne Lamott
Read next: Your Guide to Getting Comfy With Change
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