Sometimes in life, we need to hear words of wisdom to get us through the dark times. Sometimes, the best people to hear that from are literary authors, the ones that have been through it all. Here are 20 quotes from literary authors to keep you going:
- “We are all broken, that’s how the light gets in.” – Ernest Hemingway
Each and every one of us is going through our own battles and we all have our own flaws, but it’s what we do to overcome our battles that make us who we are.
- “And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.” – John Steinbeck
Nobody is perfect, and there shouldn’t be pressure for you to feel like you need to be perfect. Once you can understand that, you can focus on being yourself and doing good things for yourself and for others.
- “It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies, but even more to stand up to your friends.” – JK Rowling
Don’t forget that your friends will always be there for you, regardless what happens, and if they aren’t than maybe it is time to rethink your choices.
- “Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.” – Maya Angelou
You should never let negative feelings control your life.
- “If you retain nothing else, always remember the most important rule of beauty, which is: who cares?” – Tina Fey (Bossy Pants)
Thank you Tina Fey for finally saying it! Who cares on what you look like, what you do, and how you live your life. You do you. If you are happy with the choices you make then that is all that matters.
- “The point is not to pay back kindness but to pass it on.” – Julia Alvarez
Live your life full of random acts of kindness.
- “Initiative is doing the right thing without being told.” – Victor Hugo
While you might not always know what the right thing is all the time, sometimes you just need to follow your gut and it will lead you down the right road.
- “The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.” – E.E. Cummings
I couldn’t imagine going a day without laughing. A day of laughing is a day of happiness.
- “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” – Confucius
Who needs that kind of negativity in life when you could be at peace with yourself.
- “I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.” – Kurt Vonnegut
Vonnegut always has a twisted sense of explaining things to us. Go out and be yourself and the only way to experience life is to step out of your comfort zone.
- “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” – Dr. Seuss
I live my entire life around the things Dr. Seuss tells me. Always appreciate the things you have in life and the experiences you get to encounter.
- “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” – Plato
Don’t forget that you aren’t the only person in this world who is trying to juggle a thousand things at once. Unless you have walked a thousand miles in their shoes, you most likely don’t know what is happening in their life. Be nice to one another and don’t forget that people aren’t against you, they are just trying to survive themselves.
- “Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald
There is always a next time, and the one’s who never give up are the ones who are more likely to be successful in life. Keep going!
- “Words – so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne
Words are the greatest weapon a man can have, they should always be used for good.
- “Forever is composed of nows.” – Emily Dickinson
Live in the moment, experience what is happening right this second, take it all in, and I promise you, one day you will look back and say “wow”.
- “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” – T. S. Eliot
YOLO. Live your life doing the things you want, and taking the chances to go delve further into your life. It will only mold you into a better character.
- “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Mark Twain
With just a little push, a little motivation you can do anything you want. Even if you accomplish very little, you are still doing more than all the people, laying in their bed watching Netflix. You are still doing something.
- “Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.” – William Shakespeare
Be kind to those so they can return the favor. You don’t have to be friends with an entire world, and you most likely never will, but you should always be respectful to each and every individual you meet.
- “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” – Henry David Thoreau
I don’t know about you, but I see complete awesomeness!
- “In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful.” – Alice Walker
The way I see it, is our flaws are what makes us different from one another, and in a good way, our flaws are exactly what makes us, us.
I don’t mean to tell you these quotes to make you live your life by any specific way, or to forgive people for mistakes, but I write them down because I know somewhere, someone needs to hear one of these. We are all fighting a battle everyday, so I write these words for us to lean on. I hope they helped!
Featured image via Wilson Vitorino on Pexels
I love all of the serious and amazing quotes matched with comic relief gifs. Really good article!
“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” Is my favorite, I hadn’t hear this before but it is so true.