Encouraging Quotes

For many of us, the holiday season is a time to set goals and intentions for the new year. But we don’t have to wait for January 1 to hit the reset button on our lives or facilitate change in our communities.

We can make a commitment to change at any time we choose. What’s important is that we are ready to take that first step, even when it seems difficult or scary to move beyond our comfort zone.

While New Year’s resolutions offer a great excuse to pursue a new goal, we also needn’t worry that we’ve missed our one and only opportunity if we choose to hibernate through the winter and commit to new growth when spring arrives. An anonymous proverb offers this wisdom: “The best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago, and the second best time to plant a tree is now.”

These quotes, from artists and writers, great thinkers and world leaders, reflect on what it takes to make meaningful change — in ourselves, our lives, and the world around us.

You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call “failure” is not the falling down, but the staying down.
— Mary Pickford, actress

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
— Barack Obama

The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.
— Dan Millman, motivational author

One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world. Education is the only solution.
— Malala Yousafzai

You can make things happen. You’re in control of change.
— Dyllan McGee, filmmaker

Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?
— L.M. Montgomery, author

No star is ever lost we once have seen,
We always may be what we might have been.
— Adelaide Anne Procter, poet

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
— Lao Tzu, founder of Taoism

What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.
— Jane Goodall, primatologist

If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.
— Mahatma Gandhi

If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.
— Dolly Parton

I keep on making what I can’t do yet in order to learn to be able to do it.
— Vincent van Gogh

We wish you the very best year in 2023.