Life can hit you hard. It can feel like a ton of bricks. Maybe it’s the loss of a job. Maybe it’s unbelievable news. Maybe it’s the loss of a loved one. Maybe it’s a series of unfortunate events. Maybe it’s your world turned upside down.
Whatever it is, moving on can be tough. In fact, one of the toughest things in the world, is to move on. If you’ve ever ever been inconsolable, you know what I mean.
People might tell you, get over it. They might say, just move on with your life. You might even want to. But then you might find yourself stuck. Or you might find yourself wallowing. Or you might find yourself numb.
This is where some of the world’s best words come in to play. Whether you want to make like a phoenix and rise from the ashes, or you want to bounce back after going down for the count, or you simply want to just find a way forward … moving on quotes can be your best friend.
My gift to you is this deep collection of quotes for moving on. You’ll find insight and inspiration from Bruce Lee, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Gandhi, and more. Find three quotes from the collection below. Hold on to them, and play them in your mind, when you need them most.
Top 10 Moving On Quotes
“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” — Dr. Seuss
“Get mad, then get over it.” — Colin Powell
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; Courage to change the things I can; And wisdom to know the difference.” — Reinhold Niebuhr
“I gather strength from life’s storms.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
“Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass… It’s about learning how to dance in the rain.” — Vivian Greene
“Look at life through the windshield, not the rear-view mirror” — Byrd Baggett
“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” — Maria Robinson
“Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” – Author Unknown
“Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” – Proverb
“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” — Lao Tzu
A New Day and Moving On
“Do not worry if you feel low; the sun has a sinking spell every night, but rises again all right the next morning.” — Author Unknown
“Don’t let yesterday use up too much of today.” — Cherokee Indian Proverb
“Goals give you more than a reason to get up in the morning; they are an incentive to keep you going all day.” — Harvey Mackay
“I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.” – J. B. Priestley
“Let every day be the first day of the rest of your life, but especially let today be a new beginning.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
“The darkest night is often the bridge to the brightest tomorrow.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
“Today will never happen again. Don’t waste it with a false start or no start at all.” — Og Mandino
“Whatever you want in life, start today. Not tomorrow – today. Let it be a small beginning – a tiny beginning. Your happiness depends on starting today – every day.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
“With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
Action and Moving On
“Achievement seems to be connected with action. Successful men and women keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.” — Conrad Hilton
“Just keep moving forward and don’t give a shit about what anybody thinks. Do what you have to do for you.” — Johnny Depp
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.” — Albert Einstein
“Part of being a winner is knowing when enough is enough. Sometimes you have to give up the fight and walk away, and move on to something that’s more productive.” — Donald Trump
“So what do we do? Anything. Something. So long as we just don’t sit there. If we screw it up, start over. Try something else. If we wait until we’ve satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late.” — Lee Iacocca
“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
“We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” — Walt Disney
“What surrounds us we endure better for giving it a name – and moving on.” — Emile M. Cioran
“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” — Proverb
“You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, Know when to walk away and know when to run.” – Kenny Rogers
Baggage, Hurts, the Past, and Moving On
“Get over it – Life isn’t Supposed to be fair. Get over yourself, and be of service to others.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
“I had to cease to mourn what could never be and make the most of what was possible. And I would begin doing that by trying to mend the hurts of the past.” — Cameron Dokey
“If you bury the pain deep down it will stay with you indefinitely, but if you open yourself to it, experience it, and deal with it head-on, you’ll find it begins to move on after a while.” — Greg Behrendt
“Keeping baggage from the past will leave no room for happiness in the future.” — Wayne L. Misner
“Moving on, is a simple thing, what it leaves behind is hard.” — Dave Mustaine
“Moving on is easy. It’s staying moved on that’s trickier.” — Katerina Stoykova Klemer
“My Mama always said you’ve got to put the past behind you before you can move on.” — Forrest Gump
“Often the thought of pain is actually worse that the pain itself.” — Greg Behrendt
“People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.” — Thich Nhat Hanh
“Sooner or later we’ve all got to let go of our past.” — Dan Brown
“The secret of joy is the mastery of pain.” — Anaïs Nin
“Those who do not know how to weep with their whole heart do not know how to laugh either.” — Golda Meir
“When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.” — Kahlil Gibran
“You can’t look back – you just have to put the past behind you, and find something better in your future.” — Jodi Picoult
Blame, Victim, and Moving On
“Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.” — Helen Keller
“What’s the point of pointing the finger, other than to stall your own progress in moving on?” — Lisa Steadman
“You are responsible for your life. You can’t keep blaming somebody else for your dysfunction. Life is really about moving on.” — Oprah Winfrey
Bouncing Back, Resilience, and Moving On
“Fall down 7 times. Stand up 8.” – Chinese Proverb
“He’s a million rubber bands in his resilience.” — Alan K. Simpson
“Life only demands from you the strength you possess.” — Dag Hammarskjold
“Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit.” — Bern Williams
“The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward.” — Rocky Balboa
“Whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it. Because you’ll find that when you’re free . . . your true self comes out.” — Tina Turner
“You all know that I have been sustained throughout my life by three saving graces – my family, my friends, and a faith in the power of resilience and hope. These graces have carried me through difficult times and they have brought more joy to the good times than I ever could have imagined.” — Elizabeth Edwards
“You can fall, but you can rise also.” — Angelique Kidjo
Change, Choices, and Moving On
“Any change, any loss, does not make us victims. Others can shake you, surprise you, disappoint you, but they can’t prevent you from acting, from taking the situation you’re presented with and moving on. No matter where you are in life, no matter what your situation, you can always do something. You always have a choice and the choice can be power.” — Blaine Lee
“Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.” — Wayne Dyer
“I chose and my world was shaken. So what? The choice may have been mistaken; the choosing was not. You have to move on.” — Stephen Sondheim
“I choose not to project my past onto my future.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
“I demolish my bridges behind me …then there is no choice but to move forward.” — Fridtjof Nansen
“I won’t let the sun go down on me.” — Nik Kershaw
“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” — Maya Angelou
“It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult undertaking which, more than anything else, will determine its successful outcome.” — William James
“Life is about making the right decisions and moving on.” — Josh Rayburn
“Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.” – Bruce Lee
“The only way to change our lives is by changing our minds.” — Author Unknown
“The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.” — Charles Kettering
“Things do not change; we change.” – Henry David Thoreau
“Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons.” – Pascal
“We are set in our ways, bound by our perspectives and stuck in our thinking.” — Joel Osteen
“We can not become what we need to by remaining what we are.” — Oprah Winfrey
“When you start to abandon your old beliefs or values… you may be stuck at the threshold for two or three years. Before moving on, you have to clear away your cherished beliefs.” — Dick Raymond
“You must make a decision that you are going to move on. It wont happen automatically. You will have to rise up and say, ‘I don’t care how hard this is, I don’t care how disappointed I am, I’m not going to let this get the best of me. I’m moving on with my life.” — Joel Osteen
Courage, Confidence, and Moving On
“80% of people’s problems are about how they feel about themselves.” — Joyce Meyer
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but simply moving on with dignity despite that fear.” — Pat Riley
“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, I will try again tomorrow.” — Mary Anne Radmacher
“It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.” — Theodore Roosevelt
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” — Anaïs Nin
“The great courageous act that we must all do, is to have the courage to step out of our history and past so that we can live our dreams.” — Oprah Winfrey
“You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.” — Christopher Columbus
“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 have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
Endings and Beginnings
“A graduation is a small but significant tradition that I think everyone should take part in. What a great way to symbolize a part of your journey and to represent your thoughts for moving on.” — Martin Stoleman
“Another sunrise, another new beginning.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
“Celebrate endings – for they precede new beginnings.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
“Every exit is an entry somewhere.” — Tom Stoppard
“It’s true that we don’t know what we’ve got until we lost it, but it’s also true that we don’t know what we’ve been missing until it arrives.” — Author Unknown
“Sometimes the hardest part isn’t letting go but rather learning to start over.” — Nicole Sobon
“There are things that we never want to let go of, people we never want to leave behind. But keep in mind that letting go isn’t the end of the world, it’s the beginning of a new life.” — Author Unknown
“Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald
“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” — Alexander Graham Bell
Failures, Setbacks, and Moving On
“A bend in the road is not the end of the road … unless you fail to make the turn.” — Author Unknown
“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried something new.” — Albert Einstein
“If you’ve fallen down, today is the day you can get back up and try again.” — Amelie Chance
“Intelligence is not to make no mistakes, but quickly to see how to make them good.” — Bertoit Brecht
“Keep on beginning and failing. Each time you fail, start all over again, and you will grow stronger until you have accomplished a purpose – not the one you began with perhaps, but one you’ll be glad to remember.” — Anne Sullivan
“Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.” — Bob Newhart
“May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
“Some things are just never meant to be, no matter how much we wish they were.” — Author Unknown
“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” — Maya Angelou
Forgiveness and Moving On
“By forgiving and choosing to move on, one takes the power back to morph it into positive energy.” — Eugenia Tripputi
“Cry. Forgive. Learn. Move on. Let your tears water the seeds of your future happiness.” — Steve Maraboli
“Forgive and forget.” – Proverb
“Forgive yourself for your faults and your mistakes and move on.” — Les Brown
“Forgiveness and letting go are steps on our road back to happiness.” — Tina Dayton
“Forgiving is not a gift to someone else – Forgiving is your gift to yourself — a great gift — the gift of happiness.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
“Forgiveness is the cleansing fire that burns away old regrets and resentments.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
“Hanging onto resentment is letting someone you despise live rent-free in your head.” — Ann Landers
“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.” – Buddha
“People can be more forgiving than you can imagine. But you have to forgive yourself. Let go of what’s bitter and move on.” — Bill Cosby
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” — Mohandas Gandhi
“To be able to move on, one has to learn to forgive not only the person (or people) who have done one wrong but also oneself.” — Eugenia Tripputi
Letting Go, Holding On, and Moving On
“All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.” — Havelock Ellis
“Don’t cry over spilled milk.” – Proverb
“Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life. What is it you would let go of today?” — Mary Manin Morrissey
“Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.” — Author Unknown
“How do geese know when to fly to the sun? Who tells them the seasons? How do we, humans know when it is time to move on? As with the migrant birds, so surely with us, there is a voice within if only we would listen to it, that tells us certainly when to go forth into the unknown.” — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
“Let go. Why do you cling to pain? There is nothing you can do about the wrongs of yesterday. It is not yours to judge. Why hold on to the very thing which keeps you from hope and love?” — Leo Buscaglia
“Letting go doesn’t mean giving up, but rather accepting that there are things that cannot be.” — Author Unknown
“Letting go doesn’t mean that you don’t care about someone anymore. It’s just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself.” — Deborah Reber
“Letting go has never been easy, but holding on can be as difficult. Yet strength is measured not by holding on, but by letting go.” — Len Santos
“Letting go isn’t a one-time thing, it’s something you have to do everyday, over and over again.” — Dawson’s Creek
“Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.” — Hermann Hesse
“You will find that it is necessary to let things go; simply for the reason that they are heavy. So let them go, let go of them. I tie no weights to my ankles.” — C. JoyBell C.
Life and Moving On
“A man who does not leave his hut will bring nothing in.” — West African Proverb
“I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance.” — Beryl Markham
“I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing.” — Anais Nin
“It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.” – Buddha
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” – Kierkegaard
“Life is as easy or as hard as you think it is.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
“Life is lived in the living. Set aside convention, caution, and arbitrary “rules” about how life is supposed to be lived. Choose! Explore! Adventure! Live life to the fullest.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
“Life is unlimited – it expands with the generosity, compassion, inventiveness, and service that you contribute.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
“Life’s burdens are lighter when I laugh at myself.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
“Part of growing up is just taking what you learn from that and moving on and not taking it to heart.” — Beverley Mitchell
“The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.” — Reinhold Niebuhr
“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the life that is waiting for us.” — Joseph Campbell
“Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.” — Kahlil Gibran
Loss, Grievance, and Moving On
“And perhaps there is a limit to the grieving that the human heart can do. As when one adds salt to a tumbler of water, there comes a point where simply no more will be absorbed.” — Sarah Waters
“The loss of love is not nearly as painful as our resistance to accepting it is.” — Tigress Luv
Now, The Present, and Moving On
“Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.” — Oprah Winfrey
“The past always looks better than it was because it isn’t here.” — Finley Peter Dunne
Relationships and Moving On
“Don’t rush into any kind of relationship. Work on yourself. Feel yourself, experience yourself and love yourself. Do this first and you will soon attract that special loving other.” — Russ Von Hoelsche
“I don’t want to lose you, but I don’t want to use you just to have someone by my side.” — Patty Smyth
“I think it happens to everyone as they grow up. You find out who you are and what you want, and then you realize that people you’ve known forever don’t see things the way you do. And so you keep the wonderful memories, but find yourself moving on.” — Nicholas Sparks
“If you really love something set it free. If it comes back it’s yours, if not it wasn’t meant to be.” – Author Unknown
“It happens to everyone as they grow up. You find out who you are and what you want, and then you realize that people you’ve known forever don’t see things the way you do. So you keep the wonderful memories, but find yourself moving on.” — Nicholas Sparks
“Loving someone is setting them free, letting them go.” — Kate Winslet
“Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher.” — Oprah Winfrey
“The heart was made to be broken.” — Oscar Wilde
“You may have buried or repressed your own power for so long a time that you feel incapable of moving on without the strength and support of a lover, even the lover you just left behind.” — Howard Bronson
Regret and Moving On
“I have no regrets in my life. I think that everything happens to you for a reason. The hard times that you go through build character, making you a much stronger person.” — Rita Mero
“It’s never too late to be who you might have been.” – George Eliot
“Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can’t build on it; it’s only good for wallowing in.” — Katherine Mansfield
“Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.” — Henry David Thoreau
“Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves – regret for the past and fear of the future.” — Fulton Oursler
“Never regret. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience.” — Victoria Holt
“Regret of neglected opportunity is the worst hell that a living soul can inhabit.” — Rafael Sabatini
“The only conquests that are permanent and leave no regrets are our conquests over ourselves.” — Napolean Bonaparte