One of the most common and destructive daily habits that people get caught up in certainly must be the habit of worrying.
It has been one of my biggest issues.
And I know from my inbox that so many struggle with this.
But instead of doing what I usually do and collecting the best habits and tips that have helped me I’d like to do something different today.
I’d like to share 55 of the best, most empowering and inspiring quotes from the past few thousands of years about worrying and what to do about it.
And if you want to learn much more about this destructive habit then have a look at my Stop Worrying Today Course.
Empowering Worry Quotes
“Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.”
– Leo F. Buscaglia
“Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow.”
– Swedish Proverb
”People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them.”
– George Bernard Shaw
“Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration and resentment.”
– Dale Carnegie
“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.”
– Elbert Hubbard
“If you ask what is the single most important key to longevity, I would have to say it is avoiding worry, stress and tension. And if you didn’t ask me, I’d still have to say it.”
– George F. Burns
“If you want to test your memory, try to recall what you were worrying about one year ago today.”
– E. Joseph Cossman
“When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.”
– Winston Churchill
“Worry is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.”
– Arthur Somers Roche
“When one has too great a dread of what is impending, one feels some relief when the trouble has come.”
– Joseph Joubert
“If you treat every situation as a life and death matter, you’ll die a lot of times.”
– Dean Smith
“That the birds of worry and care fly over your head, this you cannot change, but that they build nests in your hair, this you can prevent.”
– Chinese Proverb
“Worry compounds the futility of being trapped on a dead-end street. Thinking opens new avenues.”
– Cullen Hightower
“Worry is like a rocking chair: it gives you something to do but never gets you anywhere”
– Erma Bombeck
“People get so in the habit of worry that if you save them from drowning and put them on a bank to dry in the sun with hot chocolate and muffins they wonder whether they are catching a cold.”
– John Jay Chapman
“There is a great difference between worry and concern. A worried person sees a problem, and a concerned person solves a problem.”
– Harold Stephen
“Somehow our devils are never quite what we expect when we meet them face to face.”
– Nelson DeMille
“The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.”
– Robert Frost
“Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.”
– Henry Ward Beecher
“We can easily manage if we will only take, each day, the burden appointed to it. But the load will be too heavy for us if we carry yesterday’s burden over again today, and then add the burden of the morrow before we are required to bear it.”
– John Newton
“If you can’t sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying. It’s the worry that gets you, not the lack of sleep.”
– Dale Carnegie
“I never worry about action, but only about inaction.”
– Winston Churchill
“Rule number one is, don’t sweat the small stuff. Rule number two is, it’s all small stuff.”
– Robert Eliot
“A day of worry is more exhausting than a day of work.”
– John Lubbock
“Worry a little bit every day and in a lifetime you will lose a couple of years. If something is wrong, fix it if you can. But train yourself not to worry. Worry never fixes anything.”
– Mary Hemingway
Insightful and Smart Worry Quotes
“Worrying is carrying tomorrow’s load with today’s strength- carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.”
– Corrie Ten Boom
“If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it’s not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.”
– Dalai Lama
“Instead of worrying about what you cannot control, shift your energy to what you can create.”
– Roy T. Bennett
“I believe everyone should have a broad picture of how the universe operates and our place in it. It is a basic human desire. And it also puts our worries in perspective.”’
– Stephen Hawking
“The truth is that there is no actual stress or anxiety in the world; it’s your thoughts that create these false beliefs. You can’t package stress, touch it, or see it. There are only people engaged in stressful thinking.”
– Wayne Dyer
“Worrying about every little thing will eventually stop you in your tracks for good. Take a chance of yourself. Start living without fear. Stop missing out on your own life. Just go for it!”
– Christine E. Szymanski
“Never worry alone. When anxiety grabs my mind, it is self-perpetuating. Worrisome thoughts reproduce faster than rabbits, so one of the most powerful ways to stop the spiral of worry is simply to disclose my worry to a friend. The simple act of reassurance from another human being becomes a tool of the Spirit to cast out fear — because peace and fear are both contagious.”
– John Ortberg
“Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all.”
– Norman Vincent Peale
“Temperamentally anxious people can have a hard time staying motivated, period, because their intense focus on their worries distracts them from their goals.”
– Winifred Gallagher
“A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety.”
– Aesop
“Become a worry-slapper. Treat frets like mosquitoes. Do you procrastinate when a bloodsucking bug lights on your skin? ‘I’ll take care of it in a moment.’ Of course you don’t! You give the critter the slap it deserves. Be equally decisive with anxiety.”
– Max Lucado
“If the problem can be solved why worry? If the problem cannot be solved worrying will do you no good.”
– Shantideva
“Worry – a God, invisible but omnipotent. It steals the bloom from the cheek and lightness from the pulse; it takes away the appetite, and turns the hair gray.”
– Benjamin Disraeli
“I choose to be inspired by things that have been done well in the past. So, I don’t worry about being compared, because I think that does paralyze you.”
– Kenneth Branagh
“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them have never happened.”
– Mark Twain
Short Worry Quotes
“You probably wouldn’t worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do.”
– Olin Miller
“Worry pretends to be necessary, but serves no useful purpose.”
– Eckhart Tolle
“It’s OKAY to be scared. Being scared means you’re about to do something really, really brave.”
– Mandy Hale
“Worry is a misuse of the imagination.”
– Dan Zadra
“Sorrow looks back, worry looks around, faith looks up”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Worrying is using your imagination to create something you don’t want.”
– Abraham Hicks
“Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.”
– Marcus Aurelius
“Whatever is going to happen will happen, whether we worry or not.”
– Ana Monnar
“By forgetting the past and by throwing myself into other interests, I forget to worry.”
– Jack Dempsey
“A mistake in judgment isn’t fatal, but too much anxiety about judgment is.”
– Pauline Kael
“At the end of the day, life is too short to worry.”
– Lauren Ash
“Turn your attention for a while away from the worries and anxieties. Remind yourself of all your many blessings.”
– Ralph Marston
“Let our advance worrying become advanced thinking and planning.”
– Winston Churchill
“There were many terrible things in my life and most of them never happened.”
– Michel de Montaigne
“Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.”
– Benjamin Franklin
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Thanks for sharing these great quotes! An old favorite of mine is –
It makes no sense to worry about things you have no control over because there’s nothing you can do about them, and why worry about things you do control? The activity of worrying keeps you immobilized.
Wayne Dyer
“If you can’t sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying. It’s the worry that gets you, not the lack of sleep.”
The worst problem for me is worrying at night. Its like a floodgate opens and all the crap from the past and worries about the future come pouring out. And the worrying is totally pointless. It doesn’t fix anything. Doesn’t prepare me or heal me. I’m going to try this. Great Quotes!
As a video gamer, my favorite quote was “If you treat every situation as a life and death matter, you’ll die a lot of times.” I think it correctly recognizes that the stress is caused by our sympathetic nervous system that literally thinks that many of our daily encounters are lethal. So being aware that my body’s overreacting helps me prioritize things better.
I’m a new reader, and I’m eager to learn about how to overcome anxiety and self doubt and procrastination.
Really wonderful quotes. Thank you for compiling this.
I liked the quote “worry is like rocking chair —-“
“Worrying works – 99.9% of the things I worry about never happen.”
Thank you, Henrik. My fav listed is #5 by Dale Carnegie.
Matthew wrote nearly 10 verses (Jesus’ words) about not being anxious. It’s Golden.
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?…(Matt 6:25 – 34).
One of my favourite worry quotes is by Vash Young : No man can add one dollar to his bank account by worrying.