100 Anxiety Quotes To Help You Recharge And Relax

By Maxime Lagacé

Maxime is the founder of WisdomQuotes. He has been collecting quotes since 2004. His goal? To help you develop a calm and peaceful mind. Learn more about him on his about page.

Top 10 Quotes – Inspirational – Funny – More Quotes – Visual – Resources – Further Readings

I’ve been seeking inner peace since 2004.

So I’ve spent 1000+ hours curating quotes to “cure” myself of anxiety.

The result?

100 of the best anxiety quotes I could find.

But before you jump in, please remember this:

Take it cool
Slow down

And read the quotes with care so you understand their true meaning.

Once you better understand anxiety, you’ll have a calmer mindset to navigate life.

You’ll discover quotes by Marcus Aurelius, Eckhart Tolle, Alan Watts, Seneca, Buddha, and more!

Enjoy!

Top 10 Anxiety Quotes

Anxiety isn’t a malfunction. It’s a signal. Johann Hari (Source)

Anxiety is the handmaiden of contemporary ambition. Alain de Botton (Status Anxiety)

Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions – not outside. Marcus Aurelius

Cultivate calm and stillness: let go of anxiety as a lifestyle. Brené Brown

If you aren’t in the moment, you are either looking forward to uncertainty, or back to pain and regret. Jim Carrey

Life is not a tension anywhere except in the minds of humanity. Osho

It’s important to give up – maybe daily – the longing to be perfect…what a heavy burden. Fred Rogers

All this hurrying from place to place won’t bring you any relief, for you’re traveling in the company of your own emotions, followed by your troubles all the way. Seneca

True happiness is to enjoy the present without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied, for he that is wants nothing. Seneca

He who fears he will suffer, already suffers because he fears. Michel de Montaigne

Inspirational And Positive Anxiety Quotes

Imagine how effective you would be if you weren’t anxious all the time. Naval Ravikant

We need, above all things, to slow down and get ourselves to amble through life instead of to rush through it. Alan Watts

Trust yourself. You’ve survived a lot, and you’ll survive whatever is coming. Robert Tew

Always do the things you fear the most. Courage is an acquired taste, like caviar. Erica Jong

I have not ceased being fearful, but I have ceased to let fear control me. Erica Jong

It is always possible to practice releasing the tension in yourself. Thich Nhat Hanh

Lay hold of today’s task, and you will not need to depend so much upon tomorrow’s. Seneca

Today, you can decide to walk in freedom. You can choose to walk differently. You can walk as a free person, enjoying every step. Thich Nhat Hanh

When you become comfortable with uncertainty, infinite possibilities open up in your life. It means fear is no longer a dominant factor in what you do and no longer prevents you from taking action to initiate change. Eckhart Tolle

Excitement and emotion arise when something is not understood. As it is understood, one naturally becomes unfazed. One naturally becomes equanimous. Kapil Gupta

Amateurs are scared – scared to be vulnerable and honest with themselves. Professionals feel like they are capable of handling almost anything. Shane Parrish

There is nothing more powerful than releasing the need to control and relying on a power greater than you to restore your thoughts and energy. Gabby Bernstein

It doesn’t really matter what you are afraid of. Trust yourself enough to confront it, walk through it and survive. Iyanla Vanzant

A warrior accepts that we can never know what will happen to us next. Pema Chödrön

Funny Anxiety Quotes

Anxiety’s like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you very far. Jodi Picoult (Sing You Home: A Novel)

Free time is death to the anxious, and thank goodness I don’t have any of it right now. Jon Stewart

The cure for anything is salt water: tears, sweat, or the sea. Isak Dinesen

Relax; the world’s not watching that closely. It’s too busy contemplating itself in the mirror. Richelle E. Goodrich

The mind is like a television set with hundreds of channels. Which channel will you turn on? Thich Nhat Hanh

Of all your troubles, great and small, the greatest are the ones that don’t happen at all. Thomas Carlyle

There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea. Bernard-Paul Heroux

Related

Short Anxiety Quotes

He who hurries through life hurries to his grave. George R. R. Martin (A Clash of Kings, 1999)

Do what you can, with what you’ve got, where you are. Theodore Roosevelt

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Present fears are less than horrible imaginings. William Shakespeare (Macbeth)

Nothing is permanent in this wicked world — not even our troubles. Charlie Chaplin

Create more. Consume less. Maxime Lagacé

What separates people is how they respond. Shane Parrish

A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow. Charlotte Brontë

Anxiety disappears once you focus on what you can control. Orange Book (Source)

The wiser you get, the more you ignore things that are useless. Maxime Lagacé

You are far from the only nervous person in the room. Thibaut

We are terrified by the idea of being terrified. Friedrich Nietzsche

Cultivate intuition and trust faith: let go of the need for certainty. Brené Brown

The desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing. Alan Watts

For fast acting relief, try slowing down. Lily Tomlin

The first step: Don’t be anxious. Nature controls it all. Marcus Aurelius

More Quotes About Anxiety

Anxiety, the illness of our time, comes primarily from our inability to dwell in the present moment. Thich Nhat Hanh

Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset. What is anything in life compared to peace of soul? Francis de Sales

We labour at our daily work more ardently and thoughtlessly than is necessary to sustain our life because it is even more necessary not to have leisure to stop and think. Haste is universal because everyone is in flight from himself. Friedrich Nietzsche

Stepping out of the busyness is perhaps the most beautiful offering we can make to our spirit. Tara Brach

Don’t worry about achieving. Don’t worry about perfection. Just be there each moment as best you can. Pema Chödrön

Not being able to govern events, I govern myself. Michel de Montaigne

Often the moment when we most need to pause is exactly when it feels most intolerable to do so. Tara Brach (Radical Acceptance)

Rather than relaxing and enjoying who we are and what we’re doing, we are comparing ourselves with an ideal and trying to make up for the difference. Tara Brach (Radical Acceptance)

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, not to anticipate the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly. Buddha

Fear exists only in your mind, not in nature. Detach yourself, trust life, become free. Maxime Lagacé

The three great American vices seem to be efficiency, punctuality, and the desire for achievement and success. They are the things that make the Americans so unhappy and so nervous. Lin Yutang

Stop measuring days by degree of productivity and start experiencing them by degree of presence. Alan Watts

anxiety quotes person trust relax existence osho wisdom

The person who trusts can relax into existence. The person who cannot trust remains tense, remains anxious, afraid. Osho

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. Mark Twain

Persistent, non-specific anxiety is the result of wanting so much, talking so much, and doing so much that you lose touch with the quiet joys of solitude. Naval Ravikant

It did what all ads are supposed to do: create an anxiety relievable by purchase. David Foster Wallace

You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. Maya Angelou

Our anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strengths. Charles Spurgeon

If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present. Lao Tzu

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away. Henry David Thoreau

All your anxiety is because of your desire for harmony. Seek disharmony, then you will gain peace. Rumi

Men seek rest in a struggle against difficulties; and when they have conquered these, rest becomes insufferable. Blaise Pascal

The faster and busier things get, the more we need to build thinking time into our schedule. And the noisier things get, the more we need to build quiet reflection spaces in which we can truly focus. Greg McKeown

Be scared. You can’t help that. But don’t be afraid. William Faulkner

anxiety quotes worries diminished realizing bertrand russell wisdom

A great many worries can be diminished by realizing the unimportance of the matter which is causing the anxiety. Bertrand Russell

Cultivate play and rest: let go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self-worth. Brené Brown

Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor. Thich Nhat Hanh

You’ll find that life is still worthwhile, if you just smile. Charlie Chaplin

A rational person can find peace by cultivating indifference to things outside of their control. Naval Ravikant

She was terrified of everything, and terrified to show it. David Foster Wallace

The level to which we protect ourselves from being vulnerable is a measure of our fear and disconnection. Brené Brown (Daring Greatly)

Anxiety is a side effect of trying to live in future without the ability to shape it. Kunal Shah (Source)

Unresolved thoughts, prematurely pushed out of the mind, pile up in an internal landfill – which eventually pokes out of the subconscious and manifests as chronic, nonspecific anxiety. Naval Ravikant

What we have to discover is that there is no safety, that seeking it is painful, and that when we imagine we have found it, we don’t like it. Alan Watts

To venture causes anxiety, but not to venture is to lose one’s self… And to venture in the highest is precisely to be conscious of one’s self. Søren Kierkegaard

If you trade your authenticity for safety, you may experience the following: anxiety, depression, eating disorders, addiction, rage, blame, resentment, and inexplicable grief. Brené Brown

You’re anxious because you avoid anxiety provoking situations. Paul Domenick

anxiety quotes come thinking future control kahlil gibran wisdom

Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control it. Kahlil Gibran

Thought is responsible for fear. Thought is responsible for pleasure. Jiddu Krishnamurti

Perhaps all anxiety might derive from a fixation on moments — an inability to accept life as ongoing. Sarah Manguso

The anxiety many feel is a result of trying to live in the world their imagination created, while being forced to live in the real world. Thibaut

Life seems to be a process of replacing one anxiety with another and substituting one desire for another – which is not to say that we should never strive to overcome any of our anxieties or fulfil any of our desires, but rather to suggest that we should perhaps build into our strivings an awareness of the way our goals promise us a respite and a resolution that they cannot, by definition, deliver. Alain de Botton (Status Anxiety, Amazon Book)

People think it would be nice to have peace of mind, to be serene, to be calm, to be undisturbed by this, that, and the other. But as long as you make all those things objects of desire, you have defined yourself as lacking them. Alan Watts

No amount of anxiety can change the future. No amount of regret can change the past. Karen Salmansohn

Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems. Epictetus

Desire disappears as you become more and more aware. When awareness is one hundred percent, there is no desire at all. Osho

There’s no situation that calls for mild anxiety. Either increase the level of stress to promote action, or forget about it and enjoy life. Johnny Uzan

A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety. Aesop

To be in harmony with the wholeness of things is not to have anxiety over imperfections. Dogen

Two kinds of happiness. Worldly happiness is reward from our evolutionary program. Get praise, money, drugs, sex. It busies the mind with craving and anxiety. Internal happiness is reward from being in flow. Create, meditate, love, play. It clears the mind and leaves us in peace. Naval Ravikant

Related: The One Question We Need to Ask Ourselves When We Feel Anxious (YouTube video by The School of Life)