103 Mental Health Quotes To Better Your Mindset

Everyone struggles with mental health from time to time, particularly after a traumatic event, a personal loss, or other troubles. But when things seem bad, it’s important to remember that you can take steps to try to make yourself feel better and regain control over your thoughts.

Indeed, your mental health is largely affected by your habits and mindset. Like physical health, you can practice good habits and positive thought patterns to improve your mentality. If you don’t know where to start, some supportive and positive mental health quotes might be just the tools to help.

Let’s break down some top mental health quotes to help you better your mindset. You can save these quotes at night before bed or in the morning when you wake up. Alternatively, say them whenever you need a reminder that things aren’t as bad as they seem.

General Quotes About Mental Health

When times get tough, and you feel that you are experiencing a great struggle, remember these quotes. They’re advice, life lessons, and truisms about mental health challenges and perceptions – including the most common, which is that you’re alone in your difficulties. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, struggling with mental health doesn’t mean you’re broken, nor does it mean you’re alone.

1. “There is hope, even when your brain tells you there isn’t.” – John Green
2. “Anything that’s human is manageable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary.” – Fred Rogers
3. “What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, and more unashamed conversation.” – Glenn Close
4. “Mental health problems don’t define who you are. They are something you experience. You walk in the rain and you feel the rain, but, importantly, you are not the rain.” – Matt Haig
5. “Being able to be your true self is one of the strongest components of good mental health.” – Dr. Lauren Fogel Mersy
6. “You don’t have to be positive all the time. It’s perfectly okay to feel sad, angry, annoyed, frustrated, scared, and anxious. Having feelings doesn’t make you a negative person. It makes you human.” – Lori Deschene
7. “My dark days made me stronger. Or maybe I was already strong, and they made me prove it.” – Emery Lord
8. “Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I’m not going to make it, but you laugh inside, remembering all the times you’ve felt that way.” – Charles Bukowski
9. “Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.” – Henry David Thoreau
10. “There’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” – Leonard Cohen
11. “You don’t have to control your thoughts. You just have to stop letting them control you.” – Dan Millman
12. “Mental health is something that we all need to talk about, and we need to take the stigma away from it. So let’s raise the awareness. Let’s let everybody know it’s okay to have a mental illness and addiction problem.” – Demi Lovato
13. “The experience I have had is that once you start talking about experiencing a mental health struggle, you realize that actually, you’re part of quite a big club.” – Prince Harry
14. “Mental health… is not a destination, but a process. It’s about how you drive, not where you’re going.” – Noam Shpancer, PhD
15. “Just because no one else can heal or do your inner work for you doesn’t mean you can, should, or need to do it alone.” – Lisa Olivera
16. “If we start being honest about our pain, our anger, and our shortcomings instead of pretending they don’t exist, then maybe we’ll leave the world a better place than we found it.” – Russell Wilson
17. “You are not your illness. You have an individual story to tell. You have a name, a history, a personality. Staying yourself is part of the battle.” – Julian Seifter
18. “One small crack does not mean that you are broken, it means that you are put to the test, and you didn’t fall apart.” – Linda Poindexter
19. “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have no defeat, known suffering, known struggle, no loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
20. “Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times if only one remembers to turn on the light.” – Albus Dumbledore
21. “I found that with depression, one of the most important things you can realize is that you’re not alone. You’re not the first to go through it, you’re not gonna be the last to go through it.” – Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
22. “The humanity we all share is more important than the mental illnesses we may not.” – Elyn R. Saks
23. “Mental health is just as important as physical health and deserves the same quality of support.” – Kate Middleton
24. “There isn’t anyone out there who doesn’t have a mental health issue, whether it’s depression, anxiety, or how to cope with relationships. Having OCD is not an embarrassment anymore for me. Just know that there is help, and your life could be better if you go out and seek the help.” – Howie Mandel
25. “Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, but stigma and bias shame us all.” – Bill Clinton
26. “There’s so much pain in the world, and most of these people keep there’s secret, rolling through agonizing lives in invisible wheelchairs, dressed in invisible body casts.” – Andrew Solomon
27. “It’s not the bruises on the body that hurt. It is the wounds of the heart and the scars on the mind.” – Aisha Mirza
28. “Just remember, you are not alone, in fact, you are in a very commonplace with millions of others. We need to help each other and keep striving to reach our goals.” – Mike Moreno
29. “Life doesn’t make any sense without interdependence. We need each other, and the sooner we learn that, the better for us all.” – Erik Erickson
30. “You are not alone. You are seen. I am with you. You are not alone.” – Shona Rhimes

Quotes About the Importance of Mental Health

In recent years, many have undertaken a great public challenge to prove how important mental health is. In fact, mental health is just as important as physical health. If you ever find yourself believing your mental health is lesser than other aspects of wellness, read some of these quotes to convince yourself of the truth. A healthy mind leads to a healthy body!

31. “That was the crux. You. Only you could work on you. Nobody could force you, and if you weren’t ready, then you weren’t ready, and no amount of open-armed encouragement was going to change that.” – Norah Vincent.
32. “Don’t believe everything you think.” – Unknown
33. “Deep breathing is our nervous system’s love language.” – Dr. Lauren Fogel Mersy
34. “The gentlest reminder: you might not need to read another self-help book, attend another training, or bookmark another Instagram post as much as you need to listen to, trust, and practice what you already know. What if the answer you’re looking for is actually within you already?” – Lisa Olivera
35. “When I don’t pay attention to my feelings, I tend to put up with situations and people longer than I should.” – Allyson Dinneen
36. “As you reflect back on the previous weeks, months, or year, look for moments you can celebrate too. There will be some, even if you have to look a little harder.” – Emily Coxhead
37. “By taking care of myself, I have so much more to offer the world that I do when I am running on empty.” – Ali Washington
38. “Start listening to the way you talk to yourself. These interactions will tell you how well you know yourself, how much you respect yourself, and what boundaries you are lacking.” – Sara Kuburix
39. “Until you make the conscious unconscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.” – Carl Jung
40. “The best thing you could do is master the chaos and you. You are not thrown into the fire, you are the fire.” – Mama Indigo
41. “Self-compassion is simply giving the same kindness to ourselves that we would give to others.” – Christopher Germer

Mental Health Quotes About Anxiety and Depression

Millions of people around the world suffer from anxiety and depression, and everyone has worrying thoughts from time to time. These quotes can help you understand that you’re not alone in your struggle, nor are you somehow broken for having experienced a mental health condition. If you’re dealing with anxiety and depression, there is hope.

42. “Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.” – Charles Spurgeon
43. “Slow breathing is like an anchor in the midst of an emotional storm: the anchor won’t make the storm go away, but it will hold you study until it passes.” – Russ Harris
44. “My anxiety doesn’t come from thinking about the future but from wanting to control it.” – Hugh Prather
45. “Feelings come and go like clouds in the windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.” – Thich Nhat Hanh
46. “Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are trained.” – Arthur Somers Roche
47. “No amount of anxiety can change the future. No amount of regret can change the past.” – Karen Salmansohn
48. “Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action.” – Walter Anderson
49. “Good humor as a tonic for the mind and body. It is the best antidote for anxiety and depression. It is a business asset. It attracts and keeps friends. It lightens human burdens. It is the direct route to serenity and contentment.” – Grenville Kleiser
50. “If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.” – Amit Ray
51. “What does your anxiety do? It does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, but it empties today of its strength. It does not make you escape the evil; it makes you unfit to cope with it if it comes.” – Raymond L. Cramer
52. “Don’t let your mind bully your body into believing it must carry the burden of its worries.” – Astrid Alauda
53. “The strongest people are not those who show strength in front of the world but those who fight and win battles that others do not know anything about.” – Jonathan Harnisch
54. “Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them – every day begin the task anew.” – Saint Francis de Sales
55. “Feeling your feelings will not lead to depression.” – Jordan Pickell, MCP RCC
56. “If you rely solely on medication to manage depression or anxiety, for example, you have done nothing to train the mind, so that when you come off the medication, you are just as vulnerable to a relapse as though you had never taken the medication.” – Daniel Goleman
57. “It’s my experience that people are a lot more sympathetic if they can see you hurting, and for the millionth time in my life, I wish for measles or smallpox or some other easily understood disease just to make it easier on me and also on them.” – Jennifer Niven
58. “Change what you can, manage what you can’t.” – Raymond McCauley
59. “Because wherever I sat – on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok – I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.” – Sylvia Plath
60. “Mental health affects every aspect of your life. It’s not just this neat little issue you can put in a box.” – Shannon Purser
61. “Crazy isn’t being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever.” – Susanna Kaysen
62. “The acknowledgment of having suffered evil is the greatest step forward in mental health.” – Stefan Molyneux
63. “I knew well enough that one could fracture one’s legs and arms and recover afterward, but I did not know that you could fracture the brain in your head and recover from that too.” – Vincent van Gogh
64. “We are not our trauma. We are not our brain chemistry. That’s part of who we are, but we are so much more than that.” – Sam J. Miller
65. “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” – Frederick Douglass

Quotes About Mental Health Treatment

Getting treatment for your mental health condition is paramount. Fortunately, this is becoming a commonly accepted viewpoint. But it’s important to approach mental health treatment wisely and carefully. You hold the power to take charge of your mental wellness in more ways than one.

66. “No amount of therapy or self-care can make up for scarcity of food and drink, time, or financial resources.” – Whitney Goodman
67. “You don’t need to find a lesson in your trauma.” – Jordan Pickell, MCP RCC
68. “We want you to know that you don’t need to be in crisis or distress to seek help as going to therapy has numerous benefits.” – Carla Avalos LCSW+PMH-C
69. “What if you moved to the world as if you are easy to be loved? Because I promise you, you are easy to love.” – Sonalee Rashatwar, LCSW
70. “Take a deep breath to remember you are the child who lived through survival mode and the empowered adult who chose their healing.” – Dr. Nicole LePera
71. “‘Positive vibes only’ isn’t a thing. Humans have a wide range of emotions, and that’s okay.” – Molly Bahr, LMHC
72. “No amount of support or generosity justifies someone treating you badly. This includes parents.” – Sarah Crosby
73. “Part of my identity is saying no to things I don’t want to do… I check in with myself throughout the day, and I say, ‘Do I really want to do this?’ and if the answer is no, then I don’t do it. And you shouldn’t either.” – Lady Gaga
74. “Everyone experiences a version of anxiety or worry in their lives, and maybe we go through it in a different or more intense way for longer periods of time, but there’s nothing wrong with you.” – Emma Stone
75. “Being vulnerable is actually a strength and not a weakness – that’s why more and more mental health is such an important thing to talk about. It’s the same as being physically sick. And when you keep all those things inside, when you bottle them up, it makes you ill.” – Cara Delevingne
76. “We would never tell someone with a broken leg that they should stop wallowing and get it together. We don’t consider taking medication for an ear infection something to be ashamed of. We shouldn’t treat mental health conditions any differently.” – Michelle Obama
77. “What I love about therapy is that they’ll tell you what your blind spots are. Although that’s uncomfortable and painful, it gives you something to work with.” – Pink
78. “I was with someone recently who asked: ‘Well, don’t you think that if you do too much therapy, it will take away your artistic process?’ And I told them: ‘The biggest lie that we’ve ever been sold is that we as artists have to stay in pain to create.’” – Katy Perry

Mental Health Quotes About Triumph Through Adversity

Even the toughest challenges have a bright side: you emerge on the other side as a stronger, wiser individual. Read these quotes back to yourself when you struggle to see the value in triumphing over adversity, especially if that adversity is internal or not necessarily visible to anyone on the outside.

79. “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill
80. “Increasing the strength of our minds is the only way to reduce the difficulty of life.” – Mokokoma Mokhonoana
81. “I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship.” – Amy March, from Little Women
82. “Promise me you’ll always remember – you’re braver than you believe and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” – Christopher Robin from Winnie the Pooh
83. “In the middle of winter, I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer.” – Albert Camus
84. “I am bent, but not broken. I am scarred but not disfigured. I am sad but not hopeless. I am tired but not powerless. I am angry but not bitter. I am depressed, but not giving up.” – Anonymous
85. “Sometimes, the people around you won’t understand your journey. They don’t need to, it’s not for them.” – Joubert Botha
86. “This feeling will pass. The fear is real, but the danger is not.” – Cammie McGovern
87. “Your present circumstances don’t determine where you go; they merely determine where you start.” – Nido Qubein
88. “Tough times never last, but tough people do!” – Robert Schuller
89. “I keep moving ahead, as always, knowing deep down inside that I am a good person and that I am worthy of a good life.” – Jonathan Harnisch
90. “Many survivors insist they’re not courageous: ‘If I were courageous, I would have stopped the abuse.” ‘If I were courageous, I wouldn’t be scared’… Most of us have it mixed up. You don’t start with courage and then face fear. You become courageous because you face your fear.” – Laura Davis

Quotes About Mental Health Awareness

In recent years, there’s been a massive push to improve mental health awareness, and that’s a good thing! These quotes highlight changing public perceptions surrounding the appropriateness of talking about mental health issues openly. If you feel unable to speak with someone, read one of these quotes; it may help to convince you that you need to – and can – speak to a professional or a friend when necessary.

91. “There are so many clichés associated with mental health – such as the ‘fine line between lunacy and genius’ – which are, on the whole, a load of rubbish.” – Jo Brand
92. “I believe the biggest in the right now, with mental health, is that a lot of men are not talking about it.” – Mauro Ranallo
93. “Mental health needs a great deal of attention. It’s the final taboo, and it needs to be faced and dealt with.” – Adam Ant
94. “It’s so important that we all speak up on mental health.” – Anne-Marie
95. “Change the way we all talk to each other about our mental health.” – Kate Middleton
96. “I often say that the opposite of depression is not happiness but vitality.” – Andrew Solomon
97. “I cannot stand the words ‘Get over it.’ All of us are under such pressure to put our problems in the past tense. Slow down. Don’t allow others to hurry your healing. It is a process, one that may take years, occasionally, even a lifetime – and that’s okay.” – Beau Taplin
98. “Mental health isn’t all of me, but it’s a massive part of my journey in a massive part of my whole being.” – Adwoa Aboah
99. “Every negative belief weakens the partnership between mind and body.” – Deepak Chopra
100. “Take your time healing, as long as you want. Nobody else knows what you’ve been through. How could they know how long it will take to heal you?” – Abertoli
101. “We need, ultimately, to be able to view mental health with the same clear-headedness we show when talking about physical health.” – Matt Haig
102. “There is no health without mental health; mental health is too important to be left to the professionals alone, and mental health is everyone’s business.” – Vikram Patel
103. “I used to be embarrassed of my broken parts. Not anymore… Even in pieces, I’m worth having.” – Alfa 

Summary

The above mental health quotes touch on many aspects of mental wellness and spiritual resilience. We all face challenges and darker days, but it’s important to remember these quotes when things seem bleak. Even though bad things can happen, things will always get better in the end. You owe it to yourself to keep this in mind.

This mindset – and the practices described in many of the quotes above – are key parts of a holistically healthy lifestyle. 1AND1’s other resources and guides can help you discover other ways to pursue wellness, so check out 1AND1 today.

Sources:

Mental Health Disorder Statistics | Johns Hopkins Medicine

Mental Health Myths and Facts | MentalHealth.gov

Mental Illness Is Far More Common Than We Knew | Scientific American