27 Inspirational quotes about life and struggles

Many of us nowadays find ourselves on a quest for self knowledge and healing in response to the pressures that come with everyday life. To help us on this journey, The School of Life has published a pithy collection of insightful aphorisms, Quotes To Live By.

Each quotation in the book is taken from The School of Life’s wider portfolio of books, which explore topics like the pursuit of love, success at work or strategies for mental calmness. 

Leafing through the pages, you’ll find truisms that are alternately philosophical and punchily witty, each offering a refreshing perspective that might help you see life’s challenges through new eyes.

We’ve compiled some of our favourite quotations from the book below. 

Courtesy of School of Life

Regret about exes: never trust what you feel now, only what you knew then.

We keep imagining that we haven’t met ‘the right person’; we overlook that we might have the wrong picture of love.

In love, rather than being heralded as perfect, it is a great deal more reassuring, and therefore romantic, to be recognised as deeply flawed – but on that basis, deserving of boundless tenderness and patience.

We can get better at daring to ask people out on a date when we grasp that we’re not thereby asking them what we unconsciously think we’re asking: ‘Do I deserve to exist?’ We’re asking something far more innocent, and farmore survivable were the answer to be negative: ‘Might you be free on Friday?’

We end up lonely because it seems so implausible to us that other people might be lonely too.

Courtesy of School of Life

Going a bit mad for a time is a very common and ultimately rather sane rite of passage.

It isn’t logical that "being happy" should be any easier than learning the violin – or require any less effort.

Some of our greatest insights come when we stop trying to be purposeful and instead respect the creative potential of daydreaming, that strategic rebellion against the excessive demands of immediate pressures, in favour of the diffuse, earnest exploration of our convoluted deep selves.

Anxiety deserves greater dignity. It is not a sign of degeneracy; it is a justifiable expression of panic at our mysterious participation in a disordered, uncertain world.

We should learn from physical rehabilitation how long it might take to feel well again. Recovery from a broken wrist might take six months, and it can be a year before a new hip is functioning once more. A mind that’s broken can take longer still – it could be one or two years, even four or five. We shouldn’t be surprised: the mind is a far more complex organ than any bone or muscle and so warrants a correspondingly lengthy period of recuperation.

We should never take seriously any worry that suddenly appears extremely pressing after midnight. What we panic about in the early hours should automatically be discounted. We should accept that night destroys reason.

In the midst of a breakdown, we often wonder whether we have gone mad. We have not. We’re behaving oddly no doubt, but beneath the surface agitation, we are on a hidden yet logical search for health. We haven’t become ill; we were ill already. Our crisis is an attempt to dislodgeus from a demented status quo and an insistent call to rebuild our lives on a more authentic and sincere basis.

Courtesy of School of Life

Given how important being successful is said to be, it’s notable that, almost always, the nicest (and funniest) people to be around are those convinced, often to the point of wanting to end matters, that they have made a mess of their lives.

Anyone who isn’t embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn’t learning enough.

A so-called "meaningful" job is any occupation that leaves us feeling, at the close of the day, that we have somehow either decreased the suffering or increased the satisfaction of another human being.

Sunday angst is trying in its own confused way to tell us something worth listening to: we must change our lives.

The fear of saying something stupid (which stupid people never have) has censored far more good ideas than bad ones.

The best way to separate out ambition from fear is to ask oneself what one would do if one could not fail.

We overcome procrastination, not by berating ourselves to ‘work harder’ but by attempting to weaken the background punishing perfectionism that is responsible for stalling us with fear.

The road to greater confidence begins with a ritual of telling oneself solemnly every morning, before heading out for the day, that one is a muttonhead, a cretin, a dumbbell and an imbecile. One or two more acts of folly should, thereafter, not matter very much at all.

Courtesy of School of Life

An average life might be only 600,000 hours long; we could sometimes do with frightening ourselves a little into making a change.

The upside of catastrophism: a string of pleasant surprises.

We may try to blame our lack of creative inspiration on not being sufficiently ‘well read’ – yet how vastly better read we already are, by simple virtue of the times we live in, than Plato, the Buddha or Shakespeare.

The wise know that turmoil is always around the corner– and they have come to fear and sense its approach. That’s why they nurture such a strong commitment to calm. A quiet evening feels like an achievement. A day without anxiety is something to be celebrated. They are not afraid of having a somewhat boring time. There could, and will again, be so much worse.

You have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of flowers, pretty skies and uneventful ‘boring’ days.

The best books help us to rediscover the exiled bits of ourselves.

Though it may feel otherwise, enjoying life is no more dangerous than apprehending it with continuous anxiety and gloom.

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