50+ Positive Psychology Quotes: Our Favorite Reflections

Powerful quotes can help you understand yourself and the world around you. They can even help you achieve personal fulfillment.

Here is a list of 50+ of the most inspirational positive psychology quotes in the world. In this post, you’ll find quotes provided by positive psychology experts, well-known psychologists, and influential people from around the globe.

Sandip Roy, the founder of the Happiness India Project, has been so kind as to let us use the amazing content he has created for his positive psychology quotes webpage.

I’m sure you’ll agree that he has done a great job. Get ready to be inspired and enjoy these words of wisdom.

Before you read on, we thought you might like to download our 3 Positive Psychology Exercises for free. These science-based exercises will explore fundamental aspects of positive psychology including strengths, values and self-compassion and will give you the tools to enhance the wellbeing of your clients, students or employees.

Positive Psychology Quotes from Influential People

Positive Psychology Quotes “from the Crowds”

Today I sent out an e-mail with one of my favorite positive psychology quotes to over 5,000 of our loyal subscribers.

It goes as follows:

“For a long time, it had seemed to me that life was about to begin — real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid, then life would begin. At last, it dawned upon me that these obstacles were my life.”

Father Alfred D. Souza

I invited everyone to reply with their most inspiring positive psychology quote. With everyone’s consent, I feel honored to share with you the following quotes, insights, knowledge, and wisdom.

I hope you take the time to read, relax, and enjoy these quotes!

One of Martin Seligman’s and Cathy Parsons’ favorite quotes

“The purpose of life is to discover your gift; the work of life is to develop it; and the meaning of life is to give your gift away.”

David Viscott

Christel Löwenthal’s favorite quote

“You are the books you read, the films you watch, the music you listen to, the people you meet, the dreams you have, the conversations you engage in. You are what you take from these. You are the sound of the ocean, the breath of fresh air, the brightest light and the darkest corner. You are a collective of every experience you have had in your life. You are every single day. So drown yourself in a sea of knowledge and existence. Let the words run through your veins and let the colors fill your mind.”

Jac Vanec

Sotiris Karagiannis’s favorite positive psychology video

Sotiris submitted this greatly inspiring video by Constantin Pilavios entitled Small Pleasures instead of a quote:

Christina Frederick’s favorite quote on resilience

“My barn having burned to the ground, I can now see the moon.”

Mizuta Masahide

Julian Saez’s favorite quote

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”

Marcus Aurelius

Shehwar Shikoh’s favorite quote

“Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

Larry Richard’s favorite quote

“Absence destroys small passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes tapers and kindles fires.”

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Jon Inge’s favorite quote

“The majority of us lead quiet, unheralded lives as we pass through this world. There will most likely be no ticker-tape parades for us, no monuments created in our honor. But that does not lessen our possible impact, for there are scores of people waiting for someone just like us to come along; people who will appreciate our compassion, our unique talents. Someone who will live a happier life merely because we took the time to share what we had to give. Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have a potential to turn a life around. It’s overwhelming to consider the continuous opportunities there are to make our love felt.”

Leo Buscaglia

Diana Luiza Mocanita’s favorite quote

“Promise me you will not spend so much time treading water and trying to keep your head above the waves that you forget, truly forget, how much you have always loved to swim.”

Tyler Knott Gregson

Trish Lui’s favorite quote

“Don’t aim at success — the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.”

Victor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

Daniela Niesta Kayser’s favourite quotes as images

John Thompson’s two favorite quotes

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

– Victor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

“Radical acceptance rests on letting go of the illusion of control and a willingness to notice and accept things as they are right now, without judging.”

Marsha Linehan, Ph.D.

Nerilee McKenzie’s favorite quote

“Life can show up no other way than that way in which you perceive it.”

Neale Donald Walsch

Alan Davidson’s favorite quote

“As long as anyone believes that his ideal and purpose is outside him, that it is above the clouds, in the past or in the future, he will go outside himself and seek fulfillment where it cannot be found. He will look for solutions and answers at every point except where they can be found — in himself.”

Erich Fromm

Agnes Bogdan’s favorite positive psychology song

Agnes sent us this song that, according to her, expresses the very core of positive psychology.

Asfia Sohail’s favorite quote

“Each breath in itself is joy if only we try to find Bliss in it.”

Unknown

Sharifa Siddiqui’s favorite quote (It’s a personal favorite of mine as well!)

“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”

Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

Judie Al’s favorite quote

“If you hear a voice within you say, ‘You cannot paint,’ then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Jerry Grad’s two favorite quotes

“The answer lies within the question itself.”

Unknown

“Happiness cannot be attained by wanting to be happy — it must come as the unintended consequence of working for a goal greater than oneself.”

Victor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

Birender Ahluwalia’s favorite quote

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.”

Marianne Williamson

Santiago De Francisco’s favorite quote

“The good life is best construed as a matrix that includes happiness, occasional sadness, a sense of purpose, playfulness, and psychological flexibility, as well as autonomy, mastery, and belonging.”

Robert Biswas-Diener

Nicole Downes’ favorite quote

“You don’t have to be the best at something. You just have to be the most determined.”

Lauren Burns, Australian Olympic Taekwondo Gold Medalist

Lilian Jans-Beken’s favorite quote

“Afhadali kutoakulikokupokea. Which is Swahili for: ‘It is better to give than to receive.’ ”

Marta Mendías’ favorite quote

“I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.”

Carl Jung

Razma Mazhar’s favorite quote

“When well-being comes from engaging our strengths and virtues, our lives are imbued with authenticity.”

Martin Seligman

Raymond Tieu’s favorite quotes

“When you forgive others you dignify yourself.”

Unknown

“There are two things in life that cannot wait: fulfilling filial piety and doing good deeds.”

Master Cheng Yen

“Recognize, appreciate and repay your parents’ love.”

Master Cheng Yen’s Jing Si Aphorisms

Samay Soni’s favorite quote

“We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are, One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

Excerpt from the poem Ulysses by Lord Alfred Tennyson

Christine Weinkauff found her favorite quote where you’d least expect it: on a sign in the middle of a small town in northwest Indiana. Respect!

Muhammad Nauman’s favorite quote

“Love for a cause not applause. Live to express, not to impress. Live by choice, not by chance. Make changes, not excuses. Be motivated, not manipulated. Work to excel, not to compete. Listen to your inner voice For therein lies the answer to life worth living.”

Unknown

Eamon O’Brien’s favorite quote

“In the depths of midwinter I finally learned there was an invisible summer.”

Albert Camus

Eamon added: “I love simple thoughts that help me get perspective and some more self-compassion. ‘Life is unfair,’ ‘The goalposts will move,’ and above all, ‘Other people matter.'”

Herman Pouokam’s favorite poem:

Herman Pouokam advises us to read this poem by Rudyard Kipling for more inspiration.

Julie F. Troum’s favorite quote

“Purposeful action is thus the goal of all that is truly educative.”

John Dewey

Julie remarked: “As an educator, my students find that having purpose leads to enjoyment and motivation.” Find out more about Julie’s work at her website.

Devaraju Kadari’s favorite quote

“By activating an expansive, tolerant, and creative mindset, positive feelings maximize the social, intellectual, and physical benefits that will accrue.”

Martin Seligman

Shirlynn Tan’s favorite quote

“The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination.”

Carl Rogers

Beth Cannarozzi’s favorite quote

“When you appreciate the good, the good appreciates.”

Tal Ben-Shahar

Felicity Dwyer’s favorite quote

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

Excerpt from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Jack Douglas Cerva’s favorite quotes

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“When I am in New York, I want to be in Europe, and when I am in Europe, I want to be in New York.”

Woody Allen

Boy Smits’ favorite quote

“Be so happy that, when other people look at you, they become happy too.”

Harbhajan Singh Yogi

Rajeev Rajdeep’s favorite quote

“The universe stands aside for those people who know where they are going.”

Paulo Coelho

Hugo Alberts’ favorite quote

“A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery while on a detour.”

Unknown

You can download all of these quotes and more as a PDF file (53kB) here.

What is Your Favorite Positive Psychology Quote?

We invite you to comment below.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our 3 Positive Psychology Exercises for free.