Anxiety quotes
1.1K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside anxiety — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"I pass for a hypersensitive, reclusive neurotic, which I may well be, but I hope the year won't come when my anxieties and fatigue will destroy my love of this life, of all the things that inspire me--a line of music, a face in a Vermeer portrait, a character in an opera, or a model born in Harlem."
"It is in great part the anxiety of being a woman that devastates the feminine body."
"Much of our anxiety and stress comes when we're focused on fear and disconnected from the voice of our inner guide."
"Stupidity is without anxiety."
"Awareness is without choice, without demand, without anxiety; in that state of mind, there is perception."
"We walk in circles, so limited by our own anxieties that we can no longer distinguish between true and false, between the gangster's whim and the purest ideal."
"I define anxiety as experiencing failure in advance."
"By all means take thought for the tomorrow, yes, careful thought and planning and preparation. But have no anxiety."
"I will be dead in a few months. But it hasn't given me the slightest anxiety or worry. I always knew I was going to die."
"Human beings do not know their place and purpose. They have fallen from their true place, and lost their true purpose. They search everywhere for their place and purpose, with great anxiety. But they cannot find them because they are surrounded by darkness."
"I used to think anxiety and insomnia drove me to success, but it was the stillness that let me be good at anything. When you extend the seconds of stillness, that's when you're able to think and learn."
"The best use of imagination is creativity. The worst use of imagination is anxiety."
"It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself-anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face ... was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime."
"If anyone is unhappy, remember that his unhappiness is his own fault... Nothing else is the cause of anxiety or loss of tranquility except our own opinion."
"Understanding the difference between healthy striving and perfectionism is critical to laying down the shield and picking up your life. Research shows that perfectionism hampers success. In fact, it's often the path to depression, anxiety, addiction, and life paralysis."
"Better be with the dead, Whom we to gain our peace, have sent to peace, Than on the torture of the mind to lie In restless ecstasy."
"Doubts are more cruel than the worst of truths."
"The experience of separateness arouses anxiety; it is, indeed, the source of all anxiety."
"Anxiety is the natural result when our hopes are centered in anything short of God and His will."
"Don't be forecasting evil unless it is what you can guard against. Anxiety is good for nothing if we can't turn it into a defense."
