When you need some stress relief, there’s nothing better to read than quotes about stress. It reminds you that everyone in the world deals with stress, and many people have overcome stressful situations. You are not alone.
You may also want to inspire someone going through a high-pressure period with some stress quotes. Encourage them with our roundup of the 55 best quotes about stress!
1. “To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time.”
―Leonard Bernstein
2. “Stress should be a powerful driving force, not an obstacle.”
―Bill Phillips
3. “Calmness is the cradle of power.”
―Josiah Gilbert Holland
4. “The truth is that stress doesn’t come from your boss, your kids, your spouse, traffic jams, health challenges, or other circumstances. It comes from your thoughts about your circumstances.”
―Andrew Bernstein
5. “The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.”
―William James
6. “Stress acts as an accelerator: it will push you either forward or backward, but you choose which direction.”
―Chelsea Erieau
7. “It’s not stress that kills us, it’s our reaction to it.”
―Hans Selye
8. “The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.”
―Sydney J. Harris
9. “Much of the stress that people feel doesn’t come from having too much to do. It comes from not finishing what they’ve started.”
―David Allen
10. “The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.”
11. “We can easily manage if we will only take, each day, the burden appointed to it. But the load will be too heavy for us if we carry yesterday’s burden over again today, and then add the burden of the morrow before we are required to bear it.”
―John Newton
12. “Mental health awareness doesn’t mean fighting stress, anxiety, depression and other everyday mental health issues, rather it means consciously modulating the habits that intensify those issues. Once you are in control of your habits, instead of checking your habits, you would automatically be in a much better shape, both mentally and physically. ”
―Abhijit Naskar
13. “A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety.”
―Aesop
14. “It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out; it’s the grain of sand in your shoe.”
―Robert W. Service
15. “My key to dealing with stress is simple: just stay cool and stay focused.”
―Ashton Eaton
16. “Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.”
―Winnie the Pooh
17. “To experience peace does not mean that your life is always blissful. It means that you are capable of tapping into a blissful state of mind amidst the normal chaos of a hectic life.”
―Jill Botte Taylor
18. “Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”
―John Lubbock
19. “When you find yourself stressed, ask yourself one question: Will this matter in 5 years from now? If yes, then do something about the situation. If no, then let it go.”
―Catherine Pulsifer
20. “Rule number one is, don’t sweat the small stuff. Rule number two is, it’s all small stuff.”
21. “Times of stress are also times that are signals for growth, and if we use adversity properly, we can grow through adversity.”
—Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski
22. “If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
—Marcus Aurelius
23. “There is a tonic strength, in the hour of sorrow and affliction, in escaping from the world and society and getting back to the simple duties and interests we have slighted and forgotten. Our world grows smaller, but it grows dearer and greater. Simple things have a new charm for us, and we suddenly realize that we have been renouncing all that is greatest and best, in our pursuit of some phantom.”
―William George Jordan
26. “There is no such thing as a stress-free life. No evidence has ever been presented which suggests that a stress-free life can ever be achieved. Stress can be managed, relieved and lessened, but never eliminated.”
—Gudjon Bergmann
25. “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
—Albert Einstein
26. “Stress is not what happens to us. It’s our response TO what happens. And RESPONSE is something we can choose.”
—Maureen Killoran
27. “Stress is the trash of modern life–we all generate it, but if you don’t dispose of it properly, it will pile up and overtake your life.”
—Danzae Pace
28. “Don’t believe every worried thought you have. Worried thoughts are notoriously inaccurate.”
—Renee Jain
29. “These mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb.”
—Najwa Zebian
30. “Stress, anxiety, and depression are caused when we are living to please others.”
31. “If you want to test your memory, try to recall what you were worrying about one year ago.”
—E. Joseph Cossman
32. “In times of life crisis, whether wildfires or smoldering stress, the first thing I do is go back to basics … am I eating right, am I getting enough sleep, am I getting some physical and mental exercise every day?”
—Edward Albert
33. “Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control it.”
—Kahlil Gibran
34. “Stress is like spice – in the right proportion, it enhances the flavour of a dish. Too little produces a bland, dull meal; too much may choke you.”
—Donald Tubesing
35. “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”
―Mother Teresa
36. “If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you’re needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.”
―Lucius Annaeus Seneca
37. “No beating yourself up. That’s not allowed. Be patient with yourself. It took you years to form the bad habits of thought that you no longer want. It will take a little time to form new and better ones. But I promise you this: Even a slight move in this direction will bring you some peace. The more effort you apply to it, the faster you’ll find your bliss, but you’ll experience rewards immediately.”
―Holly Mosier
38. “There cannot be a stressful crisis next week. My schedule is already full.”
―Henry Kissinger
39. “You can do anything but not everything.”
―David Allen
40. “Courage is not the absence of fear, but doing something in spite of fear."
41. “Stress is largely self-inflicted, so the ability to manage stress more effectively comes from managing oneself.”
―Michael Hetherington
42. “Stress can result in anxiety if handled poorly, or achievement if handled well. Instead of thinking about your worries as problems, think of them as challenges – and if possible, as opportunities.”
―Chelsea Erieau
43. “Smiling can be infectious in a workplace to help reduce stress, to help teamwork, to defuse high-pressure situations. The more you smile, the more people will smile back.”
―Byron Pulsifer
44. “Tension is a habit. Relaxing is a habit. Bad habits can be broken, good habits formed.”
―William James
45. “A good way to overcome stress is to help others out of theirs.”
―Dada J. P. Vaswani
46. “The next time you are tempted to get anxious or upset about something – especially something in the past or the future – think about what you are doing and turn your mind to what is going on today.”
―Joyce Meyers
47. “There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea.”
―attributed to Bernard-Paul Heroux
48. “Your calm mind is the ultimate weapon against your challenges. So relax.”
―Bryant McGill
49. “Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness. Not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.”
―Aristotle
50. “I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve.”
51. “We must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie.”
—David Mamet
52. “Relax. No one else knows what they’re doing either.”
―Ricky Gervais
53. “What you’re supposed to do when you don’t like a thing is change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it. Don’t complain.”
―Maya Angelou
54. “Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.”
―Thich Nhat Hanh
55. “You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
―Martin Luther King
