Let your spirit soar
Looking for a little uplift? To celebrate Reader’s Digest’s 100th anniversary, we combed through the archives to collect 100 of the most uplifting quotes we’ve ever published. We hope you enjoy them, and when you’re in the mood for more, be sure to check out our other compilations of happy quotes, funny quotes, quotes from famous people, graduation quotes, and powerful quotes about life.
Queen Latifah
Believe in yourself. Stay in your own lane. There’s only one you.
RD Issue: October 2008
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Aldous Huxley
Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you.
RD Issue: March 1956
Salma Hayek
People often say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing you are the beholder.
RD Issue: August 2013
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Eleanor C. Wood
Living is the art of getting used to what we didn’t expect.
RD Issue: July 1970
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Franklin P. Jones
Love doesn’t make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.
RD Issue: September 1977
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George Skolsky
Kindness is one thing you can’t give away. It always comes back.
RD Issue: April 1954
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Sally Koch
Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones surround us every day.
RD Issue: January 1995
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Maya Angelou
Try to be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.
RD Issue: April 2019
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Jon Bon Jovi
Success is falling nine times and getting up ten.
“Reader’s Digest Quotable Quotes” 2013
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Elbert Hubbard
The greatest mistake you can make is to be continually fearing that you’ll make one.
RD Issue: January 1953
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Harper Lee
Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.
RD Issue: October 1989
G.K. Chesterton
There is only one certainty in life and that is that nothing is certain.
RD Issue: June 1926
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Ruth E. Renkel
Never fear shadows. They simply mean there’s a light shining nearby.
RD Issue: February 1997
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John Lennon
Time you enjoy wasting was not wasted.
“Reader’s Digest Quotable Quotes” 2013
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Paul McCartney
What’s wrong with being sentimental? Sentimental means you like stuff.
RD Issue: December 2005
Bob Talbert
Having a young child explain something exciting he has seen is the finest example of communication you will ever hear or see.
RD Issue: July 1970
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George Clooney
My father gave me the best advice of my life. He said, “Whatever you do, don’t wake up at 65 years old and think about what you should have done with your life.”
RD Issue: July 2006
Harry Emerson Fosdick
I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it.
RD Issue: July 1970
Les Paul
Don’t say you can’t until you prove you can’t.
RD Issue: June 1957
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Kermit the Frog
It’s a whole lot more satisfying to reach for the stars, even if you end up landing only on the moon.
RD Issue: January 2007
Dolly Parton
I still close my eyes and go home—I can always draw from that.
RD Issue: October 2008
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Robert Louis Stevenson
Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm.
RD Issue: November 1941
Marcelene Cox
Worry is like sand in an oyster: a little produces a pearl, too much kills the animal.
RD Issue: December 1955
Hal Borland
If you would know strength and patience, welcome the company of trees.
RD Issue: January 1983
J.K. Rowling
It is our choices that show what we really are, far more than our abilities.
RD Issue: January 2000
Diane Ackerman
I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I have just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.
RD Issue: September 2011
Dean Acheson
The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.
RD Issue: April 1976
Al Bernstein
Success is often the result of taking a misstep in the right direction.
RD Issue: April 1976
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Amy Poehler
There’s power in looking silly and not caring that you do.
RD Issue: August 2013
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Lynn Lively
Procrastination means you know what you need to do and you don’t do it. If you don’t know what to do, you aren’t procrastinating. You are thinking.
RD Issue: December 1999
Maya Angelou
I’ve learned that people will forget what you’ve said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
RD Issue: August 2013
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Robert D. Ballard
Everyone is an explorer. How could you possibly live your life looking at a door and not opening it?
RD Issue: May 1998
Alice Walker
The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.
RD Issue: June 2019
Naomi Judd
A dead end is just a good place to turn around.
RD Issue: January 2004
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Dalai Lama
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
RD Issue: October 1994
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Oprah Winfrey
Failure is God’s way of saying, “Excuse me, you’re moving in the wrong direction.”
RD Issue: June 2004
Jennifer Aniston
Friends are the family we choose.
RD Issue: December 2002
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Billy Idol
If your world doesn’t allow you to dream, move to one where you can.
RD Issue: December 2002
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Martin Luther King, Jr.
Faith is taking the first step. Even when you don’t see the whole staircase.
RD Issue: September 2014
Billie Jean King
Be bold. If you’re going to make an error, make it a doozy.
RD Issue: January 2004
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Oprah Winfrey
Be thankful for what you have—you’ll end up having more.
RD Issue: December 2019/January 2020
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Marcel Proust
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.
RD Issue: February 1981