233 Powerful Life Reality Quotes to Make You Think

You’ll see some of the most meaningful quotes about the reality of life

Life isn’t always easy, and sometimes it can feel a bit tricky. But there’s something special about the truth in life that helps us learn and grow.

Life reality quotes are words that remind us of what life really is—good and bad, happy and tough. These quotes can help us see things more clearly and help us feel stronger when things get hard.

In this post, I’m sharing some of the best life reality quotes that can give you wisdom, make you think, and maybe even help you find strength when you need it most. Let’s take a look at these quotes and find some inspiration for facing life’s ups and downs!

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The most powerful life reality quotes

1. “The real world is where the monsters are.” — Rick Riordan
2. “It’s amazing how a little tomorrow can make up for a whole lot of yesterday.” — John Guare
3. “Life is a journey, not a destination.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
4. “Reality is the leading cause of stress among those in touch with it.” — Lily Tomlin
5. “If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.” — Gail Sheehy
6. “Choose to be optimistic, it feels better.” — Dalai Lama
7. “If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.” — Margaret Fuller
8. “Accept no one’s definition of your life, define yourself.” — Harvey Fierstein
9. “As you are, so is the world.” — Ramana Maharshi
10. “The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane.” — Mahatma Gandhi
11. “Nothing is real.” — John Lennon
12. “There’s love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look.” — Kurt Vonnegut
13. “Success is falling nine times and getting up 10.” — Jon Bon Jovi
14. “A dead end is just a good place to turn around.” — Naomi Judd
15. “There are no regrets in life, just lessons.” — Jennifer Aniston
16. “Things change; that’s the way it is.” — Tupac Shakur
17. “Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.” — C.S. Lewis
18. “The truth will set you free, but first, it will piss you off.” — Gloria Steinem
19. “Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.” — Margaret Mead
20. “Past and future are in the mind only – I am now.” — Nisargadatta Maharaj

21. “Even miracles take a little time.” — The Fairy Godmother
22. “The purpose of life is a life of purpose.” — Robert Byrne
23. “Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.” — Babe Ruth
24. “Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality.” — Nikos Kazantzakis
25. “All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.” — Mark Twain
26. “Welcome to the present moment. Here. Now. The only moment there ever is.” — Eckhart Tolle
27. “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” — Wayne Dyer
28. “Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later.” — Og Mandino
29. “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” — Henry Ford
30. “Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.” — John D. Rockefeller
31. “There are so many great things in life; why dwell on negativity?” — Zendaya
32. “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” — George Bernard Shaw
33. “It is not the strength of the body that counts, but the strength of the spirit.” — J.R.R. Tolkien
34. “Every moment is a fresh beginning.” — T.S. Eliot
35. “Let us make our future now, and let us make our dreams tomorrow’s reality.” — Malala Yousafzai
36. “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s life in your years.” — Abraham Lincoln
37. “Dream big and dare to fail.” — Norman Vaughan
38. “The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain!” — Dolly Parton
39. “Be persistent and never give up hope.” — George Lucas
40. “Intentions always look better on paper than in reality.” — Angie Thomas

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41. “When you have a dream, you’ve got to grab it and never let go.” — Carol Burnett
42. “The mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.” — Frank Herbert
43. “In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit.” — Anne Frank
44. “Love the life you live. Live the life you love.” — Bob Marley
45. “It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.” — Aristotle
46. “If life were predictable it would cease to be life and be without flavor.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
47. “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” — Steve Jobs
48. “Living an experience, a particular fate, is accepting it fully.” — Albert Camus
49. “Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in.” — Bill Bradley
50. “Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
51. “Love is like the wind; you can’t see it, but you can feel it.” — Nicholas Sparks
52. “Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” — Aristotle
53. “All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
54. “There is no perfection, only life.” — Milan Kundera
55. “Success is only meaningful and enjoyable if it feels like your own.” — Michelle Obama
56. “If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.” — Bruce Lee
57. “You will face many defeats in life, but never let yourself be defeated.” — Maya Angelou
58. “The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” — Henry Ford
59. “Self-care is how you take your power back.” — Lalah Delia
60. “You’ve got to be in it to win it.” — Tony Robbins

61. “To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.” — David Viscott
62. “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” — Philip K. Dick
63. “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” — Mae West
64. “You’ll never do a whole lot unless you’re brave enough to try.” — Dolly Parton
65. “Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.” — John Lennon
66. “The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes.” — Frank Lloyd Wright
67. “Imagination is the only weapon in the war with reality.” — Lewis Carroll
68. “It’s only natural to confuse truth and fantasy as they play parts in a theatrical.” — Shannon Hale
69. “Life is short, but it is wide. This too shall pass.” — Rebecca Wells
70. “It’s a good place when all you have is hope and not expectations.” — Danny Boyle
71. “It is not length of life, but depth of life.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
72. “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” — Anais Nin
73. “Life is either a great adventure or nothing.” — Helen Keller
74. “Don’t worry about failure, you only have to be right once.” — Drew Houston
75. “The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure very much.” — William Hazlitt
76. “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” — Lao Tzu
77. “The time is always right to do what is right.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
78. “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” — Albert Einstein
79. “The more real you get the more unreal the world gets.” — John Lennon
80. “Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.” — Democritus

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81. “You have to believe in yourself when no one else does.” — Serena Williams
82. “Life does not have to be perfect to be wonderful.” — Annette Funicello
83. “We become what we think about most of the time.” — Earl Nightingale
84. “Despite the forecast, live like it’s spring.” — Lilly Pulitzer
85. “We can’t plan life. All we can do is be available for it.” — Lauryn Hill
86. “Find out who you are and do it on purpose.” — Dolly Parton
87. “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” — Oscar Wilde
88. “Reality is a nice place, but I wouldn’t want to live there.” — Adam Young
89. “Life has got those twists and turns. You’ve got to hold on tight and off you go.” — Nicole Kidman
90. “A problem is a chance for you to do your best.” — Duke Ellington
91. “True friendship comes when the silence between two people is comfortable.” — David Tyson
92. “The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.” — E. E. Cummings
93. “The only way to deal with reality is to invent your own.” — Adam Phillips
94. “Life is like a sewer; what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.” — Tom Lehrer
95. “You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.” — Ayn Rand
96. “A true friend is the greatest of all blessings.” — François de La Rochefoucauld
97. “Life has no limitations, except the ones you make.” — Les Brown
98. “If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.” — Dolly Parton
99. “In order to write about life first you must live it.” — Ernest Hemingway
100. “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

101. “Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.” — George Addair
102. “I’ve been around a long time, and life still has a whole lot of surprises for me.” — Loretta Lynn
103. “A friend is someone who makes it easy to believe in yourself.” — Heidi Wills
104. “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” — John Lennon
105. “You do not find the happy life. You make it.” — Camilla Eyring Kimball
106. “If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.” — Albert Einstein
107. “Life is about making an impact, not making an income.” — Kevin Kruse
108. “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” — George Elliot
109. “You’ll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut.” — Dr. Seuss
110. “I never dreamed about success. I worked for it.” — Estée Lauder
111. “Try to be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.” — Maya Angelou
112. “The difference between winning and losing is most often not quitting.” — Walt Disney
113. “Being happy never goes out of style.” — Lilly Pulitzer
114. “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: It goes on.” — Robert Frost
115. “If you own this story you get to write the ending.” — Brené Brown
116. “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” — Theodore Roosevelt
117. “Each person must live their life as a model for others.” — Rosa Parks
118. “The map is not the territory.” — Alfred Korzybski
119. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
120. “Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.” — Soren Kierkegaard

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121. “The future is not something we enter. The future is something we create.” — Leonard I. Sweet
122. “Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.” — Omar Khayyam
123. “You can be everything. You can be the infinite amount of things that people are.” — Kesha
124. “Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.” — Alexander Graham Bell
125. “It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” — Herman Melville
126. “Yesterday is but today’s memory and tomorrow is today’s dream.” — Khalil Gibran
127. “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” — Confucius
128. “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” — Steve Jobs
129. “Believe and act as if it were impossible to fail.” — Charles Kettering
130. “Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.” — John Wayne
131. “Keep your face always toward the sunshine, and shadows will fall behind you.” — Walt Whitman
132. “Everything you want is on the other side of fear.” — Jack Canfield
133. “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” — Albert Einstein
134. “The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.” — Audrey Hepburn
135. “You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.” — Margaret Thatcher
136. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” — Wayne Gretzky
137. “Nothing is impossible. The word itself says ‘I’m possible!’” — Audrey Hepburn
138. “Life is a long lesson in humility.” — J.M. Barrie
139. “Each day comes bearing its gifts. Untie the ribbon.” — Ann Ruth Schabacker
140. “The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.” — Carl Sagan

141. “It’s just a ride.” — Bill Hicks
142. “Living might mean taking chances, but they’re worth taking.” — Lee Ann Womack
143. “Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to the error that counts.” — Nikki Giovanni
144. “The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.” — Oprah Winfrey
145. “Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be.” — Jack Welch
146. “Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn’t know you left open.” — John Barrymore
147. “Say something positive, and you’ll see something positive.” — Jim Thompson
148. “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” — Oscar Wilde
149. “All serious daring starts from within.” — Eudora Welty
150. “Always go with your passions. Never ask yourself if it’s realistic or not.” — Deepak Chopra
151. “If you are not willing to risk the usual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.” — Jim Rohn
152. “The world is a mirror, forever reflecting what you are doing, within yourself.” — Neville Goddard
153. “You create your own reality.” — Jane Roberts
154. “I am not crazy; my reality is just different from yours.” — Lewis Carroll
155. “Turn your wounds into wisdom.” — Oprah Winfrey
156. “Nothing ever becomes real ’til it is experienced.” — John Keats
157. “The only limit to our realisation of tomorrow is our doubts of today.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
158. “Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.” — George Orwell
159. “There is a reason why all things are as they are.” — Bram Stoker
160. “Do one thing every day that scares you.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

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161. “We pass through this world but once.” — Stephen Jay Gould
162. “Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification.” — Ayn Rand
163. “Life isn’t a matter of milestones, but of moments.” — Rose Kennedy
164. “Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
165. “Friendship is the golden thread that ties the heart of all the world.” — John Evelyn
166. “Open your eyes, look within. Are you satisfied with the life you are living?” — Bob Marley
167. “The most important trip you may take in life is meeting people halfway.” — Henry Boye
168. “Life is not fair. Get used to it.” — Bill Gates
169. “A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.” — Elbert Hubbard
170. “If you don’t have any shadows you’re not in the light.” — Lady Gaga
171. “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” — Oscar Wilde
172. “No matter how hard the past, you can always begin again.” — Buddha
173. “I have found that if you love life, life will love you back.” — Arthur Rubinstein
174. “If I’d have done all the things I was supposed to have done, I’d be really tired.” — Willie Nelson
175. “If everything was perfect, you would never learn and you would never grow.” — Beyoncé
176. “In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.” — Albert Camus
177. “You can’t help what you feel, but you can help how you behave.” — Margaret Atwood
178. “The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.” — Robertson Davies
179. “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” — Michael Jordan
180. “There is no unique picture of reality.” — Stephen Hawking

181. “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” — Peter Drucker
182. “Once you face your fear, nothing is ever as hard as you think.” — Olivia Newton-John
183. “Life is made of ever so many partings welded together.” — Charles Dickens
184. “It’s delightful when your imaginations come true, isn’t it?” — L. M. Montgomery
185. “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.” — Walt Disney
186. “The secret to getting ahead is getting started.” — Mark Twain
187. “If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.” — Napoleon Hill
188. “Be so happy that, when other people look at you, they become happy too.” — Anonymous
189. “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” — Zig Ziglar
190. “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.” — Jackie Robinson
191. “You can close your eyes to reality but not to memories.” — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
192. “You are the Universe expressing itself as a human for a little while.” — Eckhart Tolle
193. “Be where you are; otherwise you will miss your life.” — Buddha
194. “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” — Winston Churchill
195. “A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.” — Walter Winchell
196. “The big lesson in life, baby, is never be scared of anyone or anything.” — Frank Sinatra
197. “I, a universe of atoms, an atom in the universe.” — Richard P. Feynman
198. “Life is really simple, but men insist on making it complicated.” — Confucius
199. “The solution to violence in America is the acceptance of reality.” — Gavin de Becker
200. “Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.” — Truman Capote

201. “Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.” — Gloria Steinem
202. “I was taught that the way of progress was neither swift nor easy.” — Marie Curie
203. “Live for each second without hesitation.” — Elton John
204. “The world is not a wish-granting factory.” — John Green
205. “Nothing comes from without. All things come from within.” — Neville Goddard
206. “No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.” — Virginia Woolf
207. “Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.” — Victor Hugo
208. “I don’t go by the rule book… I lead from the heart, not the head.” — Princess Diana
209. “We should live our lives as though Christ was coming this afternoon.” — Jimmy Carter
210. “The only way to achieve the impossible is to believe it is possible.” — Charles Kingsleigh
211. “I don’t paint dreams or nightmares, I paint my own reality.” — Frida Kahlo
212. “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
213. “Who wanted to reassure her? Mr. Nobley or the actual man, Actor X?” — Shannon Hale
214. “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” — Albert Einstein
215. “Start each day with a positive thought and a grateful heart.” — Roy Bennett
216. “We are here to add what we can to life, not to get what we can from life.” — William Osler

217. “Life is tough my darling, but so are you.” — Stephanie Bennett Henry
218. “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” — George Bernard Shaw
219. “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” — Arthur Ashe
220. “Get busy living or get busy dying.” — Stephen King
221. “Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.” — Will Rogers
222. “The best way out is through.” — Robert Frost
223. “Life is 10 percent what you make it, and 90 percent how you take it.” — Irving Berlin
224. “The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.” — Malcolm X
225. “I’m not perfect. But I’ll always be real.” — Tupac Shakur
226. “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
227. “Life is a daring adventure or it is nothing at all.” — Helen Keller
228. “Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right.” — Henry Ford
229. “I reject your reality and substitute my own.” — Adam Savage
230. “I go to seek a Great Perhaps.” — François Rabelais
231. “Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.” — Woodrow Wilson
232. “You define your own life. Don’t let other people write your script.” — Oprah Winfrey
233. “Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.” — Abraham Lincoln

What are quotes about the reality of life, and why should I read them?

Life reality quotes are words that remind us of life’s true nature—both the good and the tough parts. They talk about how life isn’t always perfect, but it’s full of lessons, growth, and moments of beauty.

These quotes help us understand that challenges are a part of the journey and that it’s okay to not have everything figured out.

You should read them because they can help you accept life as it is, with all its ups and downs. These quotes encourage us to stay strong, keep going, and find the silver lining even in hard times.

They can inspire you to face reality with a positive mindset and remind you that even on tough days, you’re never alone in what you’re going through. Life may not always be easy, but these quotes help us find strength in the struggle.

Did you find any life reality quotes you liked?