One of the most powerful and important things you can do to live a happier life is – in my experience – to focus on loving and taking care of yourself.
But it can be tough, especially during hard times or if you’re having low or bad days. And it’s so easy to forget about it with everything else going on in everyday life.
So in today’s post I’d like to share 175 of the most empowering, helpful and inspirational self-love quotes.
To give you new motivation to up your self-love in daily life and through that also your self-esteem and happiness.
Because this is important. For your own well-being. But also for you to be able to recharge yourself and be your best self so you can better help and love the people closest to you.
I hope you’ll find something here to help you to treat yourself with more kindness and then spread that love out into your own world.
Inspirational Self-Love Quotes for a Happy Life
“Whatever you are doing, love yourself for doing it. Whatever you are feeling, love yourself for feeling it.”
– Thaddeus Golas
“Flowers grow back even after the harshest winters. You will, too.”
– Jennae Cecelia
“Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself.”
– Coco Chanel
“The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses.”
– Bob Moawad
“We are each gifted in a unique and important way. It is our privilege and our adventure to discover our own special light.”
– Mary Dunbar
“Lighten up on yourself. No one is perfect. Gently accept your humanness.”
– Deborah Day
“Don’t rely on someone else for your happiness and self-worth. Only you can be responsible for that.”
– Stacey Charter
“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”
– Buddha
“Be so completely yourself that everyone else feels safe to be themselves, too.”
– Diane Von Furstenberg
“Tell yourself how wonderful you are, how great you are. Tell yourself how much you love yourself.”
– Don Miguel Ruiz
“Work on being in love with the person in the mirror who has been through so much but is still standing.”
– Unknown
“Every one of us needs to show how much we care for each other and, in the process, care for ourselves.”
– Princess Diana
“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.”
– Lucille Ball
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“To fall in love with yourself is the first secret to happiness.”
– Robert Morley
“Self-love has very little to do with how you feel about your outer self. It’s about accepting all of yourself.”
– Tyra Banks
“The better you feel about yourself, the less you feel the need to show off.”
– Robert Hand
“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
– Carl Gustav Jung
“There is nothing noble about being superior to some other man. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self.”
– Hindu Proverb
“When you adopt the viewpoint that there is nothing that exists that is not part of you, that there is no one who exists who is not part of you, that any judgment you make is self-judgment, that any criticism you level is self-criticism, you will wisely extend to yourself an unconditional love that will be the light of the world.”
– Harry Palmer
“I celebrate myself, and sing myself.”
– Walt Whitman
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it’s holy ground. There’s no greater investment.”
– Stephen Covey
“You are very powerful, provided you know how powerful you are.”
– Yogi Bhajan
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
“When things change inside you, things change around you.”
– Unknown
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.”
– Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
“It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.”
– Sir Edmund Hillary
Inspirational Self-Love Quotes for When Life is Tough
“Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the face.”
– Helen Keller
“I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.”
– Frederick Douglass
“One’s dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but it can never be taken away unless it is surrendered.”
– Michael J. Fox
“If only you could sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to people you may never even dream of.”
– Fred Rogers
“Don’t fall into the trap of sacrificing your self-esteem for affection and acceptance.”
– Ashley Graham
“Why should we worry about what others think of us, do we have more confidence in their opinions than we do our own?”
– Brigham Young
“Plant hope in your heart’s wounds.”
– Alexandra Vasiliu
“Your problem is you’re too busy holding onto your unworthiness.”
– Ram Dass
“You have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.”
– Louise L. Hay
“It took many years of vomiting up all the filth I’d been taught about myself, and half-believed before I was able to walk on the earth as though I had a right to be here.”
– James Baldwin
“Growth begins when we start to accept our own weakness.”
– Jean Vanier
“You can’t build joy on a feeling of self-loathing.”
– Ram Dass
“The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself.”
– Maya Angelou
“One of the greatest regrets in life is being what others would want you to be, rather than being yourself.”
– Shannon L. Alder
“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”
– Thomas Jefferson
“Accept yourself, love yourself, and keep moving forward. If you want to fly, you have to give up what weighs you down.”
– Roy T. Bennett
“Once you embrace your value, talents and strengths, it neutralizes when others think less of you.”
– Rob Liano
“Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.”
– Benjamin Spock
“The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.”
– Carl Gustav Jung
“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”
– Dale Carnegie
“Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Low self-esteem is like driving through life with your hand-break on.”
– Maxwell Maltz
“The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.”
– Mark Twain
“Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one’s own sunshine.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.”
– Malcolm S. Forbes
“Self-discipline is self-caring.”
– M. Scott Peck
“If you have the ability to love, love yourself first.”
– Charles Bukowski
Empowering Self-Love Quotes for Girls & Women (By Women)
“We just need to be kinder to ourselves. If we treated ourselves the way we treated our best friend, can you imagine how much better off we would be?”
– Meghan Markle
“I’m going to make everything around me beautiful. That will be my life.”
– Elsie de Wolfe
“I love the person I’ve become because I fought to become her.”
– Kaci Diane
“Put yourself first. Self-love is not selfish at all. It means that you’re taking care of yourself.”
– Laurie Hernandez
“If we spent our years nurturing the best of ourselves, heaven would be felt on earth.”
– Nikki Rowe
“I must undertake to love myself and to respect myself as though my very life depends upon self-love and self-respect.”
– Maya Angelou
“It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else’s eyes.”
– Sally Field
“I’m not going to apologize for who I am, and I’m going to actually love the skin that I’m in. I’m not gonna be striving for some other version of myself.”
– Amy Schumer
“My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent.”
– Ruth Bader Ginsburg
“I had to grow to love my body. I did not have a good self-image at first. Finally it occurred to me, I’m either going to love me or hate me. And I chose to love myself. Then everything kind of sprung from there. Things that I thought weren’t attractive became sexy. Confidence makes you sexy.”
– Queen Latifah
“When a woman becomes her own best friend, life is easier.”
– Diane Von Furstenberg
“Be healthy and take care of yourself, but be happy with the beautiful things that make you, you.”
– Beyoncé
“Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical.”
– Sophia Loren
“I was once afraid of people saying ‘Who does she think she is?’ Now I have the courage to stand and say, ‘This is who I am.'”
– Oprah Winfrey
“Nobody is perfect. I just don’t believe in perfection. But I do believe in saying, ‘This is who I am and look at me not being perfect!’ I’m proud of that.”
– Kate Winslet
“How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you.”
– Rupi Kaur
“I think no matter what you look like, the key first of all is to be happy with yourself.”
– Adele
“Your self-worth is determined by you. You don’t have to depend on someone telling you who you are.”
– Beyoncé
“She lacks confidence, she craves admiration insatiably. She lives on the reflections of herself in the eyes of others. She does not dare to be herself.”
– Anais Nin
“Don’t waste your energy trying to change opinions… Do your thing, and don’t care if they like it.”
– Tina Fey
“The reward for conformity is that everyone likes you but yourself.”
– Rita Mae Brown
“To make your dreams come true, the first person you have to believe in is yourself.”
– Estée Lauder
Quotes to Help You Love Yourself (Even on Bad Days)
“When I loved myself enough, I began leaving whatever wasn’t healthy. This meant people, jobs, my own beliefs and habits – anything that kept me small.”
– Kim McMillen
“Learn to be alone without being lonely. Learn to admire your beauty without finding fault. Learn to love yourself without the love of others.”
– h.r.d
“One of the best guides to how to be self-loving is to give ourselves the love we are often dreaming about receiving from others.”
– Bell Hooks
“Believing in our hearts that who we are is enough is the key to a more satisfying and balanced life.”
– Ellen Sue Stern
“Be brave enough to heal yourself even when it hurts.”
– Bianca Sparacino
“No boundary or barrier surrounds the heart of a person that loves their self and others.”
– Shannon L. Alder
“In a society that profits from your self-doubt, liking yourself is a rebellious act.”
– Caroline Caldwell
“There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
– Anaïs Nin
“You know more than you think you do.”
– Benjamin Spock
“Your biggest commitment must always be to yourself.”
– Bridgett Devoue
“A healthy self-love means we have no compulsion to justify to ourselves or others why we take vacations, why we sleep late, why we buy new shoes, why we spoil ourselves from time to time.”
– Andrew Matthews
“Self-care is never a selfish act – it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer to others.”
– Parker Palmer
“When you feel your worst is when you need to love yourself more. Start with just something small to love about yourself. Then build on that.”
– Joy Stevens
“When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life.”
– Jean Shinoda Bolen
“Love yourself enough to set boundaries. Your time and energy are precious. You get to choose how you use it.”
– Anna Taylor
“Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we’ll ever do.”
– Brené Brown
“You’re always with yourself, so you might as well enjoy the company.”
– Diane Von Furstenberg
“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within.”
– Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
“Find the love you seek, by first finding the love within yourself. Learn to rest in that place within you that is your true home.”
– Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
“You can have anything you want if you are willing to give up the belief that you can’t have it.”
– Dr. Robert Anthony
“Self-love is an ocean and your heart is a vessel. Make it full, and any excess will spill over into the lives of the people you hold dear. But you must come first.”
– Beau Taplin
“I’m constantly amazed by how easily we love ourselves above all others, yet we put more stock in the opinions of others than in our own estimation of self.”
– Marcus Aurelius
“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt
“You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level.”
– Eckhart Tolle
“Self-love is giving the world the best of you, instead of what’s left of you.”
– Katie Reed
