Article image

Start Anew With These 15 Encouraging Quotes

Change is one of life’s most alluring and frightening inevitabilities. When we feel as though we can control it, change can feel invigorating, much like the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly. But take that control away, and those transformations can feel overwhelming and even threatening.

Yet in both cases, we have little to no authority over what circumstances befall us, and it’s up to our perspective and subsequent actions to determine whether those inescapable shifts will affect us for the worse or for the better.

There are countless ways to celebrate change, whether that’s honoring the passage of another year on New Year’s Eve or commemorating a milestone birthday. And indeed, there are just as many ways to acknowledge and hold space for the grief that the closing of one of life’s chapters can sometimes elicit.

The very essence of change requires moving on to something new, something that will take the place of the old. Scary as it may sometimes be, change offers invaluable opportunities for us to learn, grow, and come out on the other side as stronger, wiser, and more authentic people.

These quotes about starting fresh serve as helpful reminders to focus on the positive possibilities of change, no matter if you’re celebrating, mourning, or in the middle of it.

What we call the beginning is often the end / And to make an end is to make a beginning. / The end is where we start from.
T.S. Eliot

Share Quote

You raze the old to raise the new.
Justina Chen

Share Quote

I thank the universe / for taking / everything it has taken / and giving to me / everything it is giving.
Rupi Kaur

Share Quote

On this new mornin’ with you / So happy just to be alive / Underneath the sky of blue.
Bob Dylan

Share Quote

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.
Louis L’Amour

Share Quote

I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.
Herman Melville

Share Quote

You can start anew at any given moment. Life is just the passage of time and it’s up to you to pass it as you please.
Charlotte Eriksson

Share Quote

The chief beauty about the constant supply of time is that you cannot waste it in advance. The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you, as perfect, as unspoilt, as if you had never wasted or misapplied a single moment.
Arnold Bennett

Share Quote

If you truly wish to change what is without, you must first change what festers within.
Richelle E. Goodrich

Share Quote

Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need / For this bright morning dawning for you. / History, despite its wrenching pain, / Cannot be unlived, but if faced / With courage, need not be lived again.
Maya Angelou

Share Quote

Don’t wait until conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes conditions perfect.
Alan Cohen

Share Quote

For what it’s worth, it’s never too late, or in my case, too early, to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit. Start whenever you want. You can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing.
Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”

Share Quote

Destruction is essential to construction. If we want to build the new, we must be willing to let the old burn.
Glennon Doyle

Share Quote

Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.
Martin Luther King Jr. (as repeated by Marian Wright Edelman)

Share Quote

In the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.
Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin) in “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers”

Share Quote

Featured image credit: stock35/ Shutterstock

Author image
About the Author
Melanie Davis-McAfee
M. Davis-McAfee is a freelance writer, musician, and devoted cat mom of three living in southwest Kentucky.
Play more header background
Play more icon
Daily Question
Fill in the blank: "There’s nothing so kingly as ___, and nothing so royal as truth." - Alice Cary

More Inspiration

happiness theme icon

My heart is unlimited in the amount of love, but it is limited in the passion and commitment.

separator icon
Dominique Levy
motivation theme icon

How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.

separator icon
Florence Nightingale
hope theme icon

Being good to people is a wonderful legacy to leave behind.

separator icon
Taylor Swift
love theme icon

Risk something or forever sit with your dreams.

separator icon
Herb Brooks
wisdom theme icon

What counts is not the things that happen, but what we do with them.

separator icon
Annie Ernaux
happiness theme icon

The first time you do something only happens once.

separator icon
Chris Burden
motivation theme icon

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

separator icon
Oscar Wilde
hope theme icon

Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.

separator icon
Bruce Lee
love theme icon

Walls turned sideways are bridges.

separator icon
Angela Davis
wisdom theme icon

Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live.

separator icon
Dorothy Thompson
happiness theme icon

We are all born worthy. Worthy of love, worthy of success.

separator icon
Jamie Lee Curtis