33 Quotes About Anxiety

Turning anxiety into a channel of empowerment can alter the way you live daily life. These quotes about anxiety highlight some of the symptoms and effects we feel when anxiety takes control of our life.

“A higher rate of urgency does not imply ever-present panic, anxiety, or fear. It means a state in which complacency is virtually absent.”

“A large part of the present anxiety to improve the education of girls and women is also due to the conviction that the political disabilities of women will not be maintained.”

“All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.”

“Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.”

“Anxiety is love’s greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic.”

“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.”

“Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity.”

“Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.”

“For as long as I can remember I have suffered from a deep feeling of anxiety which I have tried to express in my art.”

“Good humor is a tonic for mind and body. It is the best antidote for anxiety and depression. It is a business asset. It attracts and keeps friends. It lightens human burdens. It is the direct route to serenity and contentment.”

“I speak of a clinical depression that is the background of your entire life, a background of anguish and anxiety, a sense that nothing goes well, that pleasure is unavailable and all your strategies collapse.”

“I think one thing is that anybody who’s had to contend with mental illness – whether it’s depression, bipolar illness or severe anxiety, whatever – actually has a fair amount of resilience in the sense that they’ve had to deal with suffering already, personal suffering.”

“If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life – and only then will I be free to become myself.”

“It is very hard to explain to people who have never known serious depression or anxiety the sheer continuous intensity of it. There is no off switch.”

“Man, so long as he remains free, has no more constant and agonizing anxiety than find as quickly as possible someone to worship.”

“Neither comprehension nor learning can take place in an atmosphere of anxiety.”

“Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.”

“Often, when you’re growing up, you don’t know what’s wrong. We don’t talk openly enough about mental illness. How do you know – especially today with the incredibly high stress teens are put under during high school – if you have depression or if you have a mental illness or if you have anxiety? You don’t know, because you’ve never seen it.”

“People tend to dwell more on negative things than on good things. So the mind then becomes obsessed with negative things, with judgments, guilt and anxiety produced by thoughts about the future and so on.”

“People who are prone to anxiety are nearly always people-pleasers who fear conflict and negative feelings like anger. When you feel upset, you sweep your problems under the rug because you don’t want to upset anyone. You do this so quickly and automatically that you’re not even aware you’re doing it.”

“Physical comforts cannot subdue mental suffering, and if we look closely, we can see that those who have many possessions are not necessarily happy. In fact, being wealthy often brings even more anxiety.”

“Practically everybody knows what it’s like to feel anxious, worried, nervous, afraid, uptight, or panicky. Often, anxiety is just a nuisance, but sometimes it can cripple you and prevent you from doing what you really want with your life. But I have some great news for you: You can change the way you feel.”

“Religion is meant to teach us true spiritual human character. It is meant for self-transformation. It is meant to transform anxiety into peace, arrogance into humility, envy into compassion, to awaken the pure soul in man and his love for the Source, which is God.”

“The act of birth is the first experience of anxiety, and thus the source and prototype of the affect of anxiety.”

“The feeling of insecurity is inimical to our sense of well being, as it causes anxiety and stress, which harms our physical and mental health. It is no surprise then that, according to some surveys, workers across the world value job security more highly than wages.”

“The other thing is that if you rely solely on medication to manage depression or anxiety, for example, you have done nothing to train the mind, so that when you come off the medication, you are just as vulnerable to a relapse as though you had never taken the medication.”

“The truth is that there is no actual stress or anxiety in the world; it’s your thoughts that create these false beliefs. You can’t package stress, touch it, or see it. There are only people engaged in stressful thinking.”

“The void, the concept of nothingness, is terrifying to most people on the planet. And I get anxiety attacks myself. I know the fear of that void. You have to learn to die before you die. You give up, surrender to the void, to nothingness.”

“There are moments when all anxiety and stated toil are becalmed in the infinite leisure and repose of nature.”

“There isn’t anybody out there who doesn’t have a mental health issue, whether it’s depression, anxiety, or how to cope with relationships. Having OCD is not an embarrassment anymore – for me. Just know that there is help and your life could be better if you go out and seek the help.”

“We all have anxiety about things. We all have little insecurities, but eventually you have to face your fears if you want to be successful, and everybody has some fear of failure.”

“We live in a society bloated with data yet starved for wisdom. We’re connected 24/7, yet anxiety, fear, depression and loneliness is at an all-time high. We must course-correct.”

“You need to let go of your fear and anxiety of being judged by others.”

Anxiety is something that can slowly take over our life if we allow it to plague our mind.