100+ Self-Care Quotes That’ll Inspire You to Take Care of Yourself

Take care of your body and mind to feel your best. It keeps you healthy and boosts your mood. Read self-care quotes for inspiration.

You balance work, family, friends, and hobbies. Life can be stressful and overwhelming.

While you’re going through life, make self-care a priority.

Taking care of your body and mind benefits your health, happiness, and productivity.

As you focus on your wellness, you can be present and reset your mind. It helps all aspects of your life.

The following self-care quotes will give you ideas and inspire you to care for yourself.

The best self-care quotes

1. “My self-care is my morning routine. I don’t pick up my phone ’til I’m finished walking my dogs, feeding the dogs, meditating, journaling, making my coffee.” -Jennifer Aniston

2. “I always give myself Sundays as a spiritual base of renewal – a day when I do absolutely nothing.” -Oprah Winfrey

3. “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation.” -Audre Lorde

4. “Solitude is where I place my chaos to rest and awaken my inner peace.” -Nikki Rowe

5. “Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.” -Lucille Ball

6. “Sometimes you’ve got to let everything go – purge yourself. If you are unhappy with anything… whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it. Because you’ll find that when you’re free, your true creativity, your true self comes out.” -Tina Turner

7. “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 others. Anytime we can listen to true self and give the care it requires, we do it not only for ourselves, but for the many others whose lives we touch.” -Parker Palmer

8. “Don’t forget to tell yourself positive things daily! You must love yourself internally to glow externally.” -Hannah Bronfman

9. “If you want to help her, you need to help yourself first. No one serves their friends by grinding themselves into dust on the altar of compassion.” -Seanan McGuire

10. “The importance of creating time in your day to take a breath and focus on the things that really matter, that builds up a certain amount of resilience.” -Prince Harry

11. “Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners.” -William Shakespeare

12. “Self-care is one of the active ways that I love myself. When you can and as you can, in ways that feel loving, make time and space for yourself.” -Tracee Ellis Ross

13. “Rest and self-care are so important. When you take time to replenish your spirit, it allows you to serve from the overflow. You cannot serve from an empty vessel.” -Eleanor Brown

14. “Caring for your body, mind, and spirit is your greatest and grandest responsibility. It’s about listening to the needs of your soul and then honoring them.” -Kristi Ling Spencer

15. “To be a good parent, you need to take care of yourself so that you can have the physical and emotional energy to take care of your family.” -Michelle Obama

16. “Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.” -Jim Rohn

17. “Don’t forget to love yourself.” -Soren Kierkegaard

18. “Self-care is giving the world the best of you, instead of what’s left of you.” -Katie Reed

19. “It is so important to take time for yourself and find clarity. The most important relationship is the one you have with yourself.” -Diane von Furstenberg

20. “I have a bath every single day of my life. And if I can have two or three – amazing.” -Emma Watson

21. “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” -Anne Lamot

22. “You are in a much better position to serve others when your basis needs are met and your ‘tank is full'” -Michael Hyatt

23. “Self-care is non-negotiable. That’s the thing that you have to do.” -Jonathan Van Ness

24. “If you want to love others, I think you should love yourself first.” -RM

25. “Affirmations are our mental vitamins, providing the supplementary positive thoughts we need to balance the barrage of negative events and thoughts we experience daily.” -Tia Walker

26. “If you don’t love yourself in the right way, you can’t love your neighbor. You can’t be as good as you are supposed to be.” -Joel Osteen

27. “As important as it is to have a plan for doing work, it is perhaps more important to have a plan for rest, relaxation, self-care, and sleep.” -Akiroq Brost

28. “One way to feel good about yourself is to love yourself… to take care of yourself.” -Goldie Hawn

29. “Every small positive change we make in ourselves repays us in confidence in the future.” -Alice Walker

30. “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” -Oscar Wilde

31. “Taking care of myself doesn’t mean ‘me first.’ It means ‘me, too.'” -L.R. Knost

32. “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. We feel comfortable doing things which add quality and beauty to life.” -Andrew Matthews

33. “You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” -Buddha

34. “If you feel ‘burnout’ setting in, if you feel demoralized and exhausted, it is best, for the sake of everyone, to withdraw and restore yourself.” -Dalai Lama

35. “It’s not selfish to love yourself, take care of yourself, and to make your happiness a priority. It’s necessary.” -Mandy Hale

36. “Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.” -John Lubbock

37. “Keep good company, read good books, love good things and cultivate soul and body as faithfully as you can.” -Louisa May Alcott

38. “Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths.” -Etty Hillesum

39. “Within you, there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.” -Hermann Hesse

40. “Don’t take your health for granted. Don’t take your body for granted. Do something today that communicates to your body that you desire to care for it. Tomorrow is not promised.” -Jada Pinkett Smith

41. “Self-care is the number one solution to helping somebody else. If you are being good to yourself and your body and your psyche, that serves other people better, because you will grow strong enough to lift someone else up.” -Mary Lambert

42. “Even though you have learned the skill of running on empty, now is the time to learn the art of breathing deep all over again.” -Morgan Harper Nichols

43. “I make it a point to practice self-care. I make an appointment with myself.” -Manisha Singal

44. “Self-care, simply put, is taking care of yourself. It’s giving yourself time to rest and recharge. When you go long periods of time without self-care, it will not only affect your energy but also your effectiveness as a leader.” -Nick Chellsen

45. “Sometimes it is okay to simply do nothing. Put down the to-do list, cancel your plans, and just sit there and relax.” -Robin S. Baker

46. “We need to replace your vicious stress cycle with a vicious cycle of self-care.” -Sara Gottfried

47. “Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.” -Golda Meir

48. “Self-care means giving yourself permission to pause.” -Cecilia Tran

49. “It’s okay to take time for yourself. We give so much of ourselves to others, and we need to be fueled both physically and mentally. If we are in balance, it helps us in all our interactions.” -Faith Hill

50. “Don’t sacrifice yourself too much, because if you sacrifice too much there’s nothing else you can give, and nobody will care for you.” -Karl Lagerfeld

51. “A little yoga goes a long way.” -Mary Richards

52. “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

53. “Every stitch you knit can be a self-care practice. Knitting is our constant companion as we grow and expand our capacity for joy.” -Brandi Cheyenne Harper

54. “Sometimes taking a moment to do ‘nothing’ is the best ‘something’ that we can do.” -Craig D. Lounsbrough

55. “Making yourself a priority is like sprinkling golden dust of richest blessings on your life.” -Hiral Nagda

56. “We never escape from the responsibilities that life presents us. But one of our main responsibilities should be ourselves, after all, there’s only one of us anyway.” -Vanessa Autrey

57. “When your stress levels are up, you should spend more time taking care of yourself.” -Ashley Davis Bush

58. “Closing your eyes and listening to silence is self-care.” -Maxime Lagacé

59. “The best thing you can do for yourself is spend time getting to know who you are, what you like, and what you dislike.” -C. Miller

60. “When you take care of yourself, you’re a better person for others. When you feel good about yourself, you treat others better.” -Solange Knowles

61. “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

62. “To love yourself right now, just as you are, is to give yourself heaven. Don’t wait until you die. If you wait, you die now. If you love, you live now.” -Alan Cohen

63. “It’s more than a bath; it’s a transformative experience. You’re searching for buoyancy in the soul, and spring in your step.” -Amy Leigh Mercree

64. “If you restore balance in your own self, you will be contributing immensely to the healing of the world.” –Deepak Chopra

65. “If you have the ability to love, love yourself first.” -Charles Bukowski

66. “Love yourself. It is important to stay positive because beauty comes from the inside out.” -Jenn Proske

67. “By taking care of myself I have so much more to offer the world than I do when I am running on empty.” -Ali Washington

68. “Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it’s holy ground. There’s no greater investment.” -Stephen Covey

69. “With every act of self-care your authentic self gets stronger, and the critical, fearful mind gets weaker. Every act of self-care is a powerful declaration: I am on my side, I am on my side, each day I am more and more on my own side.” -Susan Weiss Berry

70. “To nurture a garden is to feed not just on the body, but the soul.” -Alfred Austin

71. “Finding what naturally soothes you not only regulates your heart and mind, it helps you stay open to the goodness in you and in the world.” -Oprah Winfrey

72. “While some question whether stillness is selfish, it’s the opposite. It gives you greater capacity to embrace others, like putting your own oxygen mask on first in an airplane. As the saying goes, you can’t pour from an empty cup.” -Darcy Luoma

73. “Self-care is essential to combating burnout.” -Asa Don Brown

74. “Self-care means considering yourself a worthwhile person and presenting yourself as valuable, capable, and deserving. In other words, self-care seeks to redress an imbalance that develops when you don’t take proper care of yourself, whether by inattention or by choice.” -Arin Murphy-Hiscock

75. “Your self-care is your superpower, cultivate the heck out of it – love yourself up.” -Anese Cavanaugh

76. “Everyone needs a break to refuel, recharge, and jump back in full throttle.” -Helen Edwards

77. “Work-life balance means that you have managed to find that sweet spot where you’re pushing yourself at work, and then taking time off to recharge.” -Johannes Larsson

78. “If you don’t have time for yourself, everything you might be doing is a waste of time.” -Hiral Nagda

79. “Self-care is the most underrated leadership skill.” -Joy Donnell

80. “If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” -Jack Kornfield

81. “As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.” -Maya Angelou

82. “Self-care is not a waste of time. Self-care makes your use of time more sustainable.” -Jackie Viramontez

83. “There is enough time for self-care. There is not enough time to make up for the life you’ll miss by not filling yourself up.” -Jennifer Williamson

84. “When you aren’t living within your essential self, your life can feel exhausting and wrong, leaving you pretty much unable to take care of yourself or others.” -Kristin Hackman

85. “Self-care is neither frivolous nor indulgent. It is not narcissistic or greedy. It is, however, smart and sound.” -Becky Vollmer

86. “In a world of self-optimization, self-care is self-defense.” -Jan Lenarz

87. “When you are firmly rooted, you can fully stand up for others.” -Rachel Wilkerson Miller

88. “I’m caring enough about me to enjoy the simple pleasures I’ve planned for during this dark season so I can approach my days with a sense of abundance rather than scarcity.” -Jamie Erickson

89. “I need to stop treating other people better than I treat myself. It’s killing me.” -Jen Wilde

90. “Spend time on other important areas of your life, like self-care, family, and friends, that you may have neglected during your goal-striving efforts.” -Noel Brick

91. “We can’t be grounded in the world if we aren’t grounded in our bodies.” -Sarah Hays Coomer

92. “If we can learn to listen to the whispers of our body, we can begin to avoid the crash and burn way of moving through life, let’s arm ourselves with the tools of self-compassion and self-awareness to help us interrupt the stress response so we can stay in a regulated mind and body state and direct the mindful action that is required.” -Adrianne Vangool

93. “Grab a coffee. Journal your intentions. Get to work. Create miracles.” -Elyse Santilli

94. “Nourishing yourself in a way that helps you blossom in the direction you want to go is attainable, and you are worth the effort.” -Deborah Day

95. “Do something nice for yourself today. Find some quiet, sit in stillness, breathe. Put your problems on pause. You deserve a break.” -Akiroq Brost

96. “Self-care is how you take your power back.” -Lalah Delia

97. “Self-care is so much more than a beauty regimen or an external thing you do. It has to start within your heart to know what you need to navigate your life.” -Carrie-Anne Moss

98. “Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.” -Bell Hooks

99. “Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.” -Oprah Winfrey

100. “When you focus on yourself and love yourself, some relationships have to go.” -Adrian Michael

101. “Just when you feel you have no time to relax, know that this is the moment you most need to make time to relax.” -Matt Haig

102. “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

103. “It’s important to have a balance in your life between work and play.” -Bobby Flay

Final thoughts

Make self-care an essential part of your routine. Find time to relax and recharge to heal your mind, body, and spirit.

You can journal, bathe, exercise, meditate, or watch movies.

There are many ways to unwind and restore yourself. The goal is to care for all aspects of yourself.

So, make yourself a priority because you’re worth the investment.

Related: Mindfulness Questions to Ask Yourself

Featured image by David Em/Relaxation Hero.