Change is a part of life. So you can start over anytime. New beginnings can feel daunting. Read starting over quotes for inspiration and courage.
Life is full of changes and transitions.
Whether you’re starting over by choice or not, you can build your life from the ground up.
Form good habits, be positive, reflect on the past, and set a plan.
The following are starting over quotes that’ll help you grow from where you are.
Table of Contents
Related: Shadow Work Journal Prompts
Starting over quotes to help you restart
1. “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” -John F. Kennedy
2. “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
3. “The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” -Alan Watts
4. “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” -Arthur Ashe
5. “Let’s forget the baggages of the past and make a new beginning.” -Shehbaz Sharif
6. “Nothing in the universe can stop you from letting go and starting over.” -Guy Finley
7. “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” -Confucius
8. “Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start.” -Nido Qubein
9. “My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness.” -Maya Angelou
10. “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” -Seneca
11. “Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.” -Hermann Hesse
12. “Starting over can be challenging, but also it can be a great opportunity to do things differently.” -Catherine Pulsifer
13. “As long as you’re alive, you always have the chance to start again.” -Emily Acker
14. “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
15. “It may not be the life you imagined, but it’s your life. You came here for a reason. Is it time for you to go and begin again?” -Doug Cooper
16. “It’s never too late – never too late to start over, never too late to be happy.” -Jane Fonda
17. “Every sunset is an opportunity to reset. Every sunrise begins with new eyes.” -Richie Norton
18. “It’s painful and it’s messy. But sometimes you just have to make the break and start again.” -Tony Parsons
19. “Do not wait; the time will never be ‘just right.’ Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.” -George Herbert
20. “You are never too old to start over. Every day is a chance to make changes to create the life we want.” -Karon Waddell
21. “Holding on is believing that there’s only a past; letting go is knowing that there’s a future.” -Daphne Rose Kingma
22. “Right at the end of the road, a new way will be revealed.” -Hiral Nagda
23. “You’re off to great places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, So get on your way!” -Dr. Seuss
24. “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” -Thomas Paine
25. “The day you take complete responsibility for yourself, the day you stop making any excuses, that’s the day you start to the top.” -O. J. Simpson
26. “It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.” -C. S. Lewis
27. “Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next.” -Gilda Radner
28. “Recreate your life, always. Remove the stones, plant rose bushes and make sweets. Begin again.” -Cora Coralina
29. “You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down.” -Mary Pickford
30. “Your life does not get better by chance. It gets better by change.” -Jim Rohn
31. “It’s not only moving that creates new starting points. Sometimes all it takes is a subtle shift in perspective, an opening of the mind, an intentional pause and reset, or a new route to start to see new options and new possibilities.” -Kristin Armstrong
32. “The beginning is the most important part of the work.” -Plato
33. “It’s good to start over. It will be scary but you will see what you’re really made of; it’s the best opportunity to achieve what you never thought you could.” -Jennifer Coletta
34. “Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
35. “Stop being afraid of what could go wrong, and start being excited about what could go right.” -Tony Robbins
36. “No matter how hard the past is, you can always begin again.” -Jack Kornfield
37. “Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.” -Oprah Winfrey
38. “If you’re brave enough to say goodbye, life will reward you with a new hello.” -Paulo Coelho
39. “Change can be scary, but you know what’s scarier? Allowing fear to stop you from growing, evolving, and progressing.” -Mandy Hale
40. “Nothing is predestined. The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings.” -Ralph Blum
41. “It’s never too late to become who you want to be. I hope you live a life that you’re proud of, and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start over.” -F. Scott Fitzgerald
42. “Keep on beginning and failing. Each time you fail, start all over again, and you will grow stronger until you have accomplished a purpose – not the one you began with perhaps, but one you’ll be glad to remember.” -Anne Sullivan
43. “And suddenly you know: It’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.” -Meister Eckhart
44. “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” -George Eliot
45. “Each new day is a blank page in the diary of your life. The secret of success is in turning that diary into the best story you possibly can.” -Douglas Pagels
46. “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become.” -Steve Jobs
47. “Be messy and complicated and afraid and show up anyways.” -Glennon Doyle
48. “Never feel guilty for starting again.” -Rupi Kaur
49. “The best thing about endings is knowing that just ahead is the daunting task to start over.” -Jodi Picoult
50. “If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.” -Gail Sheehy
51. “Every day is a new beginning. Treat it that way. Stay away from what might have been, and look at what can be.” -Marsha Petrie Sue
52. “You will find that it is necessary to let things go; simply for the reason that they are heavy. So let them go, let go of them. I tie no weights to my ankles.” -C. JoyBell C.
53. “The key to change… is to let go of fear.” -Rosanne Cash
54. “I discovered that a fresh start is a process. A fresh start is a journey – a journey that requires a plan.” -Vivian Jokotade
55. “Nourish beginnings, let us nourish beginnings. Not all things are blest, but the seeds of all things are blest. The blessing is in the seed.” -Muriel Rukeyser
56. “To design the future effectively, you must first let go of your past.” -Charles J. Givens
57. “Life is a process – just one thing after another. When you lose it, just start again.” -Richard Carlson
58. “Rock bottom is the end of what wasn’t true enough. Begin again and build something truer.” -Glennon Doyle
59. “Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” -Henry Ford
60. “Do not wait until the conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes the conditions perfect.” -Alan Cohen
61. “You can’t be that kid standing at the top of the water slide, overthinking it. You have to go down the chute.” -Tina Fey
62. “The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.” -Joseph Campbell
63. “New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.” -Lao Tzu
64. “Sometimes it’s the smallest decisions that can change your life forever.” -Keri Russell
65. “Beginnings could happen more than once or in different ways.” -Rachel Joyce
66. “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” -Socrates
67. “A fresh start. A new chapter in life waiting to be written. New questions to be asked, embraced, and loved. Answers to be discovered and then lived in this transformative year of delight and self-discovery. Today carve out a quiet interlude for yourself in which to dream, pen in hand. Only dreams give birth to change.” -Sarah Ban Breathnach
68. “Every morning we are born again. What we do today matters most.” -Buddha
69. “It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.” -Joseph Campbell
70. “Every day is a new day, and you’ll never be able to find happiness if you don’t move on.” -Carrie Underwood
71. “If you wish to be happy right from the beginning of your day, then it is about time to leave behind your past.” -Lorin Hopper
72. “Don’t wait for the right opportunity, create it.” -George Bernard Shaw
73. “Don’t dwell on what went wrong. Instead, focus on what to do next. Spend your energies on moving forward toward finding the answer.” -Denis Waitley
74. “Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.” -C.S. Lewis
75. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” -Mark Twain
76. “You can learn new things at any time in your life if you’re willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you.” -Barbara Shur
77. “Let’s forget the baggages of the past and make a new beginning.” -Shehbaz Sharif
78. “Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?” -L.M. Montgomery
79. “Take a deep breath, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again.” -Frank Sinatra
80. “Don’t worry if you committed a mistake. Some of the most beautiful things we have in life comes from our mistakes.” -Surgeo Bell
81. “Don’t worry. Just when you think your life is over, a new story line falls from the sky and lands right in your lap.” -Rebekah Crane
82. “When the winds of change blow, some people build walls and others build windmills.” -Chinese Proverb
83. “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” -Winston Churchill
84. “The hardest part is starting. Once you get that out of the way, you’ll find the rest of the journey much easier.” -Simon Sinek
85. “Although no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” -Carl Bard
86. “Begin today. Declare out loud to the universe that you are willing to let go of struggle and eager to learn through joy.” -Sarah Ban Breathnach
87. “The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide you’re not going to stay where you are.” -J. P. Morgan
88. “Starting over is an acceptance of a past we can’t change, an unrelenting conviction that the future can be different, and the stubborn wisdom to use the past to make the future what the past was not.” -Craig D. Lounsbrough
89. “Whatever wrong turns you’ve taken in life you can always start over and find your way back to happiness.” -Marty Rubin
90. “Even the greatest was once a beginner. Don’t be afraid to take that first step.” -Muhammad Ali
91. “The magic in new beginnings is truly the most powerful of them all.” -Josiyah Martin
92. “Let go of yesterday. Let today be a new beginning and be the best that you can, and you’ll get to where God wants you to be.” -Joel Osteen
93. “Letting go means to come to the realization that some people are a part of your history, but not a part of your destiny.” -Steve Maraboli
94. “The funny thing about wishes. Sometimes all it took to make them come true was a first step.” TJ Klune
95. “Though nobody can go back and make a new beginning, anyone can start over and make a new ending.” -Chico Xavier
96. “If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.” -Dolly Parton
97. “Never underestimate the power you have to take your life in a new direction.” -Germany Kent
98. “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” -Friedrich Nietzsche
99. “The direction you choose to face determines whether you’re standing at the end or the beginning of a road.” -Richelle E. Goodrich
100. “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” -Zig Ziglar
101. “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” -Frederick Douglass
102. “The beginning is always today.” -Mary Shelley
Final thoughts
There are many ways you’ll start from scratch. It can be your career, relationship, home, or hobbies.
When going through change, take the time to relax, let go, and prepare for your next life chapter.
Learn and get inspiration from the list of starting over quotes to help the process.
Related: Deepak Chopra Quotes
Featured image by David Em/Relaxation Hero.
David Em
David Em is the Founder of Relaxation Hero. He created this site to provide tips and resources to help you relax. Outside of Relaxation Hero, David is the CEO of Everyone Media Group. He also enjoys hiking, running, and traveling.