100+ Starting Over Quotes to Help You Move On

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.

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.