Letting go of your past and living in the present can be really hard to do. These moving on quotes show you how to truly move on and get encouragement on letting go.
1. “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. When I let go of what I have, I receive what I need.” – Lao Tzu
2. “There’s an important difference between giving up and letting go.” – Jessica Hatchigan
3. “Letting go may sound so simple, but rarely is it a one-time thing. Just keep letting go, until one day it’s gone for good.” – Eleanor Brownn
4. “You can’t hold on to the past and expect to grow as a human being.” – Marty Rubin
5. “Accept yourself, love yourself, and keep moving forward. If you want to fly, you have to give up what weighs you down.” – Roy T. Bennett
6. “A star falls from the sky and into your hands. Then it seeps through your veins and swims inside your blood and becomes every part of you. And then you have to put it back into the sky. And it’s the most painful thing you’ll ever have to do and that you’ve ever done. But what’s yours is yours. Whether it’s up in the sky or here in your hands. And one day, it’ll fall from the sky and hit you in the head real hard and that time, you won’t have to put it back in the sky again.” – C. JoyBell C.
7. “You don’t need strength to let go of something. What you really need is understanding.” – Guy Finley
8. “To let go is to release the images and emotions, the grudges and fears, the clingings and disappointments of the past that bind our spirit.” – Jack Kornfield
9. “We can’t be afraid of change. You may feel very secure in the pond that you are in, but if you never venture out of it, you will never know that there is such a thing as an ocean, a sea. Holding onto something that is good for you now, may be the very reason why you don’t have something better.” – C. JoyBell C.
10. “Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.” – Lyndon B. Johnson
11. “It’s tough to let go and move on from bad relationships, but so is every other good thing in life.” – Anon
12. “Life moves on and so should we” – Spencer Johnson
13. “Nothing in the universe can stop you from letting go and starting over.” – Guy Finley
14. “You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months overanalyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could’ve, would’ve happened… or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move on.” – Tupac Shakur
15. “You must be strong enough to know that love will come to you when you are ready. You must be strong enough to know when to say goodbye, and know that letting go is not weak.” – Marisa Donnelly
16. “When we think we have been hurt by someone in the past, we build up defenses to protect ourselves from being hurt in the future. So the fearful past causes a fearful future and the past and future become one. We cannot love when we feel fear…. When we release the fearful past and forgive everyone, we will experience total love and oneness with all.” – Gerald G. Jampolsky
17. “Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.” – Erich Fromm
18. “Change has to come for life to struggle forward.” – Helen Hollick
19. “You can’t expect to move forward if your emergency break is on.” – Angela Cecilia
20. “You need to have faith in yourself. Be brave and take risks. You don’t have to have it all figured out to move forward.” – Roy T. Bennett
21. “It’s hard to be clear about who you are when you are carrying around a bunch of baggage from the past. I’ve learned to let go and move more quickly into the next place.” – Angelina Jolie
22. “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
23. “Once you realize you deserve a bright future, letting go of your dark past is the best choice you will ever make.” – Roy T. Bennett
24. “I demolish my bridges behind me…then there is no choice but to move forward” – Fridtjof Nansen
25. “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.” – J. K. Rowling
26. “Nothing ever happens like you imagine it will… but then again, if you don’t imagine, nothing ever happens at all. Imagining isn’t perfect. You can’t get all the way inside someone else… But imagining being someone else, or the world being something else, is the only way in. It is the machine that kills the fascists” – John Green
27. “Don’t dwell on what went wrong. Instead, focus on what to do next. Spend your energy moving forward together towards an answer.” – Denis Waitley
28. “Sometimes it takes a heartbreak to shake us awake & help us see we are worth so much more than we’re settling for.” – Mandy Hale
29. “I welcomed who I was and left behind who I was not.” – David Elliott
30. “I’m guilty of giving people more chances than they deserve but when I’m done, I’m done.” – Turcois Ominek
31. “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.
32. “Letting go helps us to to live in a more peaceful state of mind and helps restore our balance. It allows others to be responsible for themselves and for us to take our hands off situations that do not belong to us. This frees us from unnecessary stress.” – Melody Beatti
33. “We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” – Walt Disney
34. “Incredible change happens in your life when you decide to take control of what you do have power over instead of craving control over what you don’t.” – Steve Maraboli,
35. “You don’t have to let that one thing be the thing that defines you.” – Jojo Moyes
36. “Letting go does not mean you stop caring. It means you stop trying to force others to.” – Mandy Hale
37. “Letting go is also a matter of self-worth.” – Efrat Cybulkiewicz
38. “Just remember, when you should grab something, grab it; when you should let go, let go.” – Unknown
39. “Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.” – Raymond Lindquist
40. “It’s the way you fall you. Gotta let yourself go.” – Melville Shavelson
41. “A mistake is only a mistake if you dwell on it. Let go and forgive.” – Akiroq Brost
42. “Sometimes letting go is braver than holding on until you break.” – Rebekah Crane
43. “This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet.” – Rumi
44. “A very wise man once told me that you can’t look back – you just have to put the past behind you, and find something better in your future.” – Jodi Picoult
45. “If letting go, if letting people and things work themselves out in the way that they needed to without your help was the most important thing, then it was also the hardest.” – Deb Caletti
46. “The only thing a person can ever really do is keep moving forward. Take that big leap forward without hesitation, without once looking back. Simply forget the past and forge toward the future.” – Alyson Noel
47. “Cry. Forgive. Learn. Move on. Let your tears water the seeds of your future happiness.” – Steve Maraboli
48. “Why let go of yesterday? Because yesterday has already let go of you.” – Steve Maraboli
49. “It is tough to let go of someone you can’t live without. But living with someone who can live without you, is much worse.” – Anon
50. “If people refuse to look at you in a new light and they can only see you for what you were, only see you for the mistakes you’ve made, if they don’t realize that you are not your mistakes, then they have to go.” – Steve Maraboli
51. “There is no such thing as a broken family. Family is family, and is not determined by marriage certificates, divorce papers, and adoption documents. Families are made in the heart. The only time family becomes null is when those ties in the heart are cut. If you cut those ties, those people are not your family. If you make those ties, those people are your family. And if you hate those ties, those people will still be your family because whatever you hate will always be with you.” – C. JoyBell C.
52. “One of the happiest moments in life is when you find the courage to let go of what you cannot change.” – Anon
53. “You’ve got to make a conscious choice every day to shed the old – whatever the old means for you.” – Sarah Ban Breathnach
54. “We need to learn to let go as easily as we grasp and we will find our hands full and our minds empty.” – Leo F. Buscaglia
55. “There ain’t no way you can hold onto something that wants to go, you understand? You can only love what you got while you got it. ― Kate DiCamillo, Because of Winn” – Dixie
56. “Leaders spend 5% of their time on the problem and 95% of their time on the solution. Get over it and crush it.” – Anthony Robbins
57. “Moving on is easy. It’s staying moved on that’s trickier.” – Katerina Stoykova Klemer
58. “The day I understood everything, was the day I stopped trying to figure everything out. The day I knew peace was the day I let everything go.” – C. JoyBell C.
59. “Anything you can’t control is teaching you how to let go.” – Jackson Kiddard
60. “Every woman that finally figured out her worth, has picked up her suitcases of pride and boarded a flight to freedom, which landed in the valley of change.” – Shannon L. Alder
61. ”You have to let go of who you were to become who you will be.” – Candace Bushnell
62. “There’s a trick to the Graceful Exit. It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, a relationship is over — and to let go. It means leaving what’s over without denying its value.” – Ellen Goodman
63. “You loved him enough to let him leave… Now you need to love yourself enough to let him go.” – Ranata Suzuki
64. “No boundary or barrier surrounds the heart of a person that loves their self and others.” – Shannon L. Alder
65. “All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.” – Henry Havelock Ellis
66. “One of the best times for figuring out who you are and what you really want out of life? Right after a break-up.” – Mandy Hale
67. “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.” – C. JoyBell C.
68. “You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present.” – Jan Glidewell
69. “Keeping baggage from the past will leave no room for happiness in the future.” – Wayne L. Misner
70. “Starting today, I need to forget what’s gone, appreciate what still remains and look forward to what’s coming next” – Anon
71. “Don’t hang on to the past and don’t look on to the future, focus on your present and present will build your future, cover your past and make your present worth a while” – Meeran W. Malik
72. “The best skill at cards is knowing when to discard.” – Baltasar Gracián
73. “The greatest step towards a life of simplicity is to learn to let go.” – Steve Maraboli
74. “Being different is a revolving door in your life where secure people enter and insecure exit.” – Shannon L. Alder
75. “It happens to everyone as they grow up. You find out who you are and what you want, and then you realize that people you’ve known forever don’t see things the way you do. So you keep the wonderful memories, but find yourself moving on.” – Nicholas Sparks
76. “If you truly want to be respected by people you love, you must prove to them that you can survive without them.” – Shannon L. Alder
77. “Why do people persist in a dissatisfying relationship, unwilling either to work toward solutions or end it and move on? It’s because they know changing will lead to the unknown, and most people believe that the unknown will be much more painful than what they’re already experiencing.” – Anthony Robbins
78. “Life is like a river, if you cannot let go of the past, it will drag you down the stream.” – Amit Ray
79. “Life moves forward. The old leaves wither, die and fall away, and the new growth extends forward into the light.” – Bryant McGill
80. “When someone you love says goodbye you can stare long and hard at the door they closed and forget to see all the doors God has open in front of you.” – Shannon L. Alder
81. “Letting go of someone we love is the hardest thing we will ever do. Some people never surrender to love for the fear of being hurt. But to not have loved, to not have felt the immense joy it brings, would have been a far worse kind of death.” – Goldie Hawn
82. “It’s not a matter of letting go – you would if you could. Instead of “Let it go” we should probably say “Let it be”. – Jon Kabat-Zinn
83. “If you spend your time hoping someone will suffer the consequences for what they did to your heart, then you’re allowing them to hurt you a second time in your mind.” – Shannon L. Alder
84. “Our scars make us who we are. Wear them proudly, and move forward.” – Jane Linfoot
85. “Inner peace can be reached only when we practice forgiveness. Forgiveness is letting go of the past, and is therefore the means for correcting our misperceptions.” – Gerald G. Jampolsky
86. “You only struggle because you’re ready to grow but aren’t willing to let go.” – Drew Gerald
87. “I demolish my bridges behind me…then there is no choice but to move forward.” – Fridtjof Nansen
88. “To help yourself, you must be yourself. Be the best that you can be. When you make a mistake, learn from it, pick yourself up and move on.” – Dave Pelzer
89. “The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty.” – Seneca
90. “I realize there’s something incredibly honest about trees in winter, how they’re experts at letting things go.” – Jeffrey McDaniel
91. “Sometimes the hardest part isn’t letting go but rather learning to start over.” – Nicole Sobon
92. “Don’t go through life; grow through life.” – Eric Butterworth
93. “Thank God I found the GOOD in goodbye.” – Beyonce Knowles
94. “Sometimes the only way to get a grip is by learning to let go.” – Curtis Tyrone Jones
95. “Let go of certainty. The opposite isn’t uncertainty. It’s openness, curiosity and a willingness to embrace paradox, rather than choose up sides. The ultimate challenge is to accept ourselves exactly as we are, but never stop trying to learn and grow.” – Tony Schwartz
96. “If you want to forget something or someone, never hate it, or never hate him/her. Everything and everyone that you hate is engraved upon your heart; if you want to let go of something, if you want to forget, you cannot hate.” – C. JoyBell C.
97. “Sometimes you can’t let go of the past without facing it again.” – Gail Tsukiyama
98. “Your time is way too valuable to be wasting on people that can’t accept who you are.” – TurcoisOminek
99. “Even on my weakest days I get a little bit stronger” – Sara Evans
100. “The most difficult aspect of moving on is accepting that the other person already did.” – Faraaz Kazi
101. “When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” – Alexander Graham Bell
102. “The greatest win is walking away and choosing not to engage in drama and toxic energy at all.” – Lalah Delia
103. “Sooner or later we’ve all got to let go of our past.” – Dan Brown
104. “If I kept saying it; if I kept reaching out. My accident really taught me just one thing: the only way to go on is to go on. To say ‘I can do this’ even when you know you can’t.” – Stephen King
105. “If you didn’t love him, this never would have happened. But you did. And accepting that love and everything that followed it is part of letting it go.” – Sarah Dessen
106. “Some people believe holding on and hanging in there are signs of great strength. However, there are times when it takes much more strength to know when to let go and then do it.” – Ann Landers
107. “Today expect something good to happen to you no matter what occurred yesterday. Realize the past no longer holds you captive. It can only continue to hurt you if you hold on to it. Let the past go. A simply abundant world awaits. (January 11)” – Sarah Ban Breathnach
108. “Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.” – Bob Newhart
109. “Instead of thinking I am losing something when I clear clutter, I dwell on what I might gain.” – Lisa J. Shultz
110. “Your heart’s strength is measured by how hard it holds on. Your self-worth and faith is measured by finally letting go. However, your peace is measured by how long you don’t look back.” – Shannon L. Alder
111. “People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.” – Thich Nhat Hanh
112. “Stop acting as if life is a rehearsal. Live this day as if it were your last. The past is over and gone. The future is not guaranteed.” – Wayne Dyer
113. “Anything I cannot transform into something marvelous, I let go.” – Anais Nin
114. “The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.” – Steve Maraboli
115. “Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.” – Oprah Winfrey
116. “The beautiful journey of today can only begin when we learn to let go of yesterday.” – Steve Maraboli
117. “I do a good job of staying positive and just moving on.” – Katie Taylor
118. “When we go back in to the past and rake up all the troubles we’ve had, we end up reeling and staggering through life. Stability and peace of mind come by living in the moment.” – Pam W. Vredevelt
119. “No matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories.” – Haruki Murakami
120. “I think that you never fall out of love with somebody, you just let go and move on.” – Ashley Rickards
121. “You don’t need strength to let go of something. What you really need is understanding.” – Guy Finley
122. “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” – Seneca
123. “Life becomes easier when you learn to accept an apology you never got.” – Robert Brault
124. “There are things that we never want to let go of, people we never want to leave behind. But keep in mind that letting go isn’t the end of the world, it’s the beginning of a new life.” – Unknown
125. “Let go. Why do you cling to pain? There is nothing you can do about the wrongs of yesterday. It is not yours to judge. Why hold on to the very thing which keeps you from hope and love?” – Leo Buscaglia
126. “Let go of your attachment to being right, and suddenly your mind is more open. You’re able to benefit from the unique viewpoints of others, without being crippled by your own judgment.” – Ralph Marston
127. “Most things are forgotten over time. Even the war itself, the life-and-death struggle people went through is now like something from the distant past. We’re so caught up in our everyday lives that events of the past are no longer in orbit around our minds. There are just too many things we have to think about everyday, too many new things we have to learn. But still, no matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away. They remain with us forever, like a touchstone.” – Haruki Murakami
128. “Love is never supposed to hurt. Love is supposed to heal, to be your haven from misery, to make living fucking worthwhile.” – Mia Asher
129. “At some point, you gotta let go, and sit still, and allow contentment to come to you.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
130. “You have to let go of who you were to become who you will be.” – Candace Bushnell
131. “Today expect something good to happen to you no matter what occurred yesterday. Realize the past no longer holds you captive. It can only continue to hurt you if you hold on to it. Let the past go. A simply abundant world awaits.” – Sarah Ban Breathnach
132. “Convince yourself everyday that you are worthy of a good life. Let go of stress, breathe. Stay positive, all is well.” – Germany Kent
133. “Suffering is not holding you. You are holding suffering. When you become good at the art of letting sufferings go, then you’ll come to realize how unnecessary it was for you to drag those burdens around with you. You’ll see that no one else other than you was responsible. The truth is that existence wants your life to become a festival.” – Osho
134. “When you leave, weary of me, without a word I shall gently let you go.” – Kim Sowol
135. “We must be willing to let go of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” – Joseph Campbell
136. “Letting go doesn’t mean that you don’t care about someone anymore. It’s just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself.” – Deborah Reber
137. “Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can’t build on it; it’s only good for wallowing in.” – Katherine Mansfield
138. “All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.” – Havelock Ellis
139. “If you want to fly on the sky, you need to leave the earth. If you want to move forward, you need to let go the past that drags you down.” – Amit Ray
140. “My heart might be bruised, but it will recover and become capable of seeing the beauty of life once more. It’s happened before, it will happen again, I’m sure. When someone leaves, it’s because someone else is about to arrive – I’ll find love again.” – Paulo Coelho
141. “Sometimes people come into your life just to teach you how to let go.” – Jackson Kiddard
142. “By accepting the process of letting go, we make people and things that we can’t stay with forever a part of our history.” – Dr Prem Jagyasi
143. “Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go.” – Hermann Hesse
144. “Holding on is believing that there’s only a past; letting go is knowing that there’s a future.” – Daphne Rose Kingma
145. “Sometimes, we have to fight for what we love and care about. Other times, we have to find strength to let go of the things we love most” – Anonymous
146. “There are times in life when people must know when not to let go. Balloons are designed to teach small children this.” – Terry Pratchett
147. “Rehashing the past wouldn’t change anything. Time to move forward.” – Zena Wynn
148. “Even a rock moves on.” – Anthony Liccione
149. “There is absolutely no beauty in holding onto something that you’re supposed to let go of.” – Sai Pradeep
150. “Letting go. Everyone talks about it like it’s the easiest thing. Unfurl your fingers one by one until your hand is open. But my hand has been clenched into a fist for three years now; it’s frozen shut.” – Gayle Forman
151. “Your past does not equal your future.” – Anthony Robbins
152. “You really don’t have to burn any bridges to let go… You don’t have to destroy anything. You can just decide to cross over and move on.” – Marta Mrotek
153. “I just wanted to tell you that I understand if you go. It’s okay if you have to leave us. It’s okay if you want to stop fighting.” – Gayle Forman
154. “Letting go is the willingness to change your beliefs in order to bring more peace and joy into your life instead of holding onto beliefs that bring pain and suffering.” – Hal Tipper
155. “And I told him, I said: One day you’re going to miss the subway because it’s not going to come. One of these days, it’s going to break down and it’s not going to come around and everyone else will just wait for the next one or will take the bus, or walk, or run to the next station: they will go on with their lives. And you’re not going to be able to go on with your life! You’ll be standing there, in the subway station, staring at the tube. Why? Because you think that everything has to happen perfectly and on time and when you think it’s going to happen! Well guess what! That’s not how things happen! And you’ll be the only one who’s not going to be able to go on with life, just because your subway broke down. So you know what, you’ve got to let go, you’ve got to know that things don’t happen the way you think they’re going to happen, but that’s okay, because there’s always the bus, there’s always the next station…you can always take a cab.” – C. JoyBell C.
156. “Last night I lost the world, and gained the universe.” – C. JoyBell C.
157. “The answer to every adversity lies in courageously moving forward with faith.” – Edmond Mbiaka
158. “I can enjoy anywhere, and I can leave it. Life is about moving on.” – Waris Dirie
159. “Forget what hurt you but never forget what it taught you.” – Shannon L. Alder
160. “You’ve got to make a conscious choice every day to shed the old – whatever ‘the old’ means for you.” – Sarah Ban Breathnach
161. “Some birds are not meant to be caged, that’s all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.” – Stephen King
162. “It is always important to know when something has reached its end. Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters, it doesn’t matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those moments in life that are over.” – Paulo Coelho
163. “The most difficult aspect of moving on is accepting that the other person already did.” – FaraazKazi
164. “The truth was, he now belonged only to my past, and it was time I begin to accept it, as much as it hurt to do so.” – Tammara Webber
165. “Let the things of long ago drift away on the water.” – Alan Brennert
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