Loving yourself is one of the best things you can do to improve the quality of your life.
It will make your life happier and lighter.
It will improve the relationships – new and old – you have with other people in your life.
And it will help you to greatly improve the relationship you have with yourself. To be kind and helpful to yourself when you stumble or fall and to stop self-sabotaging when you’re starting towards a goal or closing in on achieving a dream.
In this post I’d like to share 201 of the most powerful love yourself quotes. Inspiring, motivating and often practically helpful advice from the past thousands of years put together in an ultimate guide of sorts.
And if you want even more self-loving inspiration then check out this post with quotes on self-care and this one with timeless advice about knowing your worth and value.
Inspirational Love Yourself Quotes
“Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one’s own sunshine.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.
Buddha
“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.”
Lucille Ball
“If you can learn to love yourself and all the flaws, you can love other people so much better. And that makes you so happy.”
Kristin Chenoweth
“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
“Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we’ll ever do.”
Brené Brown
“All you really need to do is accept this moment fully. You are then at ease in the here and now and at ease with yourself.”
Eckhart Tolle
“Love yourself not in some egocentric, self-serving sense but love yourself the way you would love your friend in the sense of taking care of yourself, nourishing yourself, trying to understand, comfort, and strengthen yourself.”
Frederick Buechner
“The best friend you will ever find is you. Love yourself with joy and fill your heart with bliss and happiness.”
Debasish Mridha
“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
“One of the best guides to how to be self-loving is to give ourselves the love we are often dreaming about receiving from others.”
bell hooks
“You have to grow, you have to be, you have to love yourself unconditionally.”
Dominic Riccitello
“A person learns how to love himself through the simple acts of loving and being loved by someone else.”
Haruki Murakami
“When admiring other people’s gardens, don’t forget to tend to your own flowers.”
Sandbar Khan
“People may flatter themselves just as much by thinking that their faults are always present to other people’s minds, as if they believe that the world is always contemplating their individual charms and virtues.”
Elizabeth Gaskell
“Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others.”
Brené Brown
“You have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.”
Louise L. Hay
“Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.”
Benjamin Spock
“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
“If you aren’t good at loving yourself, you will have a difficult time loving anyone, since you’ll resent the time and energy you give another person that you aren’t even giving to yourself.”
Barbara De Angelis
“To accept ourselves as we are means to value our imperfections as much as our perfections.”
Sandra Bierig
“Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.”
M. Scott Peck
“If you have the ability to love, love yourself first.”
Charles Bukowski
“When I loved myself enough, I began leaving whatever wasn’t healthy. This meant people, jobs, my own beliefs and habits – anything that kept me small. My judgement called it disloyal. Now I see it as self-loving.”
Kim McMillen
“The absence of self-love can never be replaced with the presence of people’s love for you.”
Edmond Mbiaka
“One of the greatest regrets in life is being what others would want you to be, rather than being yourself.”
Shannon L. Alder
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world. Everyone you meet is your mirror.”
Ken Keyes
“When there’s no one else, look inside yourself. Like your oldest friend, just trust the voice within. Then you’ll find the strength that will guide your way. You’ll learn to begin to trust the voice within.”
Christina Aguilera
“Everyone of us needs to show how much we care for each other and, in the process, care for ourselves.”
Princess Diana
“Encourage yourself, believe in yourself, and love yourself. Never doubt who you are.”
Stephanie Lahart
“You have to be able to love yourself because that’s when things fall into place.”
Vanessa Hudgens
“Love yourself and love those around you. Take care of yourself and take care of those around you. Lead by example. Give love. Be a part of everything that is great in the world, and in turn there is more love and greatness in the world! Change the world!”
Jeffrey I. Moore
“When you establish peace, when you establish love, when you establish kindness here inside, you cannot act any other way to the outside world.”
Mimi Ikonn
“You must be fearless enough to give yourself the love you did not receive.”
Oprah Winfrey
“People who love themselves don’t hurt other people. The more we hate ourselves, the more we want others to suffer.”
Dan Pearce
“When you adopt the viewpoint that there is nothing that exists that is not part of you, that there is no one who exists who is not part of you, that any judgment you make is self-judgment, that any criticism you level is self-criticism, you will wisely extend to yourself an unconditional love that will be the light of the world.”
Harry Palmer
“Find company within yourself and you’ll never spend a day alone. Find love within yourself and you’ll never have a lonely day.”
Connor Chalfant
“As long as you look for someone else to validate who you are by seeking their approval, you are setting yourself up for disaster. You have to be whole and complete in yourself. No one can give you that. You have to know who you are – what others say is irrelevant.”
Nic Sheff
“You are very powerful, provided you know how powerful you are.”
Yogi Bahaman
“I don’t entirely approve of some of the things I have done, or am, or have been. But I’m me. God knows, I’m me.”
Elizabeth Taylor
“Everything you have done and been through is valuable and important. In order to be who you are, to know what you know, to be where you are in this moment, you needed to go through what you went through.”
Iyanla Vanzant
“Don’t rely on someone else for your happiness and self-worth. Only you can be responsible for that. If you can’t love and respect yourself – no one else will be able to make that happen. Accept who you are – completely; the good and the bad – and make changes as YOU see fit – not because you think someone else wants you to be different.”
Stacey Charter
“You are a true success if you can trust yourself, love yourself, and be yourself.”
Debasish Mridha
“My willingness to be intimate with my own deep feelings creates the space for intimacy with another.”
Shakti Gawain
”If you don’t love yourself, nobody will. Not only that, you won’t be good at loving anyone else. Loving starts with the self.”
Wayne Dyer
“Love yourself unconditionally, just as you love those closest to you despite their faults.”
Les Brown
“Because one believes in oneself, one doesn’t try to convince others. Because one is content with oneself, one doesn’t need others’ approval. Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her.”
Lao Tzu
Learning to Love Yourself Quotes for Your Self-Love Journey
“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
Carl Gustav Jung
“You’re always with yourself, so you might as well enjoy the company.”
Diane Von Furstenberg
“Have the courage to love yourself like you always wished someone would.”
Vironika Tugaleva
“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.”
Thich Nhat Hanh
“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life, but define yourself.”
Harvey Fierstein
“Love yourself. Forgive yourself. Be true to yourself. How you treat yourself sets the standard for how others will treat you.”
Steve Maraboli
“Lighten up on yourself. No one is perfect. Gently accept your humanness.”
Deborah Day
“Some people around you will not understand your journey. They don’t need to; it’s not for them.”
Paulo Coelho
“As I began to love myself I found that anguish and emotional suffering are only warning signs that I was living against my own truth.”
Charlie Chaplin
“The only person who can pull me down is myself, and I’m not going to let myself pull me down anymore.”
C. JoyBell C.
“Self-love doesn’t mean that everyone will treat you the way you deserve to be treated. It means that you won’t let them change the way you see yourself; nor will you stick around for them to destroy you.”
Tony A. Gaskins Jr
“Self respect, self worth and self love, all start with self. Stop looking outside of yourself for your value.”
Rob Liano
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
Rumi
“We must dare to be originals for we have only one life to live. Living a life that placates other people is fool’s gold.”
Kilroy J. Oldster
“Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a friend.”
Elizabeth Gilbert
“At the core of your heart, you are perfect and pure. No one and nothing can alter that.”
Amit Ray
“I had to grow to love my body. I did not have a good self-image at first. Finally it occurred to me, I’m either going to love me or hate me. And I chose to love myself. Then everything kind of sprung from there. Things that I thought weren’t attractive became sexy. Confidence makes you sexy.”
Queen Latifah
“Whatever you did today is enough. Whatever you felt today is valid. Whatever you thought today isn’t to be judged. Repeat the above each day.”
Brittany Burgunder
“Spend time understanding who you are, after all the only person you’re ever going to truly live with is yourself.”
Nikki Rowe
“We just need to be kinder to ourselves. If we treated ourselves the way we treated our best friend, can you imagine how much better off we would be?”
Meghan Markle
“Find the love you seek, by first finding the love within yourself. Learn to rest in that place within you that is your true home.”
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
“So then, the relationship of self to other is the complete realization that loving yourself is impossible without loving everything defined as other than yourself.”
Alan Watts
“Celebrate who you are in your deepest heart. Love yourself and the world will love you.”
Amy Leigh Mercree
“Love only yourself a little bit longer, until you can’t stand not to love someone else.”
Kiera Cass
“Becoming acquainted with yourself is a price well worth paying for the love that will really address your needs.”
Daphne Rose Kingma
“Inner peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions.”
Pema Chodron
“I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself.”
Rita Mae Brown
“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
“Scarcity of self-value cannot be remedied by money, recognition, affection, attention or influence.”
Gary Zukav
“No other love, no matter how genuine it is, can fulfill one’s heart better than unconditional self-love.”
Edmond Mbiaka
“Believing in our hearts that who we are is enough is the key to a more satisfying and balanced life.”
Ellen Sue Stern
“Love yourself enough to set boundaries. Your time and energy are precious. You get to choose how you use it.”
Anna Taylor
“Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.”
Malcolm S. Forbes
“Loving yourself…does not mean being self-absorbed or narcissistic, or disregarding others. Rather it means welcoming yourself as the most honored guest in your own heart, a guest worthy of respect, a lovable companion.”
Margo Anand
“Eat like you love yourself. Move like you love yourself. Speak like you love yourself. Act like you love yourself.”
Tara Stiles
“Our self-respect tracks our choices. Every time we act in harmony with our authentic self and our heart, we earn our respect. It is that simple. Every choice matters.”
Dan Coppersmith
“There is no sense in punishing your future for the mistakes of your past. Forgive yourself, grow from it, and then let it go.”
Melanie Koulouris
“Whenever I am in a difficult situation where there seems to be no way out, I think about all the times I have been in such situations and say to myself, ‘I did it before, so I can do it again’.”
Idowu Koyenikan
“She lacks confidence, she craves admiration insatiably. She lives on the reflections of herself in the eyes of others. She does not dare to be herself.”
Anais Nin
“There is nothing noble about being superior to some other man. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self.”
Hindu Proverb
“Beauty is when you can appreciate yourself. When you love yourself, that’s when you’re most beautiful.”
Zoe Kravitz
“Through life’s ups and downs remember that you have your own life. That you’re your own person. With your own unique hopes, dreams and flaws. And that you’re worthy of love for the sum total of all of that.”
Unknown
“When a woman becomes her own best friend, life is easier.”
Diane Von Furstenberg
“To establish true self-esteem, we must concentrate on our successes and forget about the failures and the negatives in our lives.”
Denis Waitley
“Perfectionism is searching for faults to justify low self-esteem. It is a guaranteed failure and fantasy.”
Brittany Burgunder
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
Howard Washington Thurman
“I love myself for I am a beloved child of the universe and the universe lovingly takes care of me now.”
Louise Hay
“The greatest love that you could ever experience on earth is the one that only comes from you to you.”
Edmond Mbiaka
“The hardest challenge is to be yourself in a world where everyone is trying to make you be somebody else.”
E. E. Cummings
“Plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.”
Veronica A. Shoffstall
“Love yourself… Enough to cut yourself loose from the drama-filled past, enough to set a high standard for relationships, enough to feed your mind and body in a healthy manner, enough to forgive yourself, enough to move on.”
Steve Maraboli
“The important thing is at first the small thing when it comes to loving yourself. Just be kind to yourself about a small thing in your daily life. Then build on that, step by step.”
Unknown
“People who want the most approval get the least and the people who need approval the least get the most.”
Wayne Dyer
“We all wear masks, and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing some of our own skin.”
Andre Berthiaume
“Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Do not brood over your past mistakes and failures as this will only fill your mind with grief, regret and depression. Do not repeat them in the future.”
Swami Shivananda
“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.”
Abraham Lincoln
“The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift is yours – it is an amazing journey – and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins.”
Bob Moawad
Also be sure to have a look at this post about focusing on yourself for self-empowerment and this one with quotes about kindness towards both others and yourself.
Love Yourself First Quotes
“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within.”
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
“Sometimes the noise of life can be just too much. If you need to escape, love yourself enough to know when you need a real time out.”
Karen A. Boquerón
“Respect, love, and value yourself. Always remember to be good to yourself by taking care of yourself. Make yourself a priority and know that it’s okay. Don’t feel guilty for loving yourself, first! You’re just as important as anybody else.”
Stephanie Lahart
“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
“Love yourself. It is important to stay positive because beauty comes from the inside out.”
Jenn Proske
“You’ve got to love yourself first. You’ve got to be okay on your own before you can be okay with somebody else.”
Jennifer Lopez
“You can never meet your potential until you truly learn to love yourself.”
Teresa Collins
“We are each gifted in a unique and important way. It is our privilege and our adventure to discover our own special light.”
Mary Dunbar
“It’s all about falling in love with yourself and sharing that love with someone who appreciates you, rather than looking for love to compensate for a self-love deficit.”
Eartha Kitt
“I’ve finally stopped running away from myself. Who else is there better to be?”
Golden Hawn
“Why should I care what other people think of me? I am who I am. And who I wanna be.”
Avril Lavigne
“Looking back you realize that a very special person passed briefly through your life and that person was you. It is not too late to become that person again.”
Robert Brault
“It took many years of vomiting up all the filth I’d been taught about myself, and half-believed before I was able to walk on the earth as though I had a right to be here.”
James Baldwin
“Your time is way too valuable to be wasting on people that can’t accept who you are.”
Turcois Ominek
“I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.”
Frederick Douglass
“Love is the great miracle cure. Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives.”
Louise L. Hay
“The most powerful relationship you will ever have is the relationship with yourself.”
Steve Maraboli
“One’s dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but it can never be taken away unless it is surrendered.”
Michael J. Fox
“You can receive all the compliments in the world, but that won’t do a thing unless you believe it yourself.”
Criss Jami
“For every one person who praises you, there are a hundred who would criticize you. Heed neither the one nor the hundred. It is your own opinion that truly matters.”
Richelle E. Goodrich.
“To love yourself is the first step to happiness.”
Asokha
“If you don’t love yourself, you won’t be happy with yourself. If you can’t love yourself, you can’t love anyone else. You can’t give the love you do not have. You can’t make anyone love you without loving yourself first.”
Kemi Sogunle
“My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent.”
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”
Bernard M. Baruch
“Once you embrace your value, talents and strengths, it neutralizes when others think less of you.”
Rob Liano
“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”’
E.E. Cummings
“I’m gonna love myself more than anyone else. Believe in me, even if someone can’t see the stronger woman in me.”
Jewel
“You have to believe in yourself when no one else does – that makes you a winner right there.”
Venus Williams
“Our entire life … consists ultimately in accepting ourselves as we are.”
Jean Anouih
“Why should we worry about what others think of us, do we have more confidence in their opinions than we do our own?”’
Brigham Young
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Being yourself means shedding all the layers of looking good, wanting to be liked, being scared to stand out, and trying to be who you think people want you to be.”
Jeff Moore
“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 to others.”
Parker Palmer
“You have to learn to love yourself before you can love someone else. Because it’s only when we love ourselves that we feel worthy of someone else’s love.”
Alyssa B. Sheinmel
“Even when it seems that there is no one else, always remember there’s one person who never ceased to love you – yourself.”
Sanhita Baruah
“You were born an original work of art. Stay original always. Originals cost more than imitations.”
Suzy Kassem
“When you please others in hopes of being accepted, you lose your self worth in the process.”
Dave Pelzer
“Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
“In my experience, the biggest reason people struggle to get where they want to be is guilt. Guilt that they have let someone down, and also guilt that they are about to leave someone they love… behind.”
Bethany Brookbank
“Whatever you are doing, love yourself for doing it. Whatever you are feeling, love yourself for feeling it.”
Thaddeus Golas
“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
Short Love Yourself Quotes
“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”
Mark Twain
“If you ever want to love someone, love yourself unconditionally first.”
Debasish Mridha
“Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin, as self-neglecting.”
William Shakespeare
“No one knows how you treat yourself, but it’s the most important relationship you have.”
Bill Masur
“I don’t like myself, I’m crazy about myself.”
May West
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
George Eliot
“The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.”
Carl Gustav Jung
“The better you feel about yourself, the less you feel the need to show off.”
Robert Hand
“It isn’t what they call you, it’s what you answer to.”
W.C. Fields
“To fall in love with yourself is the first secret to happiness.”
Robert Morley
“Be faithful to that which exists within yourself.”
André Gide
“Growth begins when we start to accept our own weakness.”
Jean Vanier
“Loneliness is a sign you are in desperate need of yourself.”
Rupi Kaur
“Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.”
Helen Keller
“The right attitude is always one of kindness. Towards others and yourself.”
Unknown
“Sometimes the hardest part of the journey is believing you’re worthy of the trip.”
Glenn Beck
“The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself.”
Maya Angelou
“The way you treat yourself sets the standard for others.”
Sonya Friedman
“Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.”
Zig Ziglar
“Low self-esteem is like driving through life with your hand-break on.”
Maxwell Maltz
“If God had wanted me otherwise, he would have created me otherwise.”
Johann von Goethe
“Do your thing and don’t care if they like it.”
Tina Fey
“Argue for your limitations and, sure enough, they’re yours.”
Richard Bach
“The more you love yourself, the less nonsense you’ll tolerate.”
Unknown
“All people deserve your kindness, but none more so than you.”
Justin Kan
“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself.”
Coco Chanel
“Love yourself and dream bigger.”
Teresa Collins
“Love yourself enough to have a meaningful life.”
Millen Livis
“One learns to ignore criticism by first learning to ignore applause.”
Robert Brault
“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.”
Michel de Montaigne
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
“The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.”
William James
“Your ideal life is your real life. Be true to yourself and honor your preferences.”
Maria Erving
“Your most important sale is to sell yourself to yourself.”
Maxwell Maltz
“Just being born makes you worthy enough to be here.”
Oprah Winfrey
“Self-worth comes from one thing – thinking that you are worthy.”
Wayne Dyer
“It’s not your job to like me…it’s mine!”
Byron Katie
“We are what we believe we are.”
C.S. Lewis
“In order to love who you are, you cannot hate the experiences that shaped you.”
Andrea Dykstra
“Sometimes you have to be alone to truly know your worth.”
Karen A. Baquiran
“There are so many more important things to worry about than how you’re perceived by strangers.”
Dennis Lehane
“We can’t be so desperate for love that we forget where we can always find it; within.”
Alexandra Ell
“We accept the love we think we deserve.”
Stephen Chbosky
“You can’t build joy on a feeling of self-loathing.”
Ram Dass
“To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.”
Oscar Wilde
“Remind yourself that you cannot fail at being yourself.”
Wayne Dyer
“You don’t have to stop fighting for others, you just have to remember to fight for yourself too.”
Liz Newman
“Do you want to meet the love of your life? Look in the mirror.”
Byron Katie
“Why are you trying so hard to fit in when you were born to stand out?”
Ian Wallace
“Even in the loneliest moments I have been there for myself.”
Sanober Khan
“The moment you accept yourself, you become beautiful.”
Osho
“Only when you are kinder to yourself, can you be kinder to the world.”
Haemin Sunim
“Loving yourself isn’t vanity; it’s sanity.”
Katrina Mayer
Want even more motivation to be your best self and overcome negative thoughts? Check out this post with inspiring quotes about self-esteem, this one with you are enough quotes and this post with my own favorite tips for improving your self-esteem.