102 Letting Go Quotes to Help You Move Forward

Letting go is an essential yet often challenging part of personal growth. Whether you’re releasing past pain, broken relationships, or unfulfilled dreams, learning to move forward allows space for healing and new opportunities. In moments of doubt, words of wisdom can be a powerful reminder to embrace change. This blog offers a collection of 102 inspiring letting go quotes to guide you through the journey of releasing what’s holding you back.

Each quote offers valuable insight into the courage it takes to release what’s no longer serving you. They remind us that letting go is not about forgetting but about freeing ourselves from emotional burdens.

As you explore these quotes, may you find the strength to move forward and rediscover the beauty in new beginnings. Let these words encourage you to embrace life’s transitions with hope and confidence.

Letting Go Quotes

1. “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

2. “Forgiveness means letting go of the past.” – Gerald Jampolsky

3. “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

4. “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 Beattie

5. “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 Jampolsky

6. “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

7. “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

8. “Keeping baggage from the past will leave no room for happiness in the future.” – Wayne L. Misner

9. “Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.” – Hermann Hesse

10. “Life moves on and so should we.” – Spencer Johnson

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11. “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

12. “You can’t look back – you just have to put the past behind you, and find something better in your future.” – Jodi Picoult

13. “Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.” – Lyndon B. Johnson

14. “Enjoy what you can and ignore the rest. Let’s not waste any energy fighting things that are outside our control.” – Paulo Coelho

15. “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

16. “You only struggle because you’re ready to grow but aren’t willing to let go.” – Drew Gerald

17. “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

18. “I demolish my bridges behind me…then there is no choice but to move forward.” – Fridtjof Nansen

19. “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

20. “Your past does not equal your future.” – Anthony Robbins

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21. “Let go of something old that no longer serves you to make room for something new.” – Roy T. Bennett

22. “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

23. “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

24. “If you want to fly in 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

25. “Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.” – Eckhart Tolle

26. “We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.” – Joseph Campbell

27. “Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.” – Paulo Coelho

28. “You are not giving up when you let go, you are moving on, there is a big difference.” – Catherine Pulsifer

29. “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

30. “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” – Lao Tzu

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

32. “The greatest thing is, at any moment, to be willing to give up who we are in order to become all that we can be.” – Max De Pree

33. “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

34. “Time doesn’t heal emotional pain, you need to learn how to let go.” – Roy T. Bennett

35. “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

36. “Sometimes, you have to let things go. Sometimes, you have to stop caring for a minute.” – Trina Etmanskie

37. “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.

38. “I realize there’s something incredibly honest about trees in winter, how they’re experts at letting things go.” – Jeffrey McDaniel

39. “Renew, release, let go. Yesterday’s gone. There’s nothing you can do to bring it back. You can’t “should’ve” done something. You can only DO something. Renew yourself. Release that attachment. Today is a new day!” – Steve Maraboli

40. “Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.”  – Will Rogers

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41. “Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” – Maria Robinson

42. “Why let go of yesterday? Because yesterday has already let go of you.” – Steve Maraboli

43. “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

44. “You don’t need strength to let go of something. What you really need is understanding.” – Guy Finley

45. “Sometimes the best way to be happy is to learn to let go of things you tried hard to hold on to that are no longer good for you.” – Faraaz Kazi

46. “Cry. Forgive. Learn. Move on. Let your tears water the seeds of your future happiness.” – Steve Maraboli

47. “Sometimes people come into your life just to teach you how to let go.” – Jackson Kiddard

48. “Sometimes you have to let go to see if there was anything worth holding onto.” – Socrates

49. “You can’t possibly embrace that new relationship, that new companion, that new career, that new friendship, or that new life you want, while you’re still holding on to the baggage of the last one. Let go… and allow yourself to embrace what is waiting for you right at your feet.” –  Steve Maraboli

50. “It’s never too late to be who you might have been.” – George Eliot

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51. “You have to let go of who you were to become who you will be.” – Candace Bushnell

52. “The more you let yourself go, the less others let you go.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

53. “What’s the greater risk? Letting go of what people think – or letting go of how I feel, what I believe, and who I am?” – Brene Brown

54. “I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.” – Carl Jung

55. “The greatest step towards a life of simplicity is to learn to let go.” – Steve Maraboli

56. “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.

57. “You must learn to let go. Release the stress. You were never in control anyway.” – Steve Maraboli

58. “In the process of letting go, you will lose many things from the past, but you will find yourself.” – Deepak Chopra

59. “One of the happiest moments in life is when you find the courage to let go of what you cannot change.” – Unknown

60. “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

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61. “Dare to live by letting go.” – Tom Althouse

62. “All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.” – Henry Havelock Ellis

63. “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.” – Henry David Thoreau

64. “Don’t go through life; grow through life.” – Eric Butterworth

65. “Sometimes the hardest part isn’t letting go but rather learning to start over.” – Nicole Sobon

66. “Sometimes the only way to get a grip is by learning to let go.” – Curtis Tyrone Jones

67. “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

68. “Convince yourself everyday that you are worthy of a good life. Let go of stress, breathe. Stay positive, all is well.” – Germany Kent

69. “Sooner or later we’ve all got to let go of our past.” – Dan Brown

70. “Letting go gives us freedom and freedom is the only condition for happiness.” – Nhat Hanh

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71. “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

72. “Letting go isn’t a one-time thing, it’s something you have to do every day, over and over again.” – Dawson’s Creek

73. “Anything you can’t control is teaching you how to let go.” – Jackson Kiddard

74. “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.

75. “It is important that we forgive ourselves for making mistakes. We need to learn from our errors and move on.” – Steve Maraboli

76. “The art of letting go is art in its purest form.” – Meredith Pence

77. “Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.” – Raymond Lindquist

78. “Life moves forward. The old leaves wither, die and fall away, and the new growth extends forward into the light.” – Bryant McGill

79. “You can’t expect to move forward if your emergency break is on.” – Angela Cecilia

80. “The beautiful journey of today can only begin when we learn to let go of yesterday.” – Steve Maraboli

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81. “Life is like a river, if you cannot let go of the past, it will drag you down the stream.” – Amit Ray

82. “Think about any attachments that are depleting your emotional reserves. Consider letting them go.” – Oprah Winfrey

83. “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.

84. “Abundance is a process of letting go; that which is empty can receive.” – Bryant H. McGill

85. “The moment after being let go, when we can finally let it go, is the moment when love once again has hope.” – Brian MacLearn

86. “You can always make the choice to let go and start over – you are the one who has to make that decision.” – Kate Summers

87. “The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life.” – Mary Manin Morrissey

88. “Sometimes letting go is simply changing the labels you place on an event. Looking at the same event with fresh eyes.” – Steve Maraboli

89. “You must make a decision that you are going to move on. It wont happen automatically.” – Joel Osteen

90. “You can’t hold on to the past and expect to grow as a human being.” – Marty Rubin

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91. “A mistake is only a mistake if you dwell on it. Let go and forgive.” – Akiroq Brost

92. “We have our future to explore. We won’t be slaves to the past.” – Tillie Cole

93. “At some point, you gotta let go, and sit still, and allow contentment to come to you.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

94. “Letting go is also a matter of self-worth.” – Efrat Cybulkiewicz

95. “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

96. “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

97. “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

98. “There’s an important difference between giving up and letting go.” – Jessica Hatchigan

99. “Sometimes you hold on to what’s left, Sometimes you let go to start afresh.” – Sanhita Baruah

100. “Holding on is believing that there’s only a past; letting go is knowing that there’s a future.” – Daphne Rose Kingma

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101. “Accept what is, let go of what was, have faith in what will be.” – Sonia Ricotti

102. “Feeling uncomfortable in whatever you do does not have to stop you from doing anything, instead it should motivate you to do it anyway and let go of that feeling.” – Susie Harper

Final Thoughts

Letting go is a courageous act that opens the door to new beginnings and personal growth. The 102 letting go quotes shared in this blog are meant to inspire you to release the burdens of the past and step into a brighter future.

Remember, moving forward isn’t always easy, but it’s worth it.

Carry these words with you as a source of strength and motivation on your journey to peace and fulfillment.

What are your favorite letting go quotes? Please share in the comment section below.