The following inspiring breakup quotes are hand-picked.
Students of our Ex-DETOX Course collected them for five years.
These are people who live in the trenches. People who are actually going through a breakup and feeling the pain.
We chose the quotes based on the following criteria:
- they must be positive and inspiring (no sad quotes)
- they must be motivational (not depressing)
- they must have a positive impact on your breakup recovery
In short, we've chosen quotes that will actually help you, encourage you, and provoke positive thinking to further your recovery.
Breakup quotes can be helpful.
There's a reason why self-help book writers put them at the beginning of each chapter.
They beautifully condense universal truths so that we intuitively understand.
They help us to realize that we are not alone out there.
Loss is an essential part of us, and it's an opportunity to grow. We have to use our broken hearts as a catalyst for a better future:
60 Selected Positive Breakup Quotes
So without further ado, here are the all-time best ever positive breakup quotes that will help you get over your breakup (I’ve divided them into categories, and highlighted the ones that I think are exceptionally helpful).
Contents:
Inspirational Breakup Quotes
The following quotes are outstanding. They can create epiphanies and push you into recovery.
1) “Relationships are like glass. Sometimes it's better to leave them broken than try to hurt yourself putting it back together.”
2) “If you really love something set it free. If it comes back it's yours, if not it wasn't meant to be.”
3) “Your relationship with yourself sets the tone for every other relationship you have.” — Robert Holden
4) “Those who do not know how to weep with their whole heart do not know how to laugh either.”
5) “Some people think that it's holding on that makes one strong; sometimes it's letting go.”
6) ” Don't change yourself so that other people will like you. Be yourself, and the right people will like you.”
7) “I’m going to smile and make you think I'm happy, I'm going to laugh, so you don't see me cry, I'm going to let you go in style, and even if it kills me – I'm going to smile.” — Lone Star
8) “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” — M. Kathleen Casey
9) ” You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one.”
(MORE: 3 Proven Secrets on How to Get Over a Breakup Fast)
10) “The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love, and to be greater than our suffering.” — Ben Okri
11) ” The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” — Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
12) “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
13) “Love is what you were born with. Fear is what you learned here.” — Marianne Williamson
14) “Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.” — J.K. Rowling
15) “Set your life on fire, and seek those who fan the flames.” — Rumi
16) “You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.” — Chinese Proverb
Motivational Breakup Quotes
Have you lost sight of what’s essential in your recovery?
Don’t see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel?
What you need are some chosen motivational quotes that will give you a virtual kick in the butt.
17) “If I don’t listen to the stories my mind is telling me, is there a problem right now?”
(MORE: No Contact Rule After a Breakup: The Definitive Guide)
18) “It always seems impossible until it's done.” — Nelson Mandela
19) “You're always one decision away from a totally different life.”
20) “The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. Just by being there, looking at the problem or at the darkness of your thoughts straight in the eye and deciding you won't surrender to it, you won't let it shallow you; you are being the bravest you can ever be and starting the path to your personal freedom.” — Nelson Mandela
21) “Pain is the person you never want to see. But without Pain, how would you recognize Joy?”
22) “Love yourself enough to set boundaries. Your time and energy are precious. You get to choose how you use it. You teach people how to treat you by deciding what you will and won't accept.”
23) “Nobody will protect you from your suffering. You can't cry it away or eat it away or starve it away or walk it away or punch it away or even therapy it away. It's just there, and you have to survive it. You have to endure it. You have to live through it and love it and move on and be better for it and run as far as you can in the direction of your best and happiest dreams across the bridge that was built by your own desire to heal.” ”• Cheryl Strayed
24) “Every time you thought you couldn’t keep moving forward, you did. Take a moment to appreciate your strength.” — Karen Salmanson
25) “You are telling the story of your life. You have the power to tell a different one. You choose, every day, how you interpret others’ actions, events, and the world around you. You and only you have the power to change this. Change the script!” — Laura Elliott
26) ” Sometimes the smallest step in the right direction ends up being the biggest step of your life. Tip toe if you must, but take the step.” ”• Naeem Callaway
(MORE: How To Stay Strong And Not Text Your Ex)
27) “Don’t be afraid to stand for what you believe in, even if that means standing alone.” — Andy Biersack
Feel-Better Breakup Quotes
Are you having a tough time with your breakup?
Sometimes we just need to hear something that makes us feel better.
28) “Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.” – Walt Whitman
29) “As I look back on my life, I realize that every time I thought I was being rejected from something good, I was actually be re-directed to something better.”
30) “With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
31) “If you went back and erased all the mistakes you've made, you erase yourself.”
32) “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” — Abraham Lincoln
33) “The habit of forever looking backward is fatal to efficiency just as is the habit of looking forward too much. Today is the day. Live the day and have done with it. Fling your best into it, then you have nothing to regret, and there is no need of anticipating tomorrow.” — O. S. Marden
34) “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
35) “If you're gonna make a change, you're gonna have to operate from a new belief that says life happens not to me but for me.” — Tony Robbins
36) “Not all storms come to disrupt your life, some come to clear your path.”
37) “You never lose by loving. You always lose by holding back.” — Barbara De Angelis
38) “Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.” — Dalai Lama
(MORE: 7 New Stages of a Breakup: The Ultimate Guide)
39) “Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break, and all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intentions. So go, Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world awaits in darkness for the light that is you.” — L.R. Frost
40) “It’s always darkest before the dawn.”
Letting Go Breakup Quotes
Eventually, we stop chasing our Ex. We abandon the hope of getting back together again and start our breakup recovery.
We decide to move on and let go.
Here are the best quotes regarding moving on from an Ex-Partner, and why you should choose love instead of regret.
41) “Forgive others, not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace.”
42) “Forgiveness is not something we do for other people. It's something we do for ourselves to move on.”
43) “Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”
(MORE: The Need For Revenge On Your Ex: How To Use It To Fuel Your Recovery)
44) “The sign of true forgiveness is when you stop wishing it had been any other way.”
45) “When a dewdrop slides off a leaf and surrenders to gravity, the drop loses its previous identity and joins the vastness of the earth below. It must have trembled before it fell, just on the edge between the known and the unknown.
Sometimes things end, they are finished, they are completing. Whatever it is, they are things that might have helped us to define who we are.
It's time to let go of it, allowing sadness, but not trying to hold on. Something greater is awaiting, dimensions are there to be discovered. We are past the point of no return now, and gravity is doing its work.
Go with it – it represents liberation.”
46) “Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.” — The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich
47) “If you can love the wrong person that much, imagine how much you can love the right one.”
48) “Anyone can give you attention and compliments, but someone who loves you will give you that plus respect, honesty, trust, and loyalty.” — Charles Orlando
49) “You
not wanting me
was
the beginning of me
wanting myself
thank you”
— Nayyirah Waheed
50) “Even though I believe I’ve made choices that have hurt myself and others that are unforgivable, I now realize, claim, and embody that these choices were exactly what my soul had deemed as perfect for me to come home as the next highest and most divine version of myself.
Everything was and is in perfect creation, design, and order for life and my soul to lovingly grant me everything I needed for my evolution. There is no wasted time, and there is nothing that is wrong.
I also understand that everything that occurred to any other player in this cast of perfection was also the highest, most gracious event offered by their soul in concert with mine.” — Melanie Tonia Evans
(MORE: 21 Shocking Narcissist Quotes That Will Make You Leave)
51) “Someday we’ll forget the hurt, the reason we cried, and who caused us pain. We will finally realize that the secret of being free is not revenge, but letting things unfold in their own way and own time. After all, what matters is not the first, but the last chapter of our life which shows how well we ran the race. So smile, laugh, forgive, believe, and love all over again.”
52) “Let me be clear, my love is unconditional, but your presence in my life is not. The moment that you prove that your value of me does not measure up to my sense of self-worth, I’ll have no problem unconditionally loving the memory of you and moving on.” — Carson Patrick Bowie
53) “When life shows you its time to let someone go, and you refuse to, life will allow the person to hurt you to the point you have no choice but to let go.”
Funny Breakup Quotes
A breakup is a serious business.
We are torturing our minds with unpleasant thoughts of regret, guilt, and anger.
How about a little humor once in a while to lighten up our minds? Laughter is some of the best (breakup) medicine.
(MORE: 11 Most Hilarious Breakup Cartoons To Forget Your Ex)
54) “I’m trying to be a more positive person every day. Today, I'm positive everyone is an asshole.”
55) “Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.” – Mark Twain
56) “It's so hot outside, I almost called my ex so that I could be around something shady.”
57) “I’m moving on because we had religious differences. He thinks he's God, and I don’t.”
58) “Being back with your ex is like reheating your Mcdonald's fries.”
59) “You never know who you are married to until you get divorced.”
60) When an ex tries to hit you up:
“Hey!”
“Hey.”
“What's up?”
“My standards. Bye.”
And, of course, how can I forget the guided meditation that will crack you up like an egg (it's hilarious AND helpful at the same time):
Conclusion and Your Next Step
If you are going through a tough breakup right now, go through the list and find the breakup quotes that stand out for you.
These are the ones that triggered something in you … a truth or epiphany that you need to focus upon.
Follow these where they lead you, and you will be on your way to breakup recovery.
If you need more help with your breakup, please consider joining our free email mini course, which will teach you how to stop obsessing over your Ex.
That’s the first step you need to take so that you can let the bird fly. If it comes back, it’s yours.
If not, it was never meant to be.
I’ve been on and off with one of my ex bf for over 6 years now. I feel when I am not good enough anymore for hI’m any more or he has the desire to go out and find better he leaves me. Then about 3-6 months later he will try and pick it back up like nothing ever happend. As the years go on its getting more difficult because I feel I will never be good enough and need to completely remove him from my life. Yet that will be the most difficult thing because I have created such a vivid future with him in my mind which I truly know would never work but at the same time I am so foolish to letting him back in. Which in my mind I know if it was true love he would stay which just hurts even more.
Sometimes loving someone is a curse. No matter how much you love your curse it only make you suffer. I am who suffering a lot.its heavy to let one go.But I have to let it be.I don’t know how!
my boyfriend of 8 years has just paid lobola for someone else on the 31 December 2015. we have a 14 month beautiful baby girl together, he didnt tell me his plan, everything was just fine. even now he never said something about it but l lm sure it happened. l dont know what to say…should l ask him or just keep quiet? heart broken
hv gone thru alot. i hv two kids with my husband. he is a prayer. whenever we get misunderstandings he goes bak to his xz or get a new chic. and when they get misunderstandings he comes back to me. he lies to his mum that i cheat on him yet hv been faithful to him. he works upcountry but from there he get chics. wen i ask him y all that he says i annoye him so he revenges. he wants me to feel guilty over somethings which hvnot done
it was my 10 year relationship, after getting job i am not able to give her proper time so last month she decide to left me one day she told me i dont want to continue with you because of you ignored me, next day i put my resign from job and told her baby i put my resign for you she told me, it was not for me it your fault why you left this job
on that day i totally broken from inside ,i lost both things from my hand
it is so harder time for me
if she give me one chance i can reverse this problem bt she was not ready to give me another chance
that means she didn’t love you, she might have someone who is more important than you, go on enjoy your life god knows how truthful you are so he will never let you down and also may you get a better job.
My first love, the only man I ever saw myself with. He was my everything. I remember how we got together, weird as it sounds his brother, two years prior, tried shoving his tongue down my throat. We were camping and his brother followed me to an area at the campground I went to think. He was being nice at first, I could tell he liked me, I was flattered, but I didn’t reciprocate the feeling because I liked his brother since I was about 9. He started to advance on my, even when I said no, stop…he touched me in places I didn’t want to be, and forced his lips on me, I finally pushed him off and blurted out that I liked his brother and he needed to leave me alone…I felt bad for the kid but I didn’t like him.
The kid’s brother (the one I liked, my now ex…) at the time was in an abusive relationship and I never wanted to put in my input on how unhealthy it was, luckily my sisters did that for me (as I went all hippy listening to Greenday as I watched the fireflies). That year he dumped her and I was, not being myself, ecstatic.
In 2014, last year, we were walking to his campsite, I told him what happened with me and his brother, but paused when I got the the “I like you’re brother not you, but we can still be friends” bit…I stopped in my tracks and said…maybe I shouldn’t tell you…he pressed on, begging for me to say what I was hidding…I told him and we walked in silence. After he showed me his car (yawn) I looked him in the eye and asked if he liked me. He said he did, told everyone we were going out before he asked me to go out….I saw myself only with him, had weird visions of a future with him that I never experienced with anyone else….then this July he went to Europe… He came back and gave up on our relationship… I was so confused…he’d tell me he’d never leave me and he loved me more then anything and that I was his world…then he’d be mean and hostile, brood on everything… I felt alone and scared. On Tuesday this week he told he loved me and I was his world and he couldn’t wait to see me again… On Wednesday he told me he was done, I tied him down and he needed a break…. My heart shattered…. I still love him, I gave him everything… My mind, my body, my heart, and my soul….I feel lost and destroyed…how do I heal from it? He won’t even tell me what changed….. If you have any advise please… I want to hear it…
The experience i had with my ex husband is along the same lines as your relationship now… He himself does not know why he acts the way he acts. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t want to be with you. Maybe because he doesn’t think he deserves you and your love because he knows you love him more than anyone else ever has in his past. Sometimes people just don’t think enough of themselves to know they do deserve to be loved in a way that only we can love them. Or maybe he’s just afraid of something else, maybe he’s unable to see or believe in the kind of love that only you have to offer him.
I have been dating this guy for over and year now, I first meet him because I was closed to her cousin, eventually we fell in love with each other, but people were saying he was a player I never talk to him until we started dating, I never intended dating him because of all the ill things people were saying about him, but he was smart he fool my friends and even me , amd make every one to fall in love with him, but my families adviced me not to date him but I but I argue them that he loves me, later I started hearing information that his ex was pregnant for him, and I ask him which he answered yes but he said that the girl deceived him, but he promised me that he will not have anything to do with the girl. Later this year he started acting funny I was surprise and even my friends were surprise too he started refusing my calls and started insulting me, I ask him what happened amd he told he had a girl friend that I should be ashamed of my self because I am sleeping with someone else’s man, and I cried to him that he never tell me that he had a girlfriend , we settled it and was together again, now his ex girlfriend has given birth he no longer have my time, he only talk to me when he need money, and the other girl friend has refused to give him money, because he is not working at the moment, but he is cheating on the two of us and now we both know each other, but he is developing feelings for his ex baby mama, please I don’t know what to do I am ashame of my families don’t kbow what to say if they ask me if we are still together, and I also think I am a loser, please I need your opinions, I have deciding to leaving him, I am just too confuse.
Ive read every comment and it feels good coz all my negative thoughts has change.now i know how to deal wit my relationship
I am in relationship for 2 years and he is my first.. first six months were like amazing but after that he started ignoring me. when we met he couldn’t stop calling and texting me but after a while all he cared was his friends. suddenly I was annoying and he needed a space. I have been trying so hard to Break up but somehow I can’t. I loved him so much and changed myself a lot for him. I will have no emotional support if I break up and that is why I Am scared to leave him. it sounds silly but I am totally helpless. what should I do?
Hi , please keep yourself busy in your assigned or priorities and wait for his response rather you respond towardsh him
Thanks
Hi,
I stayed in Pune for almost 7 years. I was in a relationship with a guy for almost 4 years in Pune itself. I had to suddenly move from that city because of some personal reasons. My boy friend Promised me that he ‘ll come to me soon and ‘ll get marry with me. But soon after few months he found a new girlfriend. We both use to work on the same company.He was good with me till I was in Pune. It’s been 2 years now I am waiting for him. But came to know from my friends who works in the same company where he works that he found a new girlfriend from the past few months.
Not able to take a decision.
Why girls are so selfish???? Or it was mine???
15 years engagement- Ended just before the marriage… Looking for “helping material” :/
Hi,
What do you do when your ex is your boss and going out with your colleague whom you thought she’s was your friend but backstab you hard and at the same time this gal is flirting with my best friend…. its so irritating and too dramatic….. I just can’t stand it,can’t leave the job.. but will finish my tenure after 2months….I’m in a spot where m at a loss n can’t do anything..but getting better now..my crying has decreased alot though.i starting smiling again:)….
Only one word I would like to say “Awesome”……….
hi.
i have fince we have long distance relationship. lately he always say that he”s busy i do understand him.but when i text him he dont reply,when i already mad he reply and start fighting with me..then he always say broke up with me..i really love him even he make way to make me give up…
I’m not sure if i should be posting here, because i’v not broken up. I’m with a guy for 3 months now. He ws the one who asked me out nd though i did’nt agree first, later i said yes. In the course of the first 2 months i dont know when, but i fell madly in love with him. I also landed up getting a tiny bit possesive. Then in the last month we faught a lot, though we made up immediately the day after and became very lovey dovey again, yet we’d fight again. Then during christmas i went abroad for 11 days. During that time, he was also very busy so he wudnt text me, evn though i was myself busy i would still text him. It was my fault, i faught with him over this, i told him to send me just one text a day, that would be enough to make me happy but not getting to talk or contact u all day just makes me very sad. He took this in a very rough way and said i was trespassing in his personal space. We had a bad follow up fight, and i landed up telling him to break up with me though i did not mean it at all. I later apologised to him a lot, but he told me that he wants to still be with me but doesnt want to further increase our attachemnt. We spoke a lot about evrything, and i cried nd begged him to forgive me. He says that he has forgiven me and evrything is fine…but yet sumwhere i know things have changed. I feel as if he doesnt love me anymore the way he used to and i miss the old him. I keep apologising but doesnt make a difference any more. I am being very sweet to him and being understanding but i can understand that things have suddenly changed vastly….and i miss being the way we used to be. I love him so so much…and am so scared of loosing him…but he seems completely fine, not even bothered.
Hi,
I have been in a relationship with this guy for above an year. we were friends for around two years before we fell into the relation. after about sometime. he was very conservative and had problem even if i wear sleeveless dresses. i changed myself for him, behaved and looked the way he wanted. to start with we used to fight a lot over silly matters and we kind of broke up four months before. i could not imagine of surviving without him. i begged and he said we will give the relation another chance. i sometimes feel he is heartless.I ve been crying over him and he says he can survive without me. and he is not desperate to be with me as much as i am. last month he again said this relationship is not what he wants. he wants apace and i am not giving him that. i again cried and tried calling him. he didn’t attend my calls and blocked me. Yesterday i texted him i wont try anymore and I am officially moving on with my life as i have realized that there is no future for us. He called me back and said its not that i don’t love you but i am tried and sick of the fights and i want both of us to move on in life. and i need you to take a break from me for six month and enjoy my life and all. I lost my patience and said i don’t want your sympathy and i will move on with my life. Please don’t contact me ever and u are never going to get me back. this happened yesterday and i have been desp from morning. i feel like calling him and speaking to him. i don’t know. Its has been not even a day and still i cannot do it. how will i do it for above a month??? help me…!!! is the No Contact rule going to changes things and will it make him come back??
My bf left me aftr 7 years. He moved to the new place new univ new friends. He got very busy and left with no time for me to talk.but he had time to go out for movies and dinner with his new friends. He was fighting with me daily that his warden would be shifting to coed hostel and i wasnt in favor neuther his family. He just left me giving me the reason that I dont trust him. Despite the fact he cheated me once. Its been 40 days now of NC as I changed my number when he told me not to call him ever. He was everything to me, my life my future. i am so much attached to him. As the days r passing its becoming more n more hollowness inside me. I miss him alot
Dnt worry everything will be okay,god knws your heart he will never let you down ,i do have the same experience after loving him so deeply for a year one day after such long time we met , he said he wan to become a best friend that he will never forget but not girlfriend and he said that he has a girl, whom he love very much ……..it was so hurt can’t bear the pain, no words to say, just have to keep quite ……dnt knw why he left me atleast if he give me the reason or explain i should try my best to stay with him.but i dnt get any option chance,just waiting for him might be one day he will come back its been more tan a 2yrs still waiting for the chance the more i wait its becoming more and more missing him.atleast if he knw how much i need him or atleast if he gave me the reason i can still forget though i love him alot
My bf just ended a six years relationship with me for someone he met for few months. I literally gave my life in loving him. When I first met him his life was a mess, he was a drug and addict with financial problem. I became his support system to get his life back on tract because of the feeling he had for me. I was a good influence to him. He was crazy about me. A month later he was diagnosed HIV pos during our first health check. He was devastated and in fear but I was being with him all the time to go through the painful time. I told him I would never leave him. I decided to be with him wanted to take care of him. I expected the worst when I committed into this relationship and understand the consequences may come. Unfortunately a year later I was sero-converted and became HIV positive too. I was scared but was ok with it because I thought we at least had each other. That is the love and experience God wanted me to have. We would apprecaite each other more than anyone else. Things had been great the next 5 years and we were deeply in love, our relationship had been amazing. We were the modal couple of most friends around us, at least I thought we were. But three months ago he told me he wanted to break up with me because he is seeing someone and had no feelings for me anymore. The sense of betrayal was so strong that I could barely cope with. Everything happened out of the blue with no warning or signs. I didn’t see it coming. I am now left alone with the pain and illness alone and he is having a wonderful time with the new love. I asked myself what have I done to myself? Three months has passed and the pains still resurface.
DDK,
I have seen your comments – and it made me really sad that such a beautiful and selfless person was treated like this.
I hope that you are feeling better as it happened more than a year ago.
I think of you
This quotes page is very helpful. Thank you. My ex and I broke up a month ago…we were together for 16 months. He broke up with me because he thought our communication wasn’t very good and he thought we have been fighting a lot. I didn’t think it was that bad because we still had good times and I had no reason to think he was unhappy. It hasn’t been that long since the break up so obviously I’m still very hurt that he didn’t want to work things out. I had hope at one point but not anymore. Now I’m currently not talking to him (haven’t been for two weeks) and I’m just taking care of myself, living my life…its not easy but I hope to God things will get even better.
No need to worry….. it happens….it says that one day the person so close to you may leave you, but it doesn’t mean that its the end of your story, its only the end of their part in your story…so have faith in GOD and continue your journey…
i have 4 months with my boyfriend, all this time he would go 1 week without calling and then we would make dumb excuses that i never believed but accepted becasue i loved him….today he has 1 week without calling however this time is diffrent i believe he is not calling back….i just want him to say its over, im not going to ask for another chace i just want to move one however i can because he always comes back. Last time we talked everything was fine, however the following day he didnt anwer anymore, and today his phone is disconnected. i hate not knowing for sure if this time he will be back. i just want to know if it is over it will help me forget and accept it is over.