50 Quotes About Depression to Help You Not Feel So Alone in Your Struggle.

Women‍‍`s Corner
July 25, 2022

The next time you're looking for words to express yourself or help you feel less alone, this handy list of depression quotes will be there for you.

1. “Losing your life is not the worst thing that can happen. The worst thing is to lose your reason for living.”― Jo Nesbo

2. “In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant… My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known — no wonder, then, that I return the love.” ― Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or: A Fragment of Life

3. “You're like a grey sky. You're beautiful, even though you don't want to be.” ― Jasmine Warga, My Heart and Other Black Holes

4. “Depression is melancholy minus its charms.” ― Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor

5. “Don’t worry if people think you’re crazy. You are crazy. You have that kind of intoxicating insanity that lets other people dream outside of the lines and become who they’re destined to be.” ― Jennifer Elisabeth, Born Ready: Unleash Your Inner Dream Girl

6. “Even when I try to stir myself up, I just get irritated because I can't make anything come out. And in the middle of the night I lie here thinking about all this. If I don't get back on track somehow, I'm dead, that's the sense I get. There isn't a single strong emotion inside me.” ― Banana Yoshimoto

7. “Life is ten percent what you experience and ninety percent how you respond to it.” ― Dorothy M. Neddermeyer

8. “Understanding the difference between healthy striving and perfectionism is critical to laying down the shield and picking up your life. Research shows that perfectionism hampers success. In fact, it's often the path to depression, anxiety, addiction, and life paralysis.” ― Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection

9. “Depression isn't a war you win. It's a battle you fight every day. You never stop, never get to rest. It's one bloody fray after another.” ― Shaun David Hutchinson, We Are the Ants

10. “I am terrified by this dark thing that sleeps in me; All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.” ― Sylvia Plath, Ariel

11. “Depression is like a bruise that never goes away. A bruise in your mind. You just got to be careful not to touch it where it hurts. It's always there, though.” ― Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot

12. “Crying is one of the highest devotional songs. One who knows crying, knows spiritual practice. If you can cry with a pure heart, nothing else compares to such a prayer. Crying includes all the principles of Yoga.” ― Kripalvanandji

13. “One of the things that baffles me (and there are quite a few) is how there can be so much lingering stigma with regards to mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder. In my opinion, living with manic depression takes a tremendous amount of balls. Not unlike a tour of Afghanistan (though the bombs and bullets, in this case, come from the inside). At times, being bipolar can be an all-consuming challenge, requiring a lot of stamina and even more courage, so if you're living with this illness and functioning at all, it's something to be proud of, not ashamed of. They should issue medals along with the steady stream of medication.”― Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking

14. “No amount of love can cure madness or unblacken one's dark moods. Love can help, it can make the pain more tolerable, but, always, one is beholden to medication that may or may not always work and may or may not be bearable”― Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness

15. “Take a shower, wash off the day. Drink a glass of water. Make the room dark. Lie down and close your eyes. Notice the silence. Notice your heart. Still beating. Still fighting. You made it, after all. You made it, another day. And you can make it one more. You’re doing just fine.” ― Charlotte Eriksson

16. “If you could read my mind, you wouldn't be smiling.”― Tamara Ireland Stone, Every Last Word

17. “Rain makes me feel less alone. All rain is, is a cloud- falling apart, and pouring its shattered pieces down on top of you. It makes me feel good to know I'm not the only thing that falls apart . It makes me feel better to know other things in nature can shatter.”― Lone Alaskan Gypsy

18. “They always call depression the blues, but I would have been happy to waken to a periwinkle outlook. Depression to me is urine yellow, washed out, exhausted miles of weak piss.”― Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects

19. “The hardest thing about depression is that it is addictive. It begins to feel uncomfortable not to be depressed. You feel guilty for feeling happy.” ― Pete Wentz

20. “Perhaps depression is caused by asking oneself too many unanswerable questions.”― Miriam Toews, Swing Low

21. “She was a free bird one minute: queen of the world and laughing. The next minute she would be in tears like a porcelain angel, about to teeter, fall and break. She never cried because she was afraid that something 'would' happen; she would cry because she feared something that could render the world more beautiful, 'would not' happen.” ― Roman Payne, The Wanderess

22. “But he [Depression] just gives me that dark smile, settles into my favorite chair, puts his feet on my table and lights a cigar, filling the place with his awful smoke. Loneliness watches and sighs, then climbs into my bed and pulls the covers over himself, fully dressed, shoes and all. He's going to make me sleep with him again tonight, I just know it.”― Elizabeth Gilbert,Eat, Pray, Love

23. “Depression weighs you down like a rock in a river. You don't stand a chance. You can fight and pray and hope you have the strength to swim, but sometimes, you have to let yourself sink. Because you'll never know true happiness until someone or something pulls you back out of that river--and you'll never believe it until you realize it was you, yourself who saved you.” ― Alysha Speer

24. “In the silence of night I have often wished for just a few words of love from one man, rather than the applause of thousands of people.” ― Judy Garland

25. “Dead, but not allowed to die. Alive, but as good as dead.”― Suzanne Collins

26. "Almost everyone is overconfident—except the people who are depressed, and they tend to be realists.” ― Joseph T. Hallinan

27. "I didn’t know why I was feeling anxious or what was wrong with me, when I would go into public and feeling like I could vomit. I didn’t know why I wanted to sit on a couch while I was supposedly becoming something that everyone was so excited for me." — Goldie Hawn

28. "I understand your pain. Trust me, I do. I’ve seen people go from the darkest moments in their lives to living a happy, fulfilling life. You can do it too. I believe in you. You are not a burden. You will NEVER BE a burden." — Sophie Turner

Read More: What is Major Depressive Disorder?

29. "Depression is your body saying, 'I don't want to be this character anymore. I don't want to hold up this avatar that you've created in the world. It's too much for me. You should think of the word 'depressed' as 'deep rest.' Your body needs to be depressed. It needs deep rest from the character that you've been trying to play." — Jim Carrey

30. "I'm very available to depression. I can slip in and out of it quite easily. It started when my granddad died, when I was about 10, and while I never had a suicidal thought, I have been in therapy, lots." — Adele

31. "I moved out of L.A., went into a severe depression, started seeing a therapist and had to go on antidepressants for the first time in my life. It was scary and lonely. I can't believe I came back from that point." — Ellen DeGeneres

32. “I had everything I needed to be happy. And yet, for much of the last year, I felt unhappy. I started taking an antidepressant, which helped and I started sharing the news with friends and family—I felt like everyone deserved an explanation, and I didn’t know how else to say it other than the only way I know: just saying it. It got easier and easier to say it aloud every time." — Chrissy Teigen

33. "I felt plagued with a negative attitude and a sense that I was permanently in the shade. I’m normally such a bubbly, positive person, and all of a sudden I stopped feeling like myself. Anyone can be affected, despite their level of success or their place on the food chain. In fact, there is a good chance you know someone who is struggling with it since nearly 20% of American adults face some form of mental illness in their lifetime. So why aren’t we talking about it?” — Kristen Bell

Read More: Different Causes of Depression

34. "My brain and my heart are really important to me. I don't know why I wouldn't seek help to have those things be as healthy as my teeth. I go to the dentist. So why wouldn't I go to a shrink?" — Kerry Washington

35. "Depression doesn't take away your talents—it just makes them harder to find." — Lady Gaga

36. "I have probably been very close to a complete breakdown on numerous occasions when all sorts of grief and sort of lies and misconceptions and everything are coming to you from every angle." — Prince Harry

37. "I tend to get pretty depressed and I have some issues with anxiety and things like that ... For me, it's more psychological. Exercise is a means of expelling those demons." — Ryan Reynolds

38. "After every Olympics I think I fell into a major state of depression, and after 2012 that was probably the hardest fall for me. I didn't want to be in the sport anymore...a year and a half, two years after that...I didn't want to be alive anymore. I think people actually finally understand it's real. People are talking about it and I think this is the only way that it can change." — Michael Phelps

39. "I disliked myself so intensely. It was just a mindset. I didn't know how to love myself. I didn't know how to love anybody." — Anne Hathaway

40. "It's my mission to share this with the world and to let them know that there is life on the other side of those dark times that seem so hopeless and helpless. I want to show the world that there is life — surprising, wonderful and unexpected life after diagnosis." — Demi Lovato

41. "I went through a time where I was really depressed. Like, I locked myself in my room and my dad had to break my door down. It was a lot to do with, like, I had really bad skin, and I felt really bullied because of that. But I never was depressed because of the way someone else made me feel, I just was depressed." — Miley Cyrus

42. "I was 25 years old. I had my own TV show. I was happy with my work, but I couldn't figure out what it was; it doesn't always make sense is my point. It's not just people who can't find a job, or can't fit in in society that struggle with depression sometimes." — Jared Padalecki

43. "What I would tell kids going through anxiety, which I have and can relate to, is that you're so normal. Everyone experiences a version of anxiety or worry in their lives, and maybe we go through it in a different or more intense way for longer periods of time, but there's nothing wrong with you. To be a sensitive person that cares a lot, that takes things in in a deep way is actually part of what makes you amazing... I wouldn't trade it for the world, even when there are really hard times. Don't ever feel like you're a weirdo for it because we're all weirdos." — Emma Stone

44. "You are the one thing in this world, above all other things, that you must never give up on. When I was in middle school, I was struggling with severe anxiety and depression and the help and support I received from my family and a therapist saved my life. Asking for help is the first step. You are more precious to this world than you'll ever know." — Lili Reinhart

45. "It is okay to have depression, it is okay to have anxiety and it is okay to have an adjustment disorder. We need to improve the conversation. We all have mental health in the same way we all have physical health." — Prince Harry

46. "All it takes is a beautiful fake smile to hide an injured soul and they will never notice how broken you really are." — Robin Williams

47. "A child's mental health is just as important as their physical health and deserves the same quality of support. No one would feel embarrassed about seeking help for a child if they broke their arm." — Kate Middleton

48. "Being an actress hasn't made me insecure. I was insecure long before I declared I was an actress." — Amy Adams

49. "I was born with a great awareness of my surroundings and other people ... Sometimes that awareness is good, and sometimes I wish I wasn't so sensitive." — Scarlett Johansson

50. "If you have been brutally broken, but still have the courage to be gentle to other living beings, then you're a badass with a heart of an angel." — Keanu Reeves