If you enjoyed reading The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, then these Mark Manson quotes will be perfect for you!
Mark Manson is a self-help author and blogger who understands the common person’s struggles in life. He doesn’t preach about big changes or significant life decisions. Instead, he focuses on what you have innately that can help you thrive in life.
Failures, mistakes, and rejections are all part of our world. But, experiencing these things doesn’t mean it’s the end of everything. As Mark Manson put it, we just need to recognize when to care and when not to.
Change and improvement won’t happen instantly, but this list of the best Mark Manson quotes might be a good starting point.
Check out our list below, and maybe you’ll find some words that’ll change your life.
Let’s go!
And make sure to read these Jordan Peterson quotes and Sam Harris quotes.
Best Mark Manson Quotes
1. “To be happy, we need something to solve. Happiness is, therefore, a form of action.”
2. “Who you are is defined by what you’re willing to struggle for.”
3. “This is the most simple and basic component of life: our struggles determine our successes.”
4. “Being wrong opens us up to the possibility of change. Being wrong brings the opportunity for growth.”
5. “Not giving a f*ck does not mean being indifferent; it means being comfortable with being different.”
6. “Whether you realize it or not, you are always choosing what to give a f*ck about.”
Famous Mark Manson Quotes
7. “If you want to change how you see your problems, you have to change what you value and/or how you measure failure and success.”
8. “Like anything worth doing in life, happiness takes time, patience, and consistency.”
9. “Challenge yourself to find the good and beautiful thing inside of everyone. It’s there. It’s your job to find it. Not their job to show you.”
10. “Don’t hope for better. Just be better. Be something better. Be more compassionate, more resilient, more humble, and more disciplined.”
11. “Because when we give too many f*cks, when we choose to give a f*ck about everything, then we feel as though we are perpetually entitled to feel comfortable and happy at all times, that’s when life f*cks us.”
Also read: Famous Quotes, Positive Quotes
Mark Manson Quotes About Life
12. “Life is essentially an endless series of problems. The solution to one problem is merely the creation of another.”
13. “Life is about not knowing and then doing something anyway.”
14. “We are responsible for experiences that aren’t our fault all the time. This is part of life.”
15. “Everything worthwhile in life is won through surmounting the associated negative experience. Any attempt to escape the negative, to avoid it or quash it or silence it, only backfires.”
16. “Living well does not mean avoiding suffering; it means suffering for the right reasons.”
17. “You can’t have a pain-free life. It can’t all be roses and unicorns.”
18. “A good life is not a life without problems. A good life is a life with good problems. And so, despite the turbulence of the rocky waves and twisting tides, I can sometimes stare into the heart of my confusion and the crossed strains of joy and sadness, and smile and be grateful that it’s all there.”
19. “The key to a good life is not giving a f*ck about more; it’s giving a f*ck about less, giving a f*ck about only what is true and immediate and important.”
20. “One of those realizations was this: that life itself is a form of suffering. The rich suffer because of their riches. The poor suffer because of their poverty.”
21. “Pain is an inextricable thread in the fabric of life, and to tear it out is not only impossible but destructive: attempting to tear it out unravels everything else with it. To try to avoid pain is to give too many f*cks about pain. In contrast, if you’re able to not give a f*ck about the pain, you become unstoppable.”
22. “We all get dealt cards. Some of us get better cards than others. And while it’s easy to get hung up on our cards, and feel we got screwed over, the real game lies in the choices we make with those cards, the risk we decide to take, and the consequences we choose to live with. People who consistently make the best choices in the situations they’re given are the ones who eventually come out ahead in poker, just as in life. And it’s not necessarily the people with the best cards.”
Also read: Quotes to Live By, Encouraging Quotes
Mark Manson Quotes on Love and Relationships
23. “You must love someone without expecting anything in return; otherwise, it’s not truly love.”
24. “Unhealthy love is based on two people trying to escape their problems through their emotions for each other—in other words, they’re using each other as an escape. Healthy love is based on two people acknowledging and addressing their own problems with each other’s support.”
25. “By itself, love is never enough to sustain a relationship.”
26. “True love—that is, deep, abiding love that is impervious to emotional whims or fancy—is a choice. It’s a constant commitment to a person regardless of the present circumstances.”
27. “Romantic love is a trap designed to get two people to overlook each other’s faults long enough to get some baby-making done. It generally only lasts for a few years at most.”
Meaningful Mark Manson Quotes to Give You a New Perspective
28. “Maturity is what happens when one learns to only give a f*ck about what’s truly f*ckworthy.”
29. “We are actually often happier with less. When we’re overloaded with opportunities and options, we suffer from what psychologists refer to as the paradox of choice.”
30. “We don’t always control what happens to us. But we always control how we interpret what happens to us, as well as how we respond.”
31. “The desire for a more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience.”
32. “It turns out that adversity and failure are actually useful and even necessary for developing strong-minded and successful adults.”
33. “Everything we think and feel about a situation ultimately comes back to how valuable we perceive it to be.”
34. “Everything has an opportunity cost, and the big things we want in life—like happiness and healthy relationships and wealth—they all have big opportunity costs.”
Also read: Jay Shetty Quotes, James Clear Quotes
Short Mark Manson Quotes That’ll Improve Your Mindset
35. “Don’t just sit there. Do something. The answers will follow.”
36. “The point is to find the sh*t you enjoy dealing with.”
37. “Problems never stop; they merely get exchanged and/or upgraded.”
38. “Carefully choose what to care about.”
39. “Certainty is the enemy of growth.”
40. “Moral gaps are where our values are born.”
Also read: Robin Sharma Quotes, Robert Greene Quotes
Motivational Mark Manson Quotes for Everyone Who Needs Advice
41. “Happiness is like being cool—the harder you try the less it’s going to happen. So stop trying. Start living.”
42. “If you’re stuck on a problem, don’t sit there and think about it; just start working on it. Even if you don’t know what you’re doing, the simple act of working on it will eventually cause the right ideas to show up in your head.”
43. “You cannot be a powerful and life-changing presence to some people without being a joke or an embarrassment to others.”
44. “Commitment gives you freedom because you’re no longer distracted by the unimportant and frivolous.”
Mark Manson Quotes That Zoom in on Hope
45. “Our psyche needs hope to survive the way a fish needs water. Hope is the fuel for our mental engine.”
46. “‘Don’t hope for a life without problems,’ the panda said. ‘There’s no such thing. Instead, hope for a life full of good problems.’”
47. “Hopelessness is the root of anxiety, mental illness, and depression. It is the source of all misery and the cause of all addiction.”
Thought-Provoking Mark Manson Quotes to Reflect On
48. “Why do you care that I’m dead when you’re still so afraid to live?”
49. “Bravery is not the absence of fear. Bravery is feeling the fear, the doubt, the insecurity, and deciding that something else is more important.”
50. “People get addicted to feeling offended all the time because it gives them a high; being self-righteous and morally superior feels good.”
Mark Manson Quotes to Help You Navigate Ups and Downs
51. “When it comes down to it, if you feel crappy it’s because your brain is telling you that there’s a problem that’s unaddressed or unresolved.”
52. “The avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering. The avoidance of struggle is a struggle. The denial of failure is a failure. Hiding what is shameful is itself a form of shame.”
53. “Our crisis is no longer material; it’s existential, it’s spiritual. We have so much f*cking stuff and so many opportunities that we don’t even know what to give a f*ck about anymore.”
54. “Negative emotions are a call to action. When you feel them, it’s because you’re supposed to do something. Positive emotions, on the other hand, are rewards for taking the proper action. When you feel them, life seems simple and there is nothing else to do but enjoy it.”
55. “People complain not because something sucks. People complain because they’re looking for empathy and to feel connected with those around them.”
More Mark Manson Quotes That You Need to Read Today
56. “Self-improvement and success often occur together. But that doesn’t mean they’re the same thing.”
57. “Fault is past tense. Responsibility is present tense. Fault results from choices that have already been made. Responsibility results from the choices you’re currently making, every second of every day.”
58. “Ultimately, we are moved to action only by emotion. That’s because action is emotion.”
59. “The problem isn’t that we don’t know how not to get punched in the face. The problem is that, at some point, likely a long time ago, we got punched in the face, and instead of punching back, we decided we deserved it.”
60. “We are defined by what we choose to reject. And if we reject nothing we essentially have no identity at all.”
How Much Are You Willing to Struggle for the Things and People You Love?
Sometimes, when people tell us what to do, it becomes too preachy for our liking. This makes us feel annoyed and, worse, it makes us do the opposite of their advice. But, Mark Manson has a unique way of sharing his insights, making his words relatable and easy to accept.
For him, thriving and being successful in life is all about knowing where to put our energy. Do we engage in this battle, or do we save all our efforts for a more significant one? When we do this, our priorities in life will be much more evident, and we won’t waste time on the inessentials.
Apart from that, Mark Manson teaches us that it’s essential to learn and grow from mistakes and failures. Not all problems have to be negative. After all, if we have a positive outlook on life, we’ll see the good within the bad.
Mark Manson stated that life isn’t all roses and unicorns. But, with his help, maybe it’ll be a bit easier to navigate. So, let these quotes inspire you to move forward and onward with a clearer purpose!
Have you read any of his books before? Which Mark Manson quotes were most relevant to you? Comment below.