These yesterday quotes will help you move on from the past and instead rekindle your hope for a better future!
Time is a tricky thing. Sometimes, it goes by so fast that we don’t have enough time to savor the good moments, and at times, we feel like it’s so slow and we’re kept in pain for so long.
This leads us to keep going back to our yesterdays—always looking back to either reminisce or try to change something.
But, life is happening in the here and now. If we focus too much on yesterday, we’ll never be able to live our lives to the fullest. There’s also a higher chance that we’ll miss opportunities to make our future brighter.
So, to help you move on from yesterday, read through this list of quotes we’ve created.
Grab a pen and a sheet of paper and note down quotes that pushed you to change the trajectory of your life!
Keep on reading below!
And don’t forget to check out these tomorrow quotes and weekend quotes.
Best Yesterday Quotes
1. “Yesterday was not your defining moment. The calendar moved forward; why not you?” – Steve Maraboli
2. “Yesterday misspent can’t be recalled.” – Abraham Verghese
3. “If your yesterday was much better than your today, then today you will most probably walk around in your yesterday!” – Mehmet Murat İldan
4. “Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.” – Lyndon B. Johnson
5. “One of the sad things, I think, about the younger generation, quite frankly, is they have less sense of yesterday. And if you don’t know who you were, you don’t really know who you are.” – Hugh Hefner
Famous Yesterday Quotes
6. “Yesterday is gone, but not its memories.” – Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
7. “Yesterday should be the teacher of today.” – Publilius Syrus
8. “The waves of yesterday don’t need to be remembered.” – Bert McCoy
9. “Ten thousand yesterdays are not worth one today.” – S. Woodworth
10. “Life is a perpetual yesterday for us.” – Alice Sebold
Yesterday Quotes to Inspire You
11. “We can’t change yesterday, but we can change tomorrow.” – Ken Poirot
12. “If you fell down yesterday, stand up today.” – H. G. Wells
13. “Don’t regret yesterday. It is the perfect compass guiding your journey today.” – Anonymous
14. “Yesterday is yesterday. If we try to recapture it, we will only lose tomorrow.” – William J. Clinton
Powerful Yesterday Quotes to Change Your Outlook
15. “You can’t have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all the time.” – Charles Kettering
16. “The only person you should try to be better than is the person you were yesterday.” – Anonymous
17. “I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.” – Abraham Lincoln
18. “Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.” – Don Marquis
19. “Yesterday—noun. The infancy of youth, the youth of manhood, the entire past of age.” – Ambrose Bierce
Short Yesterday Quotes That’ll Power You Up
20. “Don’t ruin a good today by thinking about a bad yesterday.” – Anonymous
21. “Yesterday is just a memory.” – Bob Dylan
22. “Don’t start your day with the broken pieces of yesterday.” – Anonymous
23. “Be better than you were yesterday.” – Anonymous
24. “Be strong—stronger than yesterday.” – Anonymous
25. “How you played in yesterday’s game is all that counts.” – Jackie Robinson
Yesterday Quotes for Better Days Ahead
26. “Today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness.” – Kalidasa
27. “Yesterday is but today’s memory, and tomorrow is today’s dream.” – Khalil Gibran
28. “Tomorrow hopes we have learned something from yesterday.” – John Wayne
Yesterday Quotes That’ll Help You Move On
29. “Why let go of yesterday? Because yesterday has let go of you.” – Steve Maraboli
30. “Shake off all those negative thoughts of yesterday. Rise and shine; it’s a new day.” – Anonymous
31. “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
32. “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
Yesterday Quotes That Can Serve as Your Guide
33. “Spending today complaining about yesterday won’t make tomorrow any better.” – Anonymous
34. “If today you are a little better than you were yesterday, then that’s enough.” – David A. Bednar
35. “There’s nothing tangible of yesterday. All I can say I’ve done is agitate the air for 10 or 15 minutes, and then boom—it’s gone.” – Edward R. Murrow
Meaningful Yesterday Quotes to Keep In Your Heart
36. “The strength you have today comes from your yesterday’s pain; your success today comes from yesterday’s mistakes.” – Frank Adofoli
37. “Memories are nothing but the lash with which yesterday flogs tomorrow.” – Philip Moeller
38. “What if you woke up today with only the things you thanked God for yesterday?” – Anonymous
39. “Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, 2 golden hours, each set with 60 diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever.” – Horace Mann
Yesterday Quotes and Sayings for Instagram
40. “Yesterday don’t matter if it’s gone.” – The Rolling Stones
41. “Yesterday’s a flower the wind blows away.” – Louise Driscoll
42. “It is yesterday that makes tomorrow so sad.” – Austin O’Malley
Yesterday Quotes That’ll Rekindle Your Hope for the Future
43. “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” – Albert Einstein
44. “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.” – Mother Teresa
45. “The present is the ever-moving shadow that divides yesterday from tomorrow. In that lies hope.” – Frank Lloyd Wright
46. “There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called Yesterday, and the other is called Tomorrow. Today is the right day to love, believe, do, and mostly, live.” – Dalai Lama
Other Yesterday Quotes You Need to Read
47. “There is no distance on this earth as far away as yesterday.” – Robert Nathan
48. “Yesterday’s weirdness is tomorrow’s reason why.” – Hunter S. Thompson
49. “To learn something new, take the path that you took yesterday.” – John Burroughs
50. “So yesterday, you fell off the wagon? Or maybe you blew your diet? Or lost your temper and shot off your mouth? Well, that was yesterday. Today is a brand-new day with a clean slate, so forget yesterday!” – Abigail Van Buren
Did These Quotes Help You Move Past Your Yesterdays?
We are all human, and we all strive for perfection and happiness. Perhaps this is the main reason behind our constant effort to reflect on our yesterdays. We think that by looking back, we can relive the happiest days of our lives or change something in the past to improve our future.
But that’s not how life works. Once something happens—good or bad—we can’t do anything about it anymore. Striving to be happier today and tomorrow is the only thing left that we can do.
Yesterday is filled with all our memories, and those memories of the past are what shaped us to be who we are now. However, that doesn’t mean we must constantly look back to grow and improve further. Instead, we must shift our focus on things that we actually have control over—the things that are happening now.
Whenever you need a reminder of these things, reread our collection! Don’t get stuck in the past, and just let your memories of yesterday inspire you today!