Do you often find yourself overthinking things? If so, you’re not alone. Overthinking can be a major drain on our energy and our productivity. It can also lead to anxiety and depression. That’s why it’s important to have a few quotes that remind us to stop overthinking things!
Understanding that it is impossible to control everything in life and that worrying excessively will not change the outcome makes it easier to stop overthinking. “Worrying does not take away tomorrow’s troubles, it takes away today’s peace,” said Randy Armstrong.
Another way to remind yourself to stop overthinking is by being mindful. “Be mindful. Be grateful. Be positive,” said Roy Bennett. Being mindful means living in the present moment and not worrying about what might happen in the future.
In this blog post, we will share 120 of the best overthinking quotes from famous authors, thinkers, and celebrities. We hope these quotes will help you learn how to let go of your thoughts and live in the present moment.
Overthinking Quotes
- “Don’t overthink, just do it.” – Shia LaBeouf
- “Stop thinking, and end your problems.” – Lao Tzu
- “Your focus determines your reality.” – Qui-Gon Jinn
- “To think too much is a disease.” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- “Thinking too deeply will only drown me.” – Greta Farrel
- “Worry is the triumph of fear.” – Aniekee Tochukwu Ezekiel
- “Worrying is like paying a debt you don’t owe.” – Mark Twain
- “Overthinking is often a product of underdoing.” – Yehuda Berg
- “Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.” – Napoleon Hill
- “Life is God’s novel. Let him write it.” – Isaac Bashevis Singer
- “A year from now you may wish you had started today.” – Karen Lamb
- “Soon you will be dead and none of it will matter” – Marcus Aurelius
- “Thinking will not overcome fear but action will.” – W. Clement Stone
- “The more you overthink the less you will understand.” – Habeeb Akande
- “Nothing can harm you as much as your own thoughts unguarded.” – Buddha
- “Worry is interest paid on trouble before it is due.” – William R. Inge
- “Don’t keep things bottled up. It’s not good for you.” – Kody Keplinger
- “I AM AT ODDS WITH MYSELF. I WILL GET EVEN WITH MYSELF.” – Vineet Raj Kapoor
- “Overthinking is parasitic. It’s viral. It’s deadly, even.” – Genereux Philip
- “Clinging to old ways and fighting change is not the answer.” -Michael Rapino
- “When you lose your ego, you win. It really is that simple.” – Shannon L. Alder
- “The closer one comes to truth, the further one gets from mind.” – James Pierce
- “While you were overthinking, you missed everything worth feeling.” – Nitya Prakash
- “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” – William Shakespeare
- “If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.” – Bruce Lee
- “To think too much is a disease.” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground & The Double
- “A mistake in judgment isn’t fatal, but too much anxiety about judgment is.” – Pauline Kael
- “What do do with a mistake: recognize it, admit it, learn from it, forget it.” – Dean Smith
- “Overthinking, also best known as creating problems that are never there.” – David Sikhosana
- “Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchil
- “Trust the still, small voice that says, “this might work and I’ll try it.” – Diane Mariechild
- “No amount of anxiety makes any difference to anything that is going to happen.” – Alan Watts.
- “You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” – Martin Luther King, Jr
- “Worrying about how things might go wrong, doesn’t help things to go right.” – Karen Salmansohn
- “If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.” – Albert Einstein
- “Worrying does not take away tomorrow’s troubles, it takes away today’s peace.” – Randy Armstrong
- “If you treat every situation as a life and death matter, you’ll die a lot of times.”– Dean Smith
- “Remember, the talking about the thing isn’t the thing. Doing the thing is the thing.” – Amy Poehler
- “so many thoughts, my kvothe. you know too much to be happy.” – Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man’s Fear
- “The more you rationalize, the more you move farther away from your authentic self.” – Shannon L. Alder
- “Now is definitely the best time to start, though Yesterday would have beaten it easily.” – Kalpesh Jain
- “The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” – William James
- “If you get stuck, draw with a different pen. Change your tools; it may free your thinking.” – Paul Arden
- “Overthinking is a dream-killer. Sometimes you can drown yourself in your own thoughts.” – Steve Maraboli
- “Nothing happens by overthinking; then why stress? Is it too hard to sit down and relax?” – Sukant Ratnakar
- “Do not anticipate trouble or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.” – Benjamin Franklin
- “Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control it.” – Kahlil Gibran
- “Only about two percent of one percent of our thoughts deserve to be taken seriously.” – Mokokoma Mokhonoana
- “Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems.” – Epictetus.
- “Worrying is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere.” – Van Wilder
- “The world is full of people who will help you manufacture tornados in order to blow out a match.” – Shaun Hick
- “Remember, the talking about the thing isn’t the thing. Doing the thing is the thing.” – Amy Poehler, Yes Please
- “Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
- “You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” – Marcus Aurelius.
- “Put your thoughts to sleep. Do not let them cast a shadow over the moon of your heart. Let go of thinking.” – Rumi
- “You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
- “People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them.” – George Bernard Shaw
- “Try not to give the driving seat of your mind to anyone. People are happy to drive you to regrets.” – Vineet Raj Kapoor
- “My mother said the cure for thinking too much about yourself was helping somebody who was worse off than you.” – Sylvia Plath
- “Keep your ears open and listen to the whispers of the universe, it will direct you towards the right direction.” – Hina Hashmi
- “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” – Mark Twain
- “A great many worries can be diminished by realizing the unimportance of the matter which is causing anxiety.” – Bertrand Russell
- ”Spend eighty percent of your time focusing on the opportunities of tomorrow rather than the problems of yesterday.” – Brian Tracy
- “If you want to conquer overthinking, bring your mind to the present moment and reconnect it with the immediate world.” – Amit Ray
- “Overthinking is not a disease; it is due to the underuse of your creative power.” – Amit Ray, Meditation: Insights and Inspirations
- “I think and think and think, I‘ve thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.” – Jonathan Safran Foer.
- “Nothing in life is more remarkable than the unnecessary anxiety which we endure, and generally create ourselves.” – Benjamin Disraeli.
- “My father taught me not to overthink things, that nothing will ever be perfect, so just keep moving and do your best.” – Scott Eastwood
- “It has been well said that our anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.” – Charles Spurgeon
- “The sharpest minds often ruin their lives by overthinking the next step, while the dull win the race with eyes closed.” – Bethany Brookbank
- “He never complicates a desire by overthinking it, unlike Mirabelle, who spins a cocoon around an idea until it is immobile.” – Steve Martin
- “Don’t get too deep, it leads to over thinking, and over thinking leads to problems that don’t even exist in the first place.” – Jayson Engay
- “Step outside for a while – calm your mind. It is better to hug a tree than to bang your head against a wall continually.” – Rasheed Ogunlaru
- “Life stops when one stops dreaming for better because of overwhelming pressure of fear that arises from his overthinking..” – Srinivas Mishra
- “Don’t get too deep, it leads to over thinking, and over thinking leads to problems that doesn’t even exist in the first place.” – Jayson Engay
- “The more I think about it, the more I realize that overthinking isn’t the real problem. The real problem is that we don’t trust.” – L.J. Vanier
- “I’m not thinking about anything when I’m climbing, which is part of the appeal. I’m focused on executing what’s in front of me.” – Alex Honnold
- “If you want power, control the narrative in other people’s head. If you seek happiness, control the narrative in your own head.” – Johnny Uzan.
- “Most misunderstandings in the world could be avoided if people would simply take the time to ask, “What else could this mean?” – Shannon L. Alder
- “You only have control over three things in your life, the thoughts you think, the images you visualize, and the actions you take.” – Jack Canfield
- “Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- “Overthinking will not empower you over things that are beyond your control. So, let it be if it is meant to be and cherish the moment.” – Mahsati A.
- “Stop worrying about what tomorrow may bring. Focus on what you can control. Stay positive. Enjoy today. Expect good things to come.” – Karen Salmansohn
- “Stop overthinking everything. Just let it be. Relax and go with the flow more. Worry less. And don’t take life so seriously… live a little!” – Mandy Hale
- “Majority of people who are easily stressed are the ones who think too much about the problems instead of solutions. Always focus on solutions.” – Subodh Gupt
- “Thinking has, many a time, made me sad, darling; but doing never did in all my life… Do good if you can; but, at any rate, do something.” – Elizabeth Gaskell
- “I have to remind myself, stop thinking about the future. Stop thinking about what happened at work today, or another choice you could have made.” – Anna Gunn
- “Head Vs Heart: A crowded mind Leaves no space For a peaceful heart” – Christine Evangelou, Beating Hearts and Butterflies: Poetry of Wounds, Wishes and Wisdom
- “I have realized sometimes I do better working under a crazy schedule. It gives me less time to overthink things and forces me to be present.” – Torrey DeVitto
- “Concentration is a cornerstone of mindfulness practice. Your mindfulness will only be as robust as the capacity of your mind to be calm and stable.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn
- “You know, it is a little known fact that thinking is entirely overrated. The world would be a much better place if we all did a lot less of it.” – Laurie Viera Rigler
- “If you want to conquer overthinking, bring your mind to the present moment and reconnect it with the immediate world.” – Amit Ray, Meditation: Insights and Inspirations
- “The sharpest minds often ruin their lives by overthinking the next step, while the dull win the race with eyes closed.” – Bethany Brookbank, Write like no one is reading
- “Overthinking uses energy and leads to activity with no action. That is one particular problem many will face. Questology is the answer to cure this cancer.” – Thomas Vato
- “Overthinking ruins you. It ruins the situation. And it twists things around. It makes you worry. Plus it just makes everything worst than it actually is.” – Karen Salmanso
- “The best way to stop overthinking is conscious micro action meditation ( laghu jnana kriya).” – Amit Ray, 72000 Nadis and 114 Chakras in Human Body for Healing and Meditation
- “Now that your worry has proved such an unlucrative business, Why not find a better job?” – Hafez, The Poetry Pharmacy Returns: More Prescriptions for Courage, Healing and Hope
- “Nothing in the world can bother you as much as your own mind, I tell you. In fact, others seem to be bothering you, but it is not other, it is your own mind.” – Sri Ravi Shankar
- “In a moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing to do, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.” – Theodore Roosevelt
- “To let the brain work without sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to pieces. The sea air, sunshine, and patience, Watson—all else will come.” – Arthur Conan Doyle
- “If my mind is busy thinking about things like how someone hurt or upset me and how I can protect myself or get back at them, I’m too busy in my head to enjoy the present moment.” – Ankush Jain
- “We are dying from overthinking. We are slowly killing ourselves by thinking about everything. Think. Think. Think. You can never trust the human mind anyway. It’s a death trap.” – Anthony Hopkins
- “Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” – Steve Jobs
- “As so often happens in life, he had thought so much and so often of the situation that now confronted him that he was somewhat nervous in its presence.” – Sherwood Anderson, Sherwood Anderson: Short Stories
- “Thinking has, many a time, made me sad, darling; but doing never did in all my life… My precept is, “Do something, my sister, do good if you can; but, at any rate, do something”.” – Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South
- “Most of us never stop to consider our blessings; rather, we spend the day only thinking about our problems. But since you have to be alive to have problems, be grateful for the opportunity to have them.” – Bernie Siegel
- “True saddness is when someone still thinks your the same person after all these years. They brand you because of their own ego, fear and lack of spirituality. What’s sadder is when they are Christian.” – Shannon L. Alder
- “In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don’t try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.” – Lao Tzu
- “I get anxious about everything. I just can’t stop thinking about things all the time. And here’s the really destructive part — it’s always retrospective. I waste time thinking of what I should have said or done.” – Hugh Laurie
- “If you have fear of some pain or suffering, you should examine whether there is anything you can do about it. If you can, there is no need to worry about it; if you cannot do anything, then there is also no need to worry.” – Dalai Lama
- “She’d read somewhere that if you gave your brain tasks to do it stopped overthinking. She’d given herself a lot of tasks. Sometimes she felt like a robot. It seemed like a lifetime since she’d felt human.” – Sarah Morgan, How to Keep a Secret
- “This is probably the advantage of being stupid. Stupid people just do. We tend to overthink. If we could eliminate the “over” and just think, then we could do, too. Only we’d be smarter doers because we’d be thinkers.” – Sarah Strohmeyer, Smart Girls Get What They Want
- “The greatest force is derived from the power of thought. The finer the element, the more powerful it is. The silent power of thought influences people even at a distance, because mind is one as well as many. The universe is a cobweb; minds are spiders.” – Swami Vivekananda
- “You can come out of the repetitive thought patterns by witnessing the thinker inside you. Witnessing will give you the state of “no-mind” -the state of deep inner connectedness. Gradually, you move into the state of pure being - the state of pure consciousness.” – Amit Ray, Enlightenment Step by Step
- “Turning pro is a mindset. If we are struggling with fear, self-sabotage, procrastination, self-doubt, etc., the problem is, we’re thinking like amateurs. Amateurs don’t show up. Amateurs crap out. Amateurs let adversity defeat them. The pro thinks differently. He shows up, he does his work, he keeps on truckin’, no matter what.” – Steven Pressfield
- “A little while ago I was able to wander in a beautiful sublime fantasy world, in Ossian’s half-dark magical world. But the blessed dreams dissolve; they seem like love potions – they intoxicate, exalt and then disappear, that is the misery and wretchedness of all our feelings. With thoughts it is no better: one easily overthinks things to the point of staleness.” – Karoline von Günderrode
- “So this was kissing. He had to admit Rachel seemed into it. She kept kind of rolling around and sighing. Would he be enjoying himself more if he were kissing Anna? Frankly, it was hard to ever imagine being turned on by this activity. Two boneless slabs of flesh, flopping around, like a pair of slugs mating in the cavern of your mouth. Gross, Ted. What was wrong with him?” – Kristen Roupenian, You Know You Want This
- “They say, “Look before you leap.” So look. But do not look for too long. Do not look into the void of uncertainty trying to predict each and every possible outcome, to evaluate every possible mistake, to prevent each possible failure. Look for the opportunity to leap, and leap faster than your fear can grab you. Leap before you talk yourself out of it, before you convince yourself to set up a temporary camp that turns into a permanent delay on your journey into your own heart.” – Vironika Tugaleva
- “Sideways, ladders, mazes, a mess, like we need a map, anything but straight roads ahead. Chaos inside my head, one that gets lit on fire every time I try to go to bed. Plans that spiral, dreams drew like art, decisions like ice-cold water pouring out on my injured heart. Thoughts vanishing into thin air like smoke after your very first fight. Fears that speed up your heart and make it feel like it’s going to stop. They call them “the monsters under your bed”, they are monsters that can make me crumble inside my head. “Have no fear my sweet innocent lady” another lie, she said. Can we just call it something else, can you tell me something else. Say it’s the fear that you drives out of this. Say it’s my thoughts that make me different like this. Tell me that the monsters teach me how to win battles for the people I love like I always do. And the maze, it gives me something to do while I’m stuck here with you.” – Mennah al Refaey
- “Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way. The enjoyments of life (such was now my theory) are sufficient to make it a pleasant thing, when they are taken en passant, without being made a principal object. Once make them so, and they are immediately felt to be insufficient. They will not bear a scrutinizing examination. Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so. The only chance is to treat, not happiness, but some end external to it, as the purpose of life. Let your self-consciousness, your scrutiny, your self-interrogation, exhaust themselves on that; and if otherwise fortunately circumstanced you will inhale happiness with the air you breathe, without dwelling on it or thinking about it, without either forestalling it in imagination, or putting it to flight by fatal questioning.” – John Stuart Mill, Autobiography
Wrapping Up
These quotes capture the complexity of our emotions and thoughts. We can feel a range of conflicting feelings, we struggle to make decisions, and sometimes there’s chaos within our minds that is difficult to comprehend or control. But it’s also important to note that though life can be challenging at times, if we focus on something other than our own happiness, it can lead us on a journey of self-discovery and contentment. Our thoughts and feelings may not always make sense, but that’s okay – it’s all part of the human experience. So take some time to reflect on these quotes and just let your thoughts flow; you never know where they may take you. And don’t forget, it’s okay to be scared – just remember to “leap before you look.” Good luck!
