30 Powerful Quotes from How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie

Last Updated on June 6, 2023 by The Unbounded Thinker

In his book, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, Dale Carnegie encourages readers to stop worrying about the past and the future and start living in the present moment by sharing stories of people whose lives changed after they overcame worry.

Carnegie also shares the negative impact of worry on health. Particularly, he reveals how worry is the primary cause of stomach illnesses.

Most importantly, Carnegie encourages us to accept whatever happens and teaches us how analyze and overcome worry.

After reading the book, I wondered why I avoided reading it a few years ago despite knowing about it. But I stopped regretting when I remembered that everything happens at the right time.

Anyway, I gathered the following powerful quotes from the book while reading it.

Enjoy:

“The day of man’s salvation is now. Waste of energy, mental distress, nervous worries dog the steps of a man who is anxious about the future.”
“By all means take thought for the tomorrow, yes, careful thought and planning and preparation. But have no anxiety.”
“You and I are standing this very second at the meeting-place of two eternities: the vast past that has endured for ever, and the future that is plunging on to the last syllable of recorded time. We can’t possibly live in either of those eternities-no, not even for one split second. But, by trying to do so, we can wreck both our bodies and our minds.
“Let’s be content to live the only time we can possibly live: from now until bedtime.”
“One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon-instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.”
“Millions of people have wrecked their lives in angry turmoil, because they refused to accept the worst; refused to try to improve upon it; refused to salvage what they could from the wreck. Instead of trying to reconstruct their fortunes, they engaged in a bitter and “violent contest with experience”-and ended up victims of that brooding fixation known as melancholia.”
“The great Nobel prizewinner in medicine, Dr. Alexis Carrel, said: “Business men who do not know how to fight worry die young.” And so do housewives and horse doctors and bricklayers.”
“Fear causes worry. Worry makes you tense and nervous and affects the nerves of your stomach and actually changes the gastric juices of your stomach from normal to abnormal and often leads to stomach ulcers.”
“Worry can make even the most stolid person ill”
“The most relaxing recreating forces are a healthy religion, sleep, music, and laughter.”
“Why does such a simple thing as keeping busy help to drive out anxiety? Because of a law-one of the most fundamental laws ever revealed by psychology. And that law is: that it is utterly impossible for any human mind, no matter how brilliant, to think of more than one thing at any given time. You don’t quite believe it?
“As the years went by, I gradually discovered that ninety-nine per cent of the things I worried about never happened.
“Here is a bit of sage advice from one of my favourite philosophers, William James. “Be willing to have it so,” he said. “Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequence of any misfortune.”
“Obviously, circumstances alone do not make us happy or unhappy. It is the way we react to circumstances that determines our feelings. Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is within you. That is where the kingdom of hell is, too.”
“We can all endure disaster and tragedy and triumph over them-if we have to. We may not think we can, but we have surprisingly strong inner resources that will see us through if we will only make use of them. We are stronger than we think.”
“I once refused to accept an inevitable situation with which I was confronted. I played the fool and railed against it, and rebelled. I turned my nights into hells of insomnia. I brought upon myself everything I didn’t want. Finally, after a year of self-torture, I had to accept what I knew from the outset I couldn’t possibly alter.”
“Co-operate with the inevitable. If you know a circumstance is beyond your power to change or revise, say to yourself “It is so; it cannot be otherwise.”
“The longer I live, the more deeply I am convinced of the tremendous power of thought. As a result of thirty-five years spent in teaching adults, I know men and women can banish worry, fear, and various kind of illness, and can transform their lives by changing their thoughts.”
“Human nature has always been human nature-and it probably won’t change in your lifetime. So why not accept it?”
“If we want to stop worrying and start living. Rule 4 is: Count your blessings-not your troubles!”
“I said to myself: “You’ve got to be Dale Carnegie, with all his faults and limitations. You can’t possibly be anybody else.”
“You are something new in this world. Be glad of it. Make the most of what nature gave you.”
“When the wise man is handed a lemon, he says: “What lesson can I learn from this misfortune? How can I improve my situation? How can I turn this lemon into a lemonade?”
“Harry Emerson Fosdick repeated it again in the twentieth century: “Happiness is not mostly pleasure; it is mostly victory.” Yes, the victory that comes from a sense of achievement, of triumph, of turning our lemons into lemonades.”
“The more I have studied the careers of men of achievement the more deeply I have been convinced that a surprisingly large number of them succeeded because they started out with handicaps that spurred them on to great endeavour and great rewards.”
So if you want to banish worry and cultivate peace and happiness, here is Rule 7: Forget yourself by becoming interested in others. Do every day a good deed that will put a smile of joy on someone’s face.
“The fact that I don’t understand the mysteries of prayer and religion no longer keeps me from enjoying the richer, happier life that religion brings. At long last, I realise the wisdom of Santayana’s words: Man is not made to understand life, but to live it.”
“Without prayer,” Mahatma Gandhi wrote, “I should have been a lunatic long ago.”
“Probably thousands of the tortured souls who are now screaming in our insane asylums could have been saved if they had only turned to a higher power for help instead of trying to fight life’s battles alone.”
If we are worried and anxious-why not try God ? Why not, as Immanuel Kant said: