A breakup can feel like your whole world is falling apart.

You question everything (maybe yourself the most). You feel sick to your stomach and heartbroken.

You don’t know if you’ll ever feel whole, feel like yourself again.

To spark hope I’d like to share 120 of the most relatable, hopeful, positive and helpful breakup quotes.

I hope you’ll find something here that will comfort you. Remind you that you are not alone on this journey.

And assure you that you can heal, move on and find happiness again.

Inspirational Breakup Quotes to Help You Heal from Heartbreak

“Every time your heart is broken, a doorway cracks open to a world full of new beginnings, new opportunities.”
– Patti Roberts

“If my life is going to mean anything, I have to live it myself.”
– Rick Riordan

“The great courageous act that we must all do, is to have the courage to step out of our history and past so that we can live our dreams.”
– Oprah Winfrey

“Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke

“The cure for a broken heart is self-love.”
– Jonathan Harnisch

“‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
– Alfred Lord Tennyson

“You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present.”
– Jan Glidewell

“We too, like trees can shake off our dead leaves and begin again.”
– A.Y. Greyson

“The only way out is through.”
– Robert Frost

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
– Albert Einstein

“The greatest win is walking away and choosing not to engage in drama and toxic energy at all.”
– Lalah Delia

“Every time you thought you couldn’t keep moving forward, you did. Take a moment to appreciate your strength.”
– Karen Salmanson

“Every woman that finally figured out her worth, has picked up her suitcases of pride and boarded a flight to freedom, which landed in the valley of change.”
– Shannon L. Alder

“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. When I let go of what I have, I receive what I need.”
– Lao Tzu

“That’s all you can do in this world, no matter how strong the current beats against you, or how heavy your burden, or how tragic your love story. You keep going.”
– Robyn Schneider

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”
– Rumi

“I always get to where I am going by walking away from where I have been.”
– A. A. Milne

“Pain is a part of life. Sometimes it’s a big part, and sometimes it isn’t, but either way, it’s a part of the big puzzle, the deep music, the great game.”
– Jim Butcher

“Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.”
– Walt Whitman

“Accept yourself, love yourself, and keep moving forward. If you want to fly, you have to give up what weighs you down.”
– Roy T. Bennett

“Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you.”
– Tyrion Lannister

“So many things become beautiful when you really look.”
– Lauren Oliver

“It’s not how hard you hit. It’s how hard you get hit… and keep moving forward.”
– Randy Pausch

Breakup Quotes on Sad Feelings and New Beginnings

“Someday you will wake up feeling 51 percent happy and slowly, molecule by molecule, you will feel like yourself again.”
– Amy Poehler

“The heart will break, but broken live on.”
– Lord Byron

“When you are in love, and you get hurt, it’s like a cut – it will heal, but there will always be a scar.”
– Soo Jie

“Don’t be sorry, be fierce.”
– RuPaul

“I’m really a very happy, contented little person in spite of my broken heart.”
– L.M. Montgomery

“I know my heart will never be the same. But I’m telling myself I’ll be okay.”
– Sara Evans

“You will need to allow your mind to take it all in so that by the time you get back up on your feet, you know how you feel.”
– Lauren Conrad

“It’s so empowering to say, ‘This isn’t serving me,’ and walk away in peace.”
– Unknown

“Holding on is believing that there’s a past; letting go is knowing that there’s a future.”
– Daphne Rose Kingma

“Just believe that the heartbreak was a gift in itself. Cry if you have to, but it won’t be forever! You will find love again, and it will be even more beautiful!”
– Rihanna

“You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.”
– Chinese Proverb

“Sadness flies away on the wings of time.”
– Jean de La Fontaine

“You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart.”
– Louise Erdrich

“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination.”
– Mary Oliver

“We’re all where we’re supposed to be. I am exactly where I want to be now. You can’t go backward.”
– Sandra Bullock

“You can’t move things by not moving.”
– Suzy Kassem

“You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one.”
– Michael McMillian

“A very wise man once told me that you can’t look back – you just have to put the past behind you, and find something better in your future.”
– Jodi Picoult

“I promise you there is something worse out there than being sad, and that’s being alone and being sad.”
– Ted Lasso

“I’m not sure what the future holds but I do know that I’m going to be positive and not wake up feeling desperate.”
– Nicole Kidman

“It’s hard to be clear about who you are when you are carrying around a bunch of baggage from the past.”
– Angelina Jolie

“One taught me love. One taught me patience. And one taught me pain. Now, I’m so amazing.”
– Ariana Grande

“I’d rather love a million times and have my heart broken every time, than hold a permanently empty heart forever.”
– H.C. Paye

“Through it all, I have learned to laugh and cry and grow. I look at the woman I was in my 20s and I see a young lady growing into confidence.”
– Beyonce

“Don’t worry. Just when you think your life is over, a new storyline falls from the sky and lands right in your lap.”
– Rebekah Crane

Short Breakup Quotes on Being Deeply Hurt and Moving On

“I would rather have my heart broken a thousand times than never to love at all.”
– Cameron Diaz

“Sometimes love means letting go when you want to hold on tighter.”
– Melissa Marr

“If you didn’t love him, this never would have happened. But you did.”
– Sarah Dessen

“A girl doesn’t need anyone who doesn’t need her.”
– Marilyn Monroe

“We are never ever, ever getting back together.”
– Taylor Swift

“But every time you hurt me, the less that I cry.”
– Sam Smith

“You thought that I’d be weak without ya, but I’m stronger.”
– Destiny’s Child

“Just believe in yourself. Even if you don’t pretend that you do.”
– Venus Williams

“Moving on is not forgetting – moving on is being able to remember without feeling awful about it.”
– Sam Madison

“Only time can heal his heart, just as only time can heal his broken arms and legs.”
– Miss Piggy

“It is always important to know when something has reached its end.”
– Paulo Coelho

“It is strange how often a heart must be broken before the years can make it wise.”
– Sara Teasdale

“Gonna love myself, no, I don’t need anybody else.”
– Hailee Steinfeld

“Everybody has bad relationships and, at the end of the day, they are just a great way to set yourself up for a good relationship.”
– Anne Hathaway

“Life becomes easier when you learn to accept an apology you never got.”
– Robert Brault

“This is the part of me that you’re never gonna ever take away from me, no!”
– Katy Perry

“Breaking up is a natural evolution when you try to figure out what you want in life.”
– Usher

“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
– Joseph Campbell

“You stop revisiting memories when you outgrow the people you made them with.”
– Nikki Rowe

“You’re gonna make it after all.”
– The Mary Tyler Moore Show

“I’m breaking down, gonna start from scratch. Shake it off like an Etch-A-Sketch.”
– Fifth Harmony

“After all, tomorrow is another day.”
– Scarlett O’Hara

“The truth is, I should be angry, resentful and disillusioned about relationships. But I’m not.”
– Eva Longoria

“When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters anymore.”
– George Bernard Shaw

“I love you, but I love me more.”
– Samantha (from the TV-show Sex and the City)

Deep and Relatable Breakup Quotes on Friendship and Love

“There are far better things ahead than any we leave behind.”
– C.S. Lewis

“The pain of letting go will be eclipsed by the relief of moving on.”
– Scott Stabile

“Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”
– Marilyn Monroe

“A relationship, I think, is like a shark. It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark.”
– Alvy Singer

“The best way to mend a broken heart is time and girlfriends.”
– Gwyneth Paltrow

“Like some wines our love could neither mature nor travel.”
– Graham Greene

“Stuart needs ‘space’ and ‘time,’ as if this were physics and not a human relationship.”
– Kathryn Stockett

“You get through it. It’s a process that’s not easy, but I get less and less sad about it every day.”
– Ryan Phillippe

“I know that I love being able to give my love out to someone. I know there is somebody great out there for me.”
– Jennifer Love Hewitt

“I was so scared of ever being alone, and I think, conquering that fear, this year, was actually bigger than any other transition.”
– Miley Cyrus

“If you truly want to be respected by people you love, you must prove to them that you can survive without them.”
– Michael Bassey Johnson

“The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.”
– Steve Maraboli

“You replace these old habits with new habits, like texting your friends in a group chat all day and planning fun dinner parties.”
– Taylor Swift

“I am beginning to feel like the only way to truly get over someone that you cared a lot about is to start a new chapter.”
– Mindy (from the TV-show The Mindy Project)

“Isn’t it strange how life won’t flow, like a river, but moves in jumps, as if it were held back by locks?”
– Anita Desai

“What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction.”
– Suzanne Collins

“I was smiling yesterday, I am smiling today and I will smile tomorrow. Simply because life is too short to cry for anything.”
– Santosh Kalwar

“Letting go is hard but being free is beautiful.”
– Wilder Poetry

“Dance, when you’re broken open. Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting.”
– Rumi

“Though nobody can go back and make a new beginning… Anyone can start over and make a new ending.”
– Chico Xavier

“We need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go. For holding on comes easily; we do not need to learn it.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke

“You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together.”
– Tupac Shakur

“The heart was made to be broken.”
– Oscar Wilde

“The emotion that can break your heart is sometimes the very one that heals it.”
– Nicholas Sparks

Break Up Quotes on Closure and a Positive New Chapter in Life

“It’s always darkest before the dawn.”
– Thomas Fuller

“My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness.”
– Maya Angelou

“The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.”
– Franklin D. Roosevelt

“You have within you right now, everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you.”
– Brian Tracy

“Someday you’re gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving.”
– Elizabeth Gilbert

“Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.”
– Maxim Gorky

“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”
– Lewis Carroll

“I will not allow myself to not feel chosen every single day. And I’ll wait till whenever that is.”
– Hannah Brown

“Hope, Smiles from the threshold of the year to come, Whispering ‘it will be happier’…”
– Alfred Lord Tennyson

“We’d always go into it blindly. I needed to lose you to find me.”
– Selena Gomez

“You’ve got to love yourself first. You’ve got to be OK on your own before you’re OK with someone else.”
– Jennifer Lopez

“I used to choose you and what you wanted. Now I choose me. Just me and what I want.”
– Unknown

“I’m just a masterpiece trying to master peace.”
– Dalai Aya

“Life has tried to break me, the wounds have not yet healed. But I am not a victim, never been and never will.”
– John Mark Green

“Turn your wounds into wisdom.”
– Oprah Winfrey

“Whatever you do, never run back to what broke you.”
– Frank Ocean

“I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go.”
– Marilyn Monroe

“Go back? No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!”
– J.R.R. Tolkien

“The beautiful journey of today can only begin when we learn to let go of yesterday.”
– Steve Maraboli

“The saddest thing about love is that not only the love cannot last forever, but even the heartbreak is soon forgotten.”
– William Faulkner

“The walls we build around us to keep out the sadness also keep out the joy.”
– Jim Rohn

“Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”
– Kahlil Gibran

“Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.”
– Washington Irving

“Feelings are just visitors, let them come and go.”
– Mooji

“Some of us think holding on makes us strong but sometimes it is letting go.”
– Herman Hesse

Want more inspiration and help? Then have a look at these self-love and self-esteem quotes, this post called The 12 Best Be Kind to Yourself Quotes (and Helpful Tips on Self-Love) plus this one with self-care quotes.

Why Our Need Closure From Past Relationships Is Rarely Satisfied 

It doesn’t matter how many questions you’ve had answered in your quest for closure. There will always be more. Closure is almost always impossible because questions beget more questions.

On your computer, if you draw a rectangle and then put a line halfway through it to create two rectangles, and then another line halfway through the new rectangle you’ve drawn, and then another line halfway through this new rectangle, and keep going and going, you’ll never reach the other side of the rectangle. 

It might look as though you have reached the other side and you may feel you’ve reached the other side but it’s an illusion. Zoom in and you’ll see you haven’t succeeded getting to the other side. It doesn’t matter how many lines you draw, it will always be out of reach to some extent.

This image of a rectangle is what comes to my mind when people talk about closure in the context of a romantic relationship.

Closure is about getting a firm answer and getting rid of any ambiguity. Yeah, no.

People often say they need closure about their ex and once they’ve gotten closure, they can move on with their life. Not so fast, Pythagoras. It doesn’t matter how many questions you’ve had answered in your quest for closure. There will always be more. Your quest for closure will never end because questions beget more questions.

Ambiguity is ever-present and the more questions we ask and the more answers we get, the more questions bubble up to the serve and we need to ask.

There’s No Such Thing As 100% Romantic Closure

Closure sounds like a great idea in theory but it’s a myth. In practice, trying to achieve closure is just like the image of the rectangle with the line dividing it in half for eternity. You will never reach the sweet spot you wish for because there will always be a gap (e.g. question) that gnaws at you.

In theory, you may have a list of 10 questions you would like your ex to answer but, let’s be frank, the answers are going to create more questions that need answers, and those answers will create more questions that need answers.

What to do?

You let all those unanswered questions remain unanswered. You fight the urge to get to the bottom of things. You don’t let your ex’s ambiguity, ghosting, or personal issues deter you from healing and moving on. You set yourself free.

Breakups or even loss of perceived connections are painful at the best of times but you will make yourself suffer a whole lot more if you tell yourself that you need closure by finding out XYZ or you need closure by admitting to your ex ABC.

Throw these questions to the wayside and take back the control.

By claiming you need closure what you are doing is putting the control in their hands. And that’s not where it belongs. It belongs with you.

Often breaking up is compared to kicking a drug habit. It’s an excellent comparison because it’s true.  Each time you message or come into contact with your ex you only exacerbate the pain and prolong the suffering. Kind of like a drug addict who needs a little shot to take the edge off before they kick their habit for good. Well, that shot just put you a few steps behind on your quest for a full recovery.

Let go of the illusion of closure and banish the irrational logic that is closure.

 

“Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go.”
Herman Hesse

I often write about finding lightness in life.

It can come from an unhurried but effective day at work or from uncluttering your home.

Or from learning how to let go and move on in life.

Learning to let go of a relationship, of something else in your past, of something that is just an unimportant distraction or of trying to control what you cannot control can free up huge amounts of the energy and the time you have to use for something better and more fulfilling.

It is not always easy. But it can be life-changing.

In this article you can find five steps that have made it easier for me to let go over the years.

I hope they will help you too.

Step 1: Know the benefits of not letting go.

Why is it sometimes hard to let go of something?

Well, to be honest, there are advantages and benefits to not letting go. At least for instant gratification and in the short run.

• You get to keep feeling like you are right. And like the other person is wrong. And that can be a pleasant feeling and way to look at the situation at hand.
• You can assume the victim role. And get attention, support and comfort from other people.
• You don’t have to go out into the scary unknown. You can cling to what you know instead, to what is familiar and safe even if it’s now just a dream of what you once had.

I have not let go of things in the past because of these reasons. I still sometimes delay letting go of things because of those benefits above.

But I am also conscious of the fact that they are something I get out of not letting go. And I know that in the end they are not worth it.

Because…

• What will the long-term consequences be in my life if I do not let go?
• How will it affect the next 5 years in my life and the relationships I have both with other people and with myself?

The mix of knowing how those benefits will hurt me in the long run and of knowing that there are even bigger benefits that I can get from letting go become a powerful motivator that pushes me on to let go for my own sake and happiness.

Step 2: Accept what is, then let go.

When you accept what is, that this has happened then it becomes easier to let go.

Why?

Because when you’re still struggling in your mind against what has happened then you feed that memory or situation with more energy.

You make what someone said or did even bigger and more powerful in your mind than it might have been in reality.

By accepting that it simply has happened – that you were rejected after a date for example – and letting it in instead of trying to push it away something odd happens after a while.

The issue or your memory of the situation becomes less powerful in your mind. You don’t feel as upset or sad about it as you did before. You become less emotionally attached to it.

And so it becomes easier to let go and for you to move on with your life.

Step 3: Forgive.

If someone wrongs you then it will probably cause you pain for a while.

But after that you have a choice.

You can refuse to let go of what happened. And instead let it interfere with your relationship and replay what happened over and over in your mind.

Or you can choose to forgive.

First accepting what happened can be helpful to make it easier to forgive.

Another thing you can do is not to focus on forgiving because it is “something you’re supposed to do”.

Instead, if you like, find the motivation to forgive for you own sake. Do it for your own well-being, happiness and for the time you have left in your life.

Because, as Catherine Ponder says:

“When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.”

And that you forgive does not mean that you have to stay passive towards your future.

You may for example choose to forgive but also to spend less time or no time in the future with someone who has hurt you.

Step 4: Focus on what you CAN influence in your life.

By reliving what happened over and over in your mind you aren’t really changing anything.

Unless you have a time-machine you don’t have any control over the past.

And being distracted or worried by things that you cannot control in your life in any way right now doesn’t help.

So ask yourself:

• What CAN I focus my time and energy on instead to actually make positive progress or a change in my life?
• And what is one small step I can take today to get started with that?

My experience has been that by switching my focus from what I cannot influence to what I actually have influence over and by doing that over and over again – by using questions like the ones above – it becomes easier and easier to stop worrying and to let go of what has happened or what I cannot control.

Step 5: Let go again (if necessary).

If you let go of something that happened or some distraction in your life then that might not be the end of it.

Life is not always that neat. The issue or distraction might pop up again.

Then let it go once more.

I have found that each time I let something go it pops up less and less frequently and it has less power over me.

Plus, this extra practice will make it easier to let go in the future. Letting go is something you’ll get better at over time just like for example keeping an optimistic mindset during tough times.