100+Motivational Quotes for Cancer Patients to Help You Keep Fighting

The disease known as cancer can seem like an unbeatable opponent, but it doesn’t have to be. Patients have been using motivational quotes to help them stay positive and keep fighting their battle against cancer, and these inspirational quotes can help you stay strong through your fight as well.

Words Of Motivation For Cancer Patients

Don’t lose hope. If you’re going through cancer, know that you aren’t alone. Here are 100+ inspirational and motivational quotes from famous people like Abraham Lincoln, Neil Armstrong, Audrey Hepburn, John Lennon, and many more. These are great quotes to read while in treatment or after your cancer has been cured. Remember: hope is not a strategy! (Thanks Anon) [NOTE: Some of these quotes may be triggering.]

Here are some of the most powerful and inspiring quotes that are currently being used by cancer patients around the world.

“Cancer is just a chapter in our lives and not the whole story.”— Allie Moreno
“Every day you wake up is another opportunity to be a blessing to someone else.”— Jacqueline Wallace
“Today is enough.”— Josh Taylor
“Cancer didn’t bring me to my knees, it brought me to my feet.” — Michael Douglas
“When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
“It’s about focusing on the fight and not the fright.” — Robin Roberts
“There’s almost always something to smile about.”— Aaliyah Parke
“For every mountain, there is a miracle.” — Robert H. Schuller
“Cancer is a word, not a sentence.” — John Diamond
“When cancer happens, you don’t put life on hold. You live now.”— Fabi Powell
“God didn’t promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, or sun without rain, but He did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way.” — Unknown
“Each day comes bearing its own gifts. Untie the ribbons.” — Ruth Ann Schabacker
“You can do anything you set your mind to.”— Layne Compston
“Hope is the ability to hear the music of the future. Faith is the courage to dance to it today.” — Peter Kuzmic
“Sometimes you have to get knocked down lower than you’ve ever been, to stand up taller than you ever were.” — Unknown
“Some days there won’t be a song in your heart. Sing anyway.” —Emory Austin
“Believe you can, and you are halfway there.” — Theodore Roosevelt
“Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.” — Chuang Tzu
“When you go through deep waters, I will be with you.” — Isaiah
“Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well.” — Robert Louis Stevenson
“We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.” — Kenji Miyazawa
“We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.” — Thomas S. Monson
“You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, smarter than you think, and twice as beautiful as you’d ever imagined.” — A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
“Cancer can touch you, but not your soul; neither your thoughts nor your heart.” — Vikrmn, Guru with Guitar
“Cancer is the be-all and end-all of the sport, and the only thing you can do is show up to the game with your jersey on.” — Colleen Hoover, November 9
“Cancer can take away all of my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart, and it cannot touch my soul.” — Jim Valvano
“Time is shortening. But every day that I challenge this cancer and survive is a victory for me.” — Ingrid Bergman
“The mind is everything. What you think you become.” — Buddha
“Faith is daring to go beyond what the eyes can see.” — Unknown
“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” — Winston Churchill
“When you see an obstacle approaching, grab your courage and speed up.” — Angela Lynne Craig, Pivot Leadership: Small Steps… Big Change
“Hope is the physician of each misery.” — Irish proverb
“Without hair, a queen is still a queen.” ― Prajakta Mhadnak
“When it rains look for rainbows, when it’s dark look for stars.” — Oscar Wilde
“Yesterday is gone, tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today, let us begin.” – Mother Teresa
“Love and laughter are two of the most important universal cancer treatments on the planet. Overdose on them.” — Tanya Masse
“The most important thing in illness is never to lose heart.” — Nikolai Lenin
“Don’t count the days. Make the days count.” — Muhammad Ali
“When you die, that does not mean that you lose to cancer. You beat cancer by how you live, why you live and in the manner in which you live.” — Stuart Scott
“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” — Alice Walker
“Nothing is impossible, the word itself says, ‘I’m possible!’” — Audrey Hepburn
“Cancer is only going to be a chapter in your life, not the whole story” — Joe Wasser
“I have cancer. Cancer doesn’t have me.” — Marco Calderon
“Strength is born in the deep silence of long-suffering hearts; not amidst joy.” — Felicia Hemans
“It’s not the load that breaks you down: it’s the way you carry it.” — Lena Horne
“I’m a tough cookie. Except for the cancer, I’m fine.” — Lisa Scottoline, Every Fifteen Minutes
“Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.” — Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“Keep your face to the sunshine and you can never see the shadow.” — Helen Keller
“Only in the darkness can you see the stars.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Difficult roads can lead to beautiful destinations.” — Kia Wynn
“Cancer is not a death sentence, but rather it is a life sentence; it pushes one to live.” - Marcia Smith
“Acceptance of death and cancer did not mean I intended to give up, just the opposite. I was prepared to fight cancer not out of fear of dying, but out of joy of living.” — Edie Littlefield Sundby, The Mission Walker
“You need to spend time crawling alone through shadows to truly appreciate what it is to stand in the sun.” — Shaun Hick
“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” — Maya Angelou
“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” — Jon Kabat-Zinn
“When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this: You haven’t.” — Thomas Edison
“You have been assigned this mountain to show others it can be moved.” — Unknown
“Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances that we know to be desperate.” — G. K. Chesterton
“You have to fight, because if you don’t, you let the opponent win. And if your opponent is cancer, the results can be deadly.” — Lawrence Wray
“To the question of your life, you are the only answer. To the problems of your life, you are the only solution.” — Jo Coudert
“You can’t be brave if you’ve only had wonderful things happen to you.” - Mary Tyler Moore
“Pain is temporary, it may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.” - Lance Armstrong
“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope.” - Helen Keller
“Cancer is a word, not a sentence.” - John Diamond
“Oh, my friend, it’s not what they take away from you that counts. It’s what you do with what you have left.” — Hubert Humphrey
“You have to be willing to give up the life you planned, and instead, greet the life that is waiting for you.” — Joseph Campbell
“If fear is cultivated it will become stronger, if faith is cultivated it will achieve mastery.” — John Paul Jones
“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.” — Eleanor Roosevelt.
“You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.” — Cayla Mills
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” — Ambrose Redmoon
“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says, ‘I’ll try again tomorrow.’” — Mary Anne Radmacher
“All we’ve got is hope, and we hang on to that every single day.” — Caleb Scott
“Take one day at a time. Today, after all, is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.” — Billy Graham
“The only disability in life is a bad attitude.” — Scott Hamilton
“Above all, cancer is a spiritual practice that teaches me about faith and resilience.” — Kris Carr
“Cancer may have started the fight, but I will finish it.” — gotCancer.org
“Be strong, be fearless, be beautiful. And believe that anything is possible when you have the right people there to support you.” — Misty Copeland
“Cancer opens many doors. One of the most important is your heart.” – Greg Anderson
“Cancer is messy and scary. You throw everything at it, but don’t forget to throw love at it. It turns out that might be the best weapon of all.” — Regina Brett
“Don’t let pain define you. Let it refine you.” — Tim Fargo
“Cancer is not a death sentence, but rather it is a life sentence; it pushes one to live.” — Marcia Smith
“We have two options, medically and emotionally: give up or fight like hell.” — Lance Armstrong
“Remember how far you’ve come, not just how far you have to go. You may not be where you want to be, but neither are you where you used to be.” — Rick Warren
“At any given moment you have the power to say this is not how the story is going to end.” — Unknown
“For every wound, there is a scar, and every scar tells a story. A story that says, ‘I survived!’” — Fr. Craig Scott
“Surround yourself only with people who are going to lift you higher.” — Oprah Winfrey
“Hope is living with courage and confidence, not fear.” — Penny Boldrey
“Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we’re here, we should dance.” — Unknown
“To fear is one thing. To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another.” — Katherine Paterson
“Faith doesn’t always mean that God changes your situation, sometimes it means he changes you.” — Steven Furtick
“Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.” — Sarah Williams, Twilight Hours: A Legacy of Verse
“There are no great people in this world, only great challenges which ordinary people rise to meet.” — William Frederick Halsey, Jr.
“One day at a time, one step at a time. Do what you can, do your best. Let God handle the rest.” — Michelle Jones
“Giving in to the darkness offers no benefit.”— Marivel Preciado
“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” — Psalm 46:1
“I am not this hair, I am not this skin, I am the soul that lives within.” — Rumi
“Cancer cannot cripple love, it cannot shatter hope, it cannot conquer the spirit.” — Unknown
“Accept what is, let go of what was, and have faith in what will be.” — Sonia Ricotti
“Stand in your light and shine brightly because that is how you defeat darkness.” — Leslie Esperanza Espaillat
“Seeds of faith are always within us; sometimes it takes a crisis to nourish and encourage their growth.” — Susan Taylor
“Once you choose hope, anything’s possible.” — Christopher Reeve
“Your life is your story. Write well. Edit often.” ― Susan Statham
“Life becomes more purposeful when you’re doing something good.”— Brendan Locke
“You can be a victim of cancer, or a survivor of cancer. It’s a mindset.” — Dave Pelzer
“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.” ― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
“Never be ashamed of a scar. It simply means you were stronger than whatever tried to hurt you.” — Unknown
“When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds, and diamonds are made under pressure.” — Peter Marshall
“Cancer is a journey, but you walk the road alone. There are many places to stop along the way and get nourishment — you just have to be willing to take it.” — Emily Hollenberg
“Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.” — Samuel Smiles
“Feed your faith, and your fears will starve to death.” — Unknown
“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass… It’s about learning to dance in the rain.” — Vivian Greene
“No matter what the statistics say, there is always a way.” — Bernie Siegel
“The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it.” — C.C. Scott
“Yesterday is gone, tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today, let us begin.” — Mother Teresa
“Let nothing trouble you, let nothing frighten you. All things are passing; God never changes. Patience obtains all things. He who possesses God lacks nothing. God alone suffices.” — St. Teresa of Avila
“Today we fight. Tomorrow we fight. The day after, we fight. And if this disease plans on whipping us, it better brings a lunch, ’cause it’s gonna have a long day doing it.” — Jim Beaver, Life’s That Way
“Cancer is a part of our life, but it’s not our whole life.”— Nick Prochak