Quotes About Saying No

Do you have trouble saying no?

You’re not alone.

Saying no is a challenge many of us run into, but this challenge, when not handled and met, becomes a problem later on.

It can eat us alive, make us feel like prisoners and salves, and we’ll be miserable in the process.

In this, you’ll learn about some of the best quotes to help you learn how to say no better, and inspirational quotes that’ll get you to stand your ground and be happy.

It is easy to say yes and be a people-pleaser

Being a people pleaser is not a healthy way of life. Did you know that it’s easier to say yes and people please.

However, it’s not healthy, and here, we’ll go over why it’s easier to say yes and be a people pleaser than to stand your ground and say no.

1. “The most profound life lesson I have learned from 15 years of psychic mediumship work, is how quickly and easily people are forgotten once they depart this life. Yet so many of us live only to please or impress others while we are here.” –Anthon St. Maarten

2.     “When you say yes to others, make sure you aren’t saying no to yourself. Paulo Coelho

•  “The man who seeks to please God is the man who people are pleased with. The man who seeks to please others won’t satisfy anyone.” – Edwin Louis Cole
• “When you engage in people pleasing you are out of integrity with yourself, your goals, your dreams, and your life’s mission.” – Eileen Anglin
• “The only thing wrong with trying to please everyone is that there is always at least one person who will remain unhappy. You.” – Elizabeth Parker
•  “Sometimes you aren’t listening to your body because you’re listening to everybody else’s expectations.” -Ann Voskamp
• “The deepest pain I ever felt was denying my own feelings to make everyone else comfortable.” – Nicole Lyons
• “…there are often many things we feel we should do that, in fact, we don’t really have to do. Getting to the point where we can tell the difference is a major milestone in the simplification process.—Elaine St. James
• “Take “no” as an encouragement to redouble his efforts, so it was easier to say “yes” right away.”-Stieg Larsson
• “I never intended to disappoint you. You created a one sided promise I never agreed to. Note to self: A request is not an obligation. A one-side promise is the recipe for resentment.”—Brian Schwartz
• “Saying yes requires courage.”
• “Say yes and you’ll figure it out afterwards.” –Tina Fey
• “People don’t notice the things we do for them until we stop doing them.”—Mike Skinner
• “I can’t help it. I want everybody to love me and it hurts so when anybody doesn’t.”—L.M. Montgomery
• “Forgo the futile pursuit of pleasing others and focus on pleasing God. You’ll never be disappointed.”—Farshad Asi

The importance of learning how to say no

Saying no is so important and it may save you from going down the wrong path. Many people have ruined their lives by not saying no. Don’t allow that to be your story. Saying no teaches you many things, including setting boundaries, and feeling happier.

In this, you’ll learn 15 important quotes that’ll help you learn to say no better, and help you stand your ground.

“You are not required to set yourself on fire to keep others warm.” —Unknown

“The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.” —Warren Buffet, billionaire businessman

“The only people who get upset about you setting boundaries are the ones who were benefiting from you having none.” —Unknown

I can’t tell you the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everyone. Ed Sheeran

Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner. Lao Tzu

If you try to please all, you please none. Aesop

If you’re trying to please everyone, then you’re not going to make anything that is honestly yours, I don’t think, in the long run. Viggo Mortensen

“Self-Care is giving the world the best of you, not the rest of you.” – Katie Reed

“Don’t be afraid of losing people. Be afraid of losing yourself by trying to please everyone around you.”

 “The only reason people take you for granted is because they assume you’ll always be there. Prove them wrong.”

“With too much respect you will end up as a weakling. Keep everything balanced. Don’t exaggerate anything, nor please others for your own ruin.”—Mwanandeke Kindembo

“Life is yet to produce someone who is loved by or important to everyone.”—Mokokom Mokhonoana

“There’s a very fine line between trying to please others and making sure that your own needs are being met.”—Frank Sonnenberg

“I’ve come to feel downright uneasy with people who can’t say no. What if they yes you to death and then secretly hate you for it? If they never say no, how can you trust their yes? Besides, no makes room for yes, and who doesn’t want more room for that?”—Kelly Corrigan

“Real freedom is saying ‘no’ without giving a reason.”

Saying no to friends quotes

Sometimes, the struggle is telling other people no.

It’s a challenge, especially when friends and family are involved, but here are some quotes that’ll teach you how to say no to friends and peers a little bit better.

Learning how to say no to your friends can be hard. They are your friends after all. Some of them might be your peers, and in a few cases, this can be a challenge. If you find it hard to stand up for yourself, or towards your friends, then read these quotes and learn how you can do this better now! Also, try practicing in the mirror and practice it.

“Give yourself the permission to say no to anything that makes you unhappy or drains your energy.” Anonymous

“Focusing is about saying no.” Steve Jobs

“Saying no can be the ultimate self-care.” Claudia Black

“Part of the skill of saying no is to shut up afterward and not babble on, offering material for an argument.” Judith Martin

 “You have a right to say no. Most of us have very weak and flaccid no muscles. We feel guilty for saying no. We get ostracized and challenged for saying no, so we forget it’s our choice. Your no muscle has to be built up to get to a place where you can say, I don’t care if that’s what you want. I don’t want that. No.” Iyanla Vanzant

“Let today mark a new beginning for you. Give yourself permission to say NO without feeling guilty , mean, or selfish, Anybody who gets upset and/or expects you to say YES all of the time clearly doesn’t have your best interest at heart, Always remember: You have a right to say NO without having to explain yourself, Be at peace with your decisions.” – Stephanie Lahart

 “Learn to say no; it will be of more use to you than to be able to read Latin.” Charles Spurgeon

“Learning to just say no to emotional reactions isn’t repression. Saying no means not engaging the frustration, anger, judgment, or blame. Without engagement, you won’t have anything to repress.” Doc Childre

Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity.” W. Clement Stone

“I refuse to please others at the expense of my emotional well-being. Even if it means saying no to people who are used to hearing yes.” Anonymous

“Learn to say no in situations where saying no can be difficult, where it could mean getting fired. Say no anyway, because it could lead you to greater opportunities.” Samuel Dash

“You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage pleasantly, smilingly, and non-apologetically – to say no to other things. And the way to do that is by having a bigger yes burning inside.” Stephen Covey

 “The oldest, shortest words – ‘yes’ and ‘no’ – are those which require the most thought.” Pythagoras

“Half of the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough.” Josh Billings

Saying yes to happiness means learning to say no to the things and people that stress you out.” – Thema Davis

Funny quotes about saying no

Ever wanted to say no, or want funny quotes about saying no, but have never heard of them? Well, you’re in luck, because here are some funny quotes about saying no that can be inspiring for next time.

“I would love to say yes, but my dog told me to say no.”

“In this world, there are countless of cool things to do. Unfortunately, your idea does fall into such category.”

I have a strict ‘no deals with the devil’ policy.

“I believe there’s someone a lot stupider who would enjoy doing that instead”

Alas, such as task is no match for my incompetency.”

“There comes a time when you have to stop crossing oceans for people who wouldn’t even jump puddles for you.”

‘No’ is a complete sentence. It does not require justification or explanation.”

“Let people feel the weight of who you really are and let them fucking deal with it.—Tarryn Fisher

“Has hell frozen over? then sure.”

“My schedule is packed with better things.”

“I can’t anymore. I had my stupid amputated last week.

“I think I’ll find a lake of piranhas to jump in instead.”

“”I’d rather pull out each of my teeth and swallow them all together.”

“Does it involve me moving from where I am right now? If the answer is yes, then I would have to say no.”

“You should know the answer by the look of disgust on my face.”

Saying no to drugs

Drugs are not good for you, and in many cases, they led you down a cycle of addiction, and pain.

The best way to avoid the plague of drugs is to learn how to say no to drugs. Have trouble saying no though? Here are some quotes about saying no to drugs that even those who have had issues with doing this have learned to use, master and enable in order to have a better life. Also, I encourage you to stay away from those who do drugs and are encouraging you to try it. It’s not worth it in the end. You were meant for more than drugs.

“Avoid drug consumption to prevent being a slug.”

“Do not lessen your days taking drugs.”

“Drugs will cost you more than money.” 

“I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom.” ― Edgar Allan Poe

“The more you use, the less you live.” 

“D.E.A.D. spells out Drugs End All Dreams.” 

“Kick it before it kicks you.” 

Drugs take away the dream from every child’s heart and replace it with a nightmare. And it’s time we in America stand up and replace those dreams.==Nancy Reagan

Always say no to drugs. It will drive the prices down.—Jim Davidson

In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won’t end up like the Hurd people.—Linus Torvalds

Drugs are horrible; I say no to drugs. I’ve never done drugs in my life.—Vince Staples

Be Friend of Pug, Not Drugs

Don’t be Insane, Be Human Without Drugs

Do not resort to drugs to become a jailbird of ecstasy and delirium.

Drugs make you the reticent victims who set a curb on their social expressions.

Be honest about your feelings

Part of learning how to say no is to explore what makes you tick and understand your feelings.

Your feelings matter. At the end of the day, they’re what determine how you approach life.

If you find yourself struggling to come to terms with who you are, and harnessing those feelings, here are 15 amazing quotes that’ll help you learn not only how to be honest with your feelings, but how to express these as well.

Being honest is the first step to happiness, and it’ll help you learn how to set boundaries and say no too.

Make sure to be honest about your feelings so that in the end, you’ll at least know you didn’t leave anything unspoken. 

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

“Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.”—Franz Kafka

“If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.”—Virginia Woolf

“If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.”—Noel Coward

“You can’t lie to your soul.”—Irvine Welsh

“The real things haven’t changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures; and have courage when things go wrong.”—Laura Ingalls Wilder

“Do Not Lie to Yourself. We have to be honest about what we want and take risks rather than lie to ourselves and make excuses to stay in our comfort zone.”—Roy T. Bennet

“To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.”—Mahatma Gandhi

“[H]iding how you really feel and trying to make everyone happy doesn’t make you nice, it just makes you a liar.”—Jenny O’ Connell

“Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom.”—Thomas Jefferson

“Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.”—Fydor Dostoevsky

“You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it.”—Alan Moore

“To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable; to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength.”—Criss Jami

“To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart.”—Charles Dickens

Sometimes you should say yes

While we’ve talked all about times you should say no and standing your ground, there are instances you should say yes.

But why?

Sometimes, saying yes allows you to explore those feelings and harness them. It allows you to better understand yourself and allows you to take the plunge and try new things.

For those of us who tend to say no too often, creating the problem of putting up too many barriers, here are some quotes that’ll help you realize that yes, sometimes you should say yes, especially if it involves opportunities that’ll benefit you.

 “It takes effort to say no when our heart and brains and guts and, most important, pride are yearning to say yes. Practice.”—Cole Harmonson

“Until you learn how to confidently say NO to so many things, you shall always say YES to so many things. The real summary of a regretful life is a life that failed to balance YES and NO. Yes! A life that failed to recognize when to courageously say NO and when to confidently say YES!”—Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

“Stop saying ‘no’ to everything and start saying ‘yes.’ What’s the worst that can happen? A bit of embarrassment, a bit of awkwardness. And what’s the best that can happen? You might meet some interesting people, have some new experiences, enjoy yourself.”—Sarah Haywood

“The hike felt like such a momentous thing, but the hardest part of getting to the start had been the simple act of just saying yes.”—Box Band

“Perhaps there’s another reason behind her fear of inaction, though she tries not to think about it. Inaction drove her and Robert apart. She is making up for saying no at the wrong moment by always saying yes.”—Joe Heap

“If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later!”—Richard Branson

“I imagine that yes is the only living thing.”—E.E. Cummings

“Life is about who is holding your hand and, I think, whose hand you commit to holding.”—Taylor Jenkins

“In the space between yes and no, there is a lifetime. It’s the difference between the path you walk and one you leave behind; it’s the gap between who you thought you could be and who you really are; it’s the legroom for the lies you will tell yourself in the future.”—Jodi Picoult

“Shrug off the no’s – they are temporary. This is your world. In your world there is only yes.”—Jolene Stockman

“What is ‘no’? Either you have asked the wrong question or you have asked the wrong person. Find a way to get the ‘yes’.”—Jeanette Winterson

“After the final not there comes a yes. And on that yes the future world depends. No was the night. Yes is this present sun.”—Wallace Stevens

Sometimes we receive the power to say yes to life. Then peace enters us and makes us whole.– Ralph Waldo Emerson

When you learn to say yes to yourself, you will be able to say no to others, with love.– Alan Cohen

Say yes to everything you’re excited about or afraid of.– Chris Guillebeau

Learn from your past mistakes and be bold

Finally, when you do say yes or no and it’s a mistake, instead of getting upset, learn from it.

Your past is your past for a reason, and part of learning about yourself and standing your ground, is understanding that mistakes happen.

The past is oftentimes scary to admit, and there are many times where if you’re not sure about how it makes you feel, you have to look at it through your own viewpoint.

But here are also some quotes to help you remember that even though you did something unsavory in the past, it’s not the be all, end all, but instead, a way for you to learn from your mistakes.

“We are products of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it.”—Rick Warren

“By seeking and blundering we learn.”—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

“We do not learn from experience… we learn from reflecting on experience.”—John Dewey

If mistakes weren’t part of life, erasers wouldn’t exist.

The only real mistake one can ever make is not trying in the first place.

“You must learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t possibly live long enough to make them all yourself.” – Samuel Levenson

“Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle.” – James Russell Lowell

“Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.” – Mary Tyler Moore

“It’s fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” – Bill Gates

 “Your mistake does not define who you are… you are your possibilities.” – Oprah Winfrey

Boldness doesn’t mean rude, obnoxious, loud, or disrespectful. Being bold is being firm, sure, confident, fearless, daring, strong, resilient, and not easily intimidated. It means you’re willing to go where you’ve never been, willing to try what you’ve never tried, and willing to trust what you’ve never trusted. Boldness is quiet, not noisy.—Mike Yaocnelli

 Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.—Helen Keller

 Be bold, be brave enough to be your true self.—Queen Latifah

 Freedom lies in being bold.—Robert Frost

 “Many times what we perceive as an error or failure is actually a gift. And eventually we find that lessons learned from that discouraging experience prove to be of great worth.”—Richelle E. Goodrich

Conclusion

These 120 quotes looked at how you can say no better, the importance of saying no and setting boundaries, and how you can learn from mistakes in the past.

If you’ve ever been in the situation where you don’t know how to say no, you’re not alone.  We’ve all been there, we’ve all dealt with struggling to say no, and also looking at the problems that we have in the wrong directions.

These quotes are here to help you learn not only how to say no better, but also to stand your ground, and help you grow as a person as well.