150+ Inspiring Good Morning Quotes to Brighten Your Day

The morning is a fresh page, a new start, a blank slate. It’s often the time we feel most energetic, creative and positive. Sending just the right words to a colleague, friend or loved one could set them up for a great day.

We’ve scoured literature, philosophy, comedy and music to pull together over 150 inspiring good morning quotes. We’ve also got some quick ways to turn them into beautiful visuals to share.

Daily affirmations can change our behavior, and even alter our brain chemistry. But research has shown that they’re more effective if they’re tailored to specific goals. So we’ve split our quotes up into targeted sections so you can dive in and find exactly the right quote for you, then turn it into an attractive visual.

Good morning to the person who makes me smile every day.

May your day be full of joy!

Let’s make the day count.

Keep your sunny side up!

Good morning folks!

Welcome to a morning as beautiful as you.

Wakey wakey rise and shine, you’re my friend and that’s just fine!

Sun’s up, let’s get doing!

This morning is grey, but you’re my sun ray.

Each morning is a new start.

I hope the day ahead is full of joy.

Good morning team

Looking forward to a day of ideas and energy.

I’d love to hear everyone’s goals for today.

Good morning everyone, thank you for your efforts yesterday.

Can’t wait to start making things happen today

Let’s make the hours count, not count the hours.

Good morning, dream team!

What do you need from me to make today a good one?

Work happens, coffee helps!

I love a new day full of potential.

“…heaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”

Psalm 30, v.5

“At dawn, I meditate in my heart on the truth of the radiant inner Self.”

Adi Shankaracharya, Indian philosopher

“Today you traverse the mountain”

Julie Suk

“Awake, my soul, and with the sun

Thy daily stage of duty run..”

Thomas Ken

“Oft when the white, still dawn

Lifted the skies and pushed the hills apart,

I’ve felt it like a glory in my heart.”

Edwin Markham

“When God sends the dawn, he sends it for all.”

Cervantes

“…seize the day, put no trust in the future.”

Horace

“‎Today is a new day. It’s a day you have never seen before and will never see again.”

Steve Maraboli

“A day is a miniature eternity.”

Emerson

“Mornings are mysteries.”

Henry Vaughan

“Got to kick at the darkness ’til it bleeds daylight.”

Bruce Cockburn

“Believe me, wise men don’t say ‘I shall live to do that’, tomorrow’s life’s too late; live today.”

Martial

“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.”

Carl Sandburg

“Life lived is gone once morning has arrived.”

Palladas, 4th Century Greek poet

“Believe each day that has dawned is your last. Some hour to which you have not been looking forward will prove lovely.”

Epistles

“A day to come shows longer than a year that’s gone.”

Thomas Fuller

“Every sunrise is a new chapter in your life waiting to be written.”

Juansen Dizon

“I learn by going where I have to go.”

Theodore Roethke

“Let us, then, be up and doing,

With a heart for any fate;

Still achieving, still pursuing,

Learn to labor and to wait.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“One day well spent is to be preferred to an eternity of error.”

Cicero

“Life is long if you know how to live it.”

Seneca

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

Annie Dillard

“Whoever wants to be happy, let them be so: of tomorrow there’s no knowing.”

Lorezo de’ Medici

“Got to kick at the darkness ’til it bleeds daylight.” Bruce Cockburn

“Awake! for Morning in the bowl of night

Has flung the stone that puts the stars to flight”

Edward Fitzgerald

“Out of the shadows of the night

The world rolls into light;

It is daybreak everywhere.”

Longfellow

“The year’s at the spring

And the day’s at the morn;

Morning’s at seven;

The hill-side’s dew-pearled;

The lark’s on the wing;

The snail’s on the thorn:

God’s in his heaven – 

All’s right with the world!”

Robert Browning

“Dawn – 

fish the cormorants haven’t caught

swimming in the shallows.”

Yosa Buson

“Listen. Put on morning.

Waken into falling light.”

W.S.Graham

“Full many a glorious morning have I seen

Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,

Kissing with golden face the meadows green,

Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy.”

William Shakespeare

“Morning has broken, like the first morning,

Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird.”

Eleanor Farjeon

“This city doth now like a garment wear

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare.”

William Wordsworth

“Come, lovely morning, rich in frost

On iron, wood and glass…”

W.H.Davies

“All the live murmur of a summer’s day.”

Matthew Arnold

“Waking one morning

In a pleasant land,

By a river flowing

Over golden sand.”

James Thomson

“It is true. I never assisted the sun materially in his rising; but doubt not it was of the last importance only to be present at it.”

Henry David Thoreau

“The joyous morning ran and kissed the grass 

And drew his fingers through her sleeping hair.”

John Freeman

“It rises – passes – on our South

Inscribes a simple Noon – 

Cajoles a Moment with the Spires

And infinite is gone.”

Emily Dickinson

“Dawn sleeps on the shadowy hills,

The stars hold their breath counting the hours.”

Rabindranath Tagore

“When morning gilds the skies.”

Edward Caswall

“Rosy-fingered dawn.”

Homer

“Sunrise

Nature is more beautiful than dreams

So wake up early”

Mohammed Zaki Ansari

“The dawn was apple-green,

The sky was green wine held up in the sun,

The moon was a golden petal between.”

D.H.Lawrence

“I’m surprised by the sun every day I wake up,

I’m surprised by waking up!

Mara Carlyle

“Sunrise / Nature is more beautiful than dreams / So wake up early” Mohammed Zaki Ansari

“Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me,

Starlight and dewdrop are waiting for thee.”

Stephen Collins Foster

“New every morning is the love

Our wakening and uprising prove.”

John Keble

“The only thing I have to give

To make you smile, to win you with

Are all the mornings still to live

In morning, Morgantown.”

Joni Mitchell

“Come away, come, sweet love,

The golden morning breaks,

All the earth, all the air

Of love and pleasure speaks”

Anon

“Such a morning it is when love

leans through geranium windows

and calls with a cockerel’s tongue.”

Laurie Lee

“Light, so low in the vale

You flash and lighten afar,

For this is the golden morning of love,

And you are his morning star.”

Alfred Tennyson

“Awake, awake, the morn will never rise,

Till she can dress her beauty at your eyes.”

Sir John Davenant

“The dawning of morn, the daylight’s sinking

The night’s long hours still find me thinking

Of thee, thee, only thee.”

Thomas More

“Love is the morning sun, shining so brightly.”

Al Green

“The critical period in matrimony is breakfast-time.”

A.P. Herbert

“You remind me

define me

incline me.

If you died

I’d.”

Lemn Sissay

“If ever two were one, then surely we.

If ever man were loved by wife, then thee”

Anne Bradstreet

“Even quarrels with one’s husband are preferable to the ennui of a solitary existence.”

Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte

“And all for love, and nothing for reward.”

Edmund Spenser

“And now good morrow to our waking souls,

Which watch not one another out of fear;

For love, all love of other sights controls,

And makes one little room an everywhere.”

John Donne

“I love thee to the level of every day’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.”

William Shakespeare

“Coffee has two virtues; it is wet and warm.”

Dutch proverb

“All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast.”

John Gunther

“I like eggs with my ham, when starting on a journey: fried not poached, and mind you don’t break ’em.”

J.R.R. Tolkein

“Coffee, which makes the politician wise, and see through all things with his half-shut eyes.” 

Alexander Pope

“An egg boiled very soft is not unwholesome.”

Jane Austen

““Look here, Steward, if this is coffee, I want tea; but if this is tea, then I wish for coffee.”

Punch

““He that looketh on a plate of ham and eggs to lust after it, hath already committed breakfast with it in his heart.”

― C.S. Lewis

“Never eat more than you can lift.”

Miss Piggy

“I never had a piece of toast
Particularly long and wide,

But fell upon the sanded floor,

And always on the buttered side.”

James Payn

“An egg is always an adventure.”

Oscar Wilde

“Coffee should be strong as love, as black as sin, and as hot as Hades.”

Hale Boggs

“Tell me what you eat and I’ll tell you what you are.”

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

“Coffee should be strong as love, as black as sin, and as hot as Hades.” Hale Boggs

“Dreams come true; without that possibility nature would not incite us to have them.”

John Updike

“Inner strength is the ultimate source of success.”

Dalai Lama

“The distance is nothing; it is only the first step that is difficult.”

Marie du Deffand

“Be what you would seem to be.”

Proverb

“What are days for? Days are where we live.”

Philip Larkin

“The drop of rain maketh a hole in the stone, not by violence, but by oft falling.”

Hugh Latimer

“One day, with life and heart,

Is more than time enough to find a world.”

James Russell Lowell

“”Potential is like a muscle you have to exercise, and no one has time for flabby potential.”

Tami Boyce,

“Start with the future you want to create and work backwards.”

Zena Everett, productivity coach

“Intuition does not come to an unprepared mind. You need to train it before it happens.”

Kip Tindell, The Container Store

“It’s always morning somewhere in the world.”

Richard Hengest Horne

 “Always be good to yourself in order to be your best self to others.”

Lynn Le, Society Nine 

“Every day in the morning, I ask myself, ‘If the day was over, what would I want to say was the highlight of my day today?’ What would make me feel satisfied and joyful?”

Jake Knapp, productivity expert

“…the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

Rainer Maria Rilke

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love.”

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Let every dawn be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close.”

John Ruskin

“Day’s sweetest moments are at dawn.”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

“With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

“Every day is a fresh beginning;

Listen, my soul, to the glad refrain”

Susan Coolidge

“The morning question: What good shall I do this day?”

Benjamin Franklin

“Day’s sweetest moments are at dawn.” Ella Wheeler Wilcox

“Never start upon an undertaking until you are sure it is practicable and ought to be done, and then let nothing stand long in the way of accomplishing that undertaking.”

Henry Clay, American statesman

“The beginning is the most important part of the work.”

Plato

“It’s crazy how ‘fear’ is often the start of our next best adventure in our business.”

Christy Saia Owenby, MOXY Company

“Work is love made visible.”

Kahil Gibran

“A tower of nine storeys begins with a heap of earth.”

Lao Tzu

“Let us do something today which the world may talk of hereafter.”

Admiral Collingwood

“It’s much easier to get out of bed and look forward to 12 hours of work if you’re making the world a better place.”

Taavet Hinrikus, TransferWise

“Give yourself something to work towards constantly.”

Mary Kay Ash

“Pay yourself first when it comes to time. If a certain activity really matters to you … the only way to be sure it will happen is to do some of it today, no matter how little.”

Oliver Burkeman, time management expert

“A big part of my morning ritual is about what I don’t do: When I wake up, I don’t start the day by looking at my smartphone. Instead I take a minute to breathe deeply, be grateful, and set my intention for the day.”

Arianna Huffington

“Give yourself something to work towards constantly.” Mary Kay Ash

“The sun illuminates only the eye of man, but shines into the eye and heart of the child.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Nothing is precious except that part of you which is in other people, and that part of others which is in you.”

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“I love my work and my children.”

Geoffry Hill

“Every family has a secret, and the secret is that it’s not like other families.”

Alan Bennett

“My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;

So is it now I am a man.”

William Wordsworth

“Getting more sleep may be the single greatest gift we can give our bodies, our minds, and even, as it turns out, our bottom lines.”

Greg McKeown

“I care less about my wake-up time than about the number of hours slept.”

Rachel Binx

“Yawning is so very catching, as frequently to be propagated through whole companies.” 

Robert Whytt

 “Start the day by working from bed”

Winston Churchill

“Sleeping late – 

Stuck to the soles of his sandals,

cherry blossoms.”

Yosa Buson

“Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.”

William Blake

“Napped half the day;

no one

punished me!”

Kobayashi Issa

“Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again.”

Dorothy Fields

“High winds do not last all morning.

Heavy rain does not last all day.”

Laozi

“I can’t count the times I have lagged seemingly hopelessly far behind, and nobody except myself thinks I can win. But I have pulled myself in from desperate situations.”

Magnus Carlsen, chess grandmaster

“I don’t think much about my time of life. I just get up in the morning and it’s a new day.”

Steve Jobs

“Nothing is wasted, nothing is vain:

The seas roll over but the rocks remain.”

A.P. Herbert

“…the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”

Steve Jobs

“Difficulties are just things to overcome after all.”

Earnest Shackleton

“Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.”

E.B. White

“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work — as a human being.”

Marcus Aurelius

“Blue skies, smilin’ at me,

Nothin’ but blue skies do I see.

Bluebirds singing a song,

Nothin’ but bluebirds all day long.”

Irving Berlin, Blue Skies

“It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day,

It’s a new life for me, and I’m feeling good.”

Nina Simone, Feeling Good

“Sun is shinin’ in the sky

There ain’t a cloud in sight

It’s stopped raining, everybody’s in a play

And don’t you know

It’s a beautiful new day?”

E.L.O, Mr Blue Sky

“Good morning, good morning!

Sunbeams will soon smile through,

Good morning, good morning to you.”

From Singin’ in the Rain

“What’s the story, morning glory?

Well, you need a little time to wake up, wake up.”

Oasis, Morning Glory

“Love is just a state of mind that we leave behind. It’s just the sun rising.”

The Beloved, The Sun Rising

“Had enough of heartbreak and pain

I had a little sweet spot for the rain

For the rain and skies of grey

Hello sunshine, won’t you stay?”

Bruce Springsteen, Hello Sunshine

“No time for moping around, are you kidding?

And no time for negative vibes, ’cause I’m winning.”

Mary J. Blige, Just Fine

Last night I dreamt I ate a ten-pound marshmallow. When I woke up the pillow was gone.”

Tommy Cooper

“I need to get up. My coffee needs me.”

Anon

““Good morning, dear students,” the principal said.

“Please put down your pencils and go back to bed.

Today we will spend the day playing outside,

then take the whole school on a carnival ride.”

Kenn Nesbitt

“Good morning, and in case I don’t see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!”

The Truman Show

“…waking up is a paradox… as ordinary as it seems, waking up is one of the profoundest actions we can take.”

Robert Rowland Smith

“We are like sailors who on the open sea must reconstruct their ship but are never able to start afresh from the bottom. Where a beam is taken away a new one must at once be put there, and for this the rest of the ship is used as support. In this way, by using the old beams and driftwood the ship can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction.”

Otto Neurath

“Let’s start talking about dreams. Let’s treat them like the real and profound experiences they are. Let’s give them their rightful place in the world.”

Alice Robb

“The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything’s got a story in it. Change the story, change the world.”

Terry Pratchett

“…a dream, like a smile, is pure air. Dreams, like smiles, fade rapidly. But what if the face faded away, and the smile remained?”

Susan Sontag

“What I dream is more mine than what I can touch.”

Jorge Drexler

“Let us learn to dream … then perhaps we shall find the truth. But let us beware of publishing our dreams ‘til they have been tested by waking understanding.”

August Kekulé

These inspiring good morning quotes come from the finest thinkers in the world, but they can be even more powerful when shared with a strong visual. 

You could create an image post to share on social media, or turn the quote into a poster to inspire yourself. Inspirational quotes can also be a great way to connect with colleagues, for example if you’re looking for something to put in a leaving or work anniversary card.

Here are some tips for getting the most out of quote images:

• Use an online graphic design tool to generate a visual from a quote
• Choose an image that fits the subject
• Create a visual tailored to the platform you’re sharing to