Top 35 Rejection Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “If you don’t ask, the answer is always no.”

— Nora Roberts

Also featured in: Business Quotes, Confidence Quotes, Short Motivational Quotes, Personality Quotes, Opportunity Quotes

2. “Each work has to pass through these stages: ridicule, opposition, and then acceptance. Those who think ahead of their time are sure to be misunderstood.”

— Swami Vivekananda

Also featured in: Wise Quotes

3. “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Also featured in: Knowledge Quotes, Intelligent Quotes, Truth Quotes, Witty Quotes

4. “I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”

— Ayn Rand

Also featured in: Integrity Quotes, Relationship Quotes, Values Quotes, Life Philosophy Quotes

5. “If they don’t like you for being yourself, be yourself even more.”

— Taylor Swift

Also featured in: Self-Esteem Quotes, Sweet Quotes, Being Yourself Quotes, Character Quotes

6. “I would prefer not to.”

— Herman Melville

Also featured in: Individuality Quotes, Ego Quotes

7. “I take rejection as someone blowing a bugle in my ear to wake me up and get going, rather than retreat.”

— Sylvester Stallone

Also featured in: Never Give Up Quotes, Grit Quotes, Not Giving Up Quotes, Keep Going Quotes

8. “I reject your reality and substitute my own.”

— Adam Savage

Also featured in: Imagination Quotes, Hilarious Quotes, Crazy Quotes, Quotes About Reality

9. “They may torture my body, break my bones, even kill me. Then they will have my dead body, but not my obedience.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

Also featured in: Integrity Quotes, Changing the World Quotes, Resistance Quotes, Freedom Quotes

10. “Every time I thought I was being rejected from something good, I was actually being re-directed to something better.”

— Steve Maraboli

Also featured in: Happy Quotes, Perspective Quotes, Optimism Quotes, Path Quotes, Moving Quotes

11. “My heart might be bruised, but it will recover and become capable of seeing beauty of life once more. It’s happened before, it will happen again, I’m sure. When someone leaves, it’s because someone else is about to arrive – I’ll find love again.”

— Paulo Coelho

Also featured in: Love Life Quotes, Quotes About Heart, Romantic Quotes, Love Is Quotes

12. “Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.”

— Mother Teresa

Also featured in: Care Quotes, Quotes About Humanity, Loneliness Quotes, Sadness Quotes

13. “What is a rebel? A man who says no.”

— Albert Camus

14. “If we do an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, we will be a blind and toothless nation.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

Also featured in: Peace Quotes, Forgiveness Quotes

15. “Never give up! Failure and rejection are only the first step to succeeding.”

— Jim Valvano

Also featured in: Willpower Quotes, Obstacles Quotes, Giving Up Quotes, Epic Quotes

16. “Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.”

— Christopher Hitchens

Also featured in: Human Nature Quotes, Hard Hitting Quotes, Humanism Quotes, Doubt Quotes

17. “Successful people reject rejection.”

— John C. Maxwell

Also featured in: Never Give Up Quotes

18. “Your value doesn’t decrease based on someone’s inability to see your worth.”

— Anonymous

Also featured in: Cheer Quotes, Sunday Quotes, Acceptance Quotes, Recovery Quotes

19. “I don’t care if the whole world is against you or teasing you or saying you are not gonna make it. Believe in yourself, no matter what.”

— Michael Jackson

Also featured in: Cheer Quotes, Resistance Quotes, Desire Quotes, Doubt Quotes

20. “Anytime someone tells me that I can’t do something, I want to do it more.”

— Taylor Swift

Also featured in: Boldness Quotes, Motivational Quotes for Women, Obstacles Quotes, Strong Women Quotes

21. “If I had listened to the naysayers, I would still be in the Austrian Alps yodeling.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

Also featured in: Obstacles Quotes, Impossible Quotes, Crazy Quotes, Quitting Quotes

22. “How can I be reasonable? To me our love was everything and you were my whole life. It is not very pleasant to realize that to you it was only an episode.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Also featured in: Romantic Quotes, Sorrow Quotes, Broken Heart Quotes, Disappointment Quotes

23. “Rejection is merely a redirection; a course correction to your destiny.”

— Bryant McGill

Also featured in: Never Give Up Quotes, Journey Quotes

24. “What I meant by ‘we would know the mind of God’ is, we would know everything that God would know, if there were a God. Which there isn’t. I’m an atheist.”

— Stephen Hawking

Also featured in: Hard Hitting Quotes

25. “I’m a creep. I’m a weirdo. What the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here.”

— Thom Yorke

Also featured in: Depression Quotes, Quotes About Songs, Doubt Quotes, Lonely Quotes

26. “Don’t cry for a man who’s left you – the next one may fall for your smile.”

— Mae West

Also featured in: Crazy Quotes, Humor Quotes, Smile Quotes, Broken Heart Quotes

27. “I have no time to waste on this planet being told what to do by those who think that God has given them instructions.”

— Christopher Hitchens

Also featured in: Hard Hitting Quotes, Quotes on Liberty, Doubt Quotes

28. “I refuse to accept other people’s ideas of happiness for me. As if there’s a ‘one size fits all’ standard for happiness.”

— Kanye West

Also featured in: Focus On Yourself Quotes, Be Yourself Quotes, Life Is Short Quotes

29. “Even if the whole world turns their back on you, you will always have yourself.”

— Lady Gaga

Also featured in: Recovery Quotes, Strong Women Quotes, Love Yourself Quotes, Lonely Quotes

30. “Vaccination is a barbarous practice and one of the most fatal of all the delusions current in our time. Conscientious objectors to vaccination should stand alone, if need be, against the whole world, in defense of their conviction.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

31. “Don’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Keep knocking down walls until someone says ‘yes.’”

— Chelsea Handler

Also featured in: Positive Quotes for Women, Obstacles Quotes, Strong Women Quotes, Grind Quotes

32. “The stone that the builder refused shall be the head corner stone.”

— Bob Marley

33. “Every moment of resistance to temptation is a victory.”

— Frederick William Faber

Also featured in: Recovery Quotes

34. “Let me alone, and go in search of someone else.”

— Ali ibn Abi Talib

Also featured in: Feeling Alone Quotes

35. “Sometimes rejection in life is really redirection.”

— Tavis Smiley

36. “My first rule: I don’t believe anything the government tells me.”

— George Carlin

Also featured in: Hilarious Quotes, Firsts Quotes, Government Quotes, Doubt Quotes

37. “I’m going to be me as I am, and you can beat me or jail me or even kill me, but I’m not going to be what you want me to be.”

— Steve Biko

Also featured in: Hard Hitting Quotes, Resistance Quotes

38. “I’m an atheist. I’m not neutral about religion, I’m hostile to it. I think it is a positively bad idea, not just a false one. And I mean not just organized religion, but religious belief itself.”

— Christopher Hitchens

Also featured in: Doubt Quotes