35+ Social Anxiety Quotes: Inspirational Words For Family And Friends

Moumita Dutta
Dec 12, 2023 By Moumita Dutta
Originally Published on Feb 10, 2021
Edited by Isobel Murphy
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Social anxiety is a mental health illness that causes irrational fear and anxiety in social settings.

People with social anxiety disorder find it extremely stressful to handle day-to-day social interactions. They get nervous, uncomfortable, excessively self-conscious, and even trivial things like eye contact and small talk can be too overwhelming for them.

While the experience may vary with each person, common physical symptoms may include rapid heartbeat, dizziness, stomach trouble, and shortness of breath. Often, the toughest part for most people is asking for help, but therapy and doctor-prescribed medications can be of immense help in boosting confidence.

If you know someone with social anxiety, it can be helpful to acknowledge the person's worries and assure them it's just their anxiety and it isn't something real. Here you'll find over 30 quotations that might help to soothe someone with social anxiety.

If someone is struggling with anxiety, it can help to encourage them to continue breathing calmly. Trying to be a good support, helping others to feel relaxed within their environment, and always looking out for anxiety signs can really help those who are suffering.

If you like this content, do check out our stress relief quotes and you got this quotes too.

Quotes About Social Anxiety

Shocked woman anxiety attack

Social anxiety can affect the best and strongest of us. Here are some social anxiety disorder quotes that'll help you work out what people with social anxiety go through.

1. “Even now it comes as a shock if by chance I notice in the street a face resembling someone I know however slightly, and I am at once seized by a shivering violent enough to make me dizzy.”

- Osamu Dazai.

2. "'I certainly have not the talent which some people possess,' said Darcy, 'of conversing easily with those I have never seen before.'"

- Jane Austen, 'Pride And Prejudice'.

3. "Now that I have conquered social anxiety disorder, I find pleasure in fans approaching me."

- Ricky Williams.

4. "Talking to people makes me feel like sleeping. Only my ghostly and imaginary friends, only the conversations I have in my dreams, are genuinely real and substantial."

- Fernando Pessoa.

5. "We are always doing something to cover up our basic existential anxiety. Some people live that way until the day they die."

- Joko Beck.

6. "I've spent most of my life and most of my friendships holding my breath and hoping that when people get close enough they won't leave, and fearing that it's a matter of time before they figure me out and go."

- Shauna Niequist.

7. "I'm shy, but I'm not clinically shy. I don't have social anxiety disorder or anything like that. I more have a gentle shyness."

- Samantha Bee.

8. "When all by myself, I can think of all kinds of clever remarks, quick comebacks to what no one said, and flashes of witty sociability with nobody. But all of this vanishes when I face someone in the flesh..."

- Fernando Pessoa.

9. "Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal."

- Albert Camus.

10. "It is almost impossible for me to converse with other people. What should I talk about, how should I say it? - I don't know."

- Osamu Dazai.

11. "All I feel are the assaults of apprehension and terror at the thought that I am the only one who is entirely unlike the rest."

- Osamu Dazai.

12. “I wondered how many people there were in the world who suffered, and continued to suffer, because they could not break out from their own web of shyness and reserve, and in their blindness and folly built up a great distorted wall in front of them that hid the truth.”

- Daphne du Maurier.

13. "Self-consciousness is the enemy of all art, be it acting, writing, painting, or living itself, which is the greatest art of all."

- Ray Bradbury.

Quotes About Fear, Anxiety And Stress

Sometimes, despite trying our best, stress gets the better of us and causes anxiety. So, if you're feeling anxious and need help, here are some quotes that you can always tell yourself, to remind you that you're not the only one experiencing these emotions, and this too shall pass.

14. "She didn't understand how other people did it, how they just strolled right up to strangers and started conversations... She wasn't shy, not exactly. She was afraid."

- Katie Cotugno.

15. "Your mind is your prison when you focus on your fear."

- Tim Fargo.

16. "Stress is basically a disconnection from the earth, a forgetting of the breath. Stress is an ignorant state."

- Natalie Goldberg.

17. "You probably wouldn’t worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do."

- Olin Miller.

18. "Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears."

- Les Brown.

19. "I think one thing that does cause unhappiness is protracted anxiety and worry."

- Derek Bok.

20. “At some stages of your life you will deal with things and at others you are overwhelmed with misery and anxiety.”

- Nigella Lawson.

21. “The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.”

- William James.

22. "Life is made of fear. Some people eat fear soup three times a day. Some people eat fear soup all the meals there are."

- Martin Amis.

Quotes About Conquering Social Anxiety

Here are some social anxiety motivational quotes that will be of great help in inspiring you and others around you. These emotional quotes might work to begin to free you of some stress and anxiety.

23. “Limitations live only in our minds. But if we use our imaginations, our possibilities become limitless.”

- Jamie Paolinetti.

24. “Everything you have ever wanted, is sitting on the other side of fear.”

- George Addair.

25. "Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside of you that is greater than any obstacle."

- Christian D. Larson.

26. "Act the way that you want to feel."

- Gretchen Rubin.

27. "If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person."

- Fred Rogers.

28. “The constant vigilance and my heightened anxiety that I'd screw it up anyway exhausted me, but I persevered.”

- Tracey Garvis Graves.

29. "My old fears, my diffidence, my shyness, my hopeless sense of inferiority, must be conquered now and thrust aside. If I failed now I should fail forever."

- Daphne du Maurier.

30. "Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them, I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me."

- Stephen Fry.

31. "Our minds can be kept free of anxiety as we dump the load of our cares on the Lord in prayer."

- Charles Swindoll.

32. "To suffer some anxiety, some depression, some disappointment, even some failure is normal."

- Boyd K. Packer.

33. "If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath."

- Amit Ray.

34. "Nothing can bring you peace but yourself."

-  Ralph Waldo Emerson.

35.  "Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action."

- Walter Anderson.

36. "Slow breathing is like an anchor in the midst of an emotional storm: the anchor won’t make the storm goes away, but it will hold you steady until it passes."

- Russ Harris.

37. “You don't have to control your thoughts; you just have to stop letting them control you.”

- Dan Millman.

38. "You must learn to let go. Release the stress. You were never in control anyway."

- Steve Maraboli.

39. "Friends, acquaintances, enemies, strangers. It doesn’t matter; they all crowd. Even if they’re all the way across the room, they crowd. I take a moment of silence and think: I am here. I am okay."

- Francesca Zappia.

 40. "And then I realized, you just say, 'Hi.' They may ignore you. Or you may marry them. And that possibility is worth that one word."

- Augusten Burroughs.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for social anxiety quotes then why not take a look at these fear of the unknown quotes, or struggle quotes for more?

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Written by Moumita Dutta

Bachelor of Arts specializing in Journalism and Mass Communication, Postgraduate Diploma in Sports Management

Moumita Dutta picture

Moumita DuttaBachelor of Arts specializing in Journalism and Mass Communication, Postgraduate Diploma in Sports Management

A content writer and editor with a passion for sports, Moumita has honed her skills in producing compelling match reports and stories about sporting heroes. She holds a degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from the Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management, Calcutta University, alongside a postgraduate diploma in Sports Management.

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