Anne Frank remains one of the most talked-about voices from the Holocaust. Born in 1929, she was the youngest child of Otto and Edith Frank, a bright young girl with big dreams and an even bigger heart.
On her thirteenth birthday, Anne received a simple gift: an autograph book. What she filled it with over the next two years would become one of the most powerful voices of hope and humanity during the Holocaust.
Anne wrote from the hidden walls of the Secret Annex, never losing her spirit, even when the world outside felt so cruel. Her last diary entry was dated August 1, 1944. Just three days later, their hiding place was raided by German police. Anne was later transported to concentration camps, where she sadly passed away from typhus at the age of 15.
Her father, Otto, was the only family member who survived. After returning to their hiding place, Otto found Anne’s writings and made sure her dream of becoming a writer would come true, sharing her voice with the entire world.
In this article, you’ll find some of Anne Frank’s most touching quotes — real, powerful reminders of courage, hope, and the beauty she saw even in the darkest times.
Table of Contents
Best Anne Frank Quotes
- “Whoever is happy will make others happy too.”
- “I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.”
- “Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.”
- “In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
- “No one has ever become poor by giving.”
- “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
- “I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.”
- “Human greatness does not lie in wealth or power, but in character and goodness. People are just people, and all people have faults and shortcomings, but all of us are born with a basic goodness.”
- “People can tell you to keep your mouth shut, but that doesn’t stop you from having your own opinion.”
- “Who would ever think that so much went on in the soul of a young girl?”
- “The weak die out and the strong will survive, and will live on forever.”
Anne Frank About Life
- “Dead people receive more flowers than the living because regret is stronger than gratitude.”
- “Our lives are fashioned by our choices. First we make our choices. Then our choices make us.”
- “Whoever doesn’t know it must learn and find by experience that a quiet conscience makes one strong.”
- “We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.”
- “You must work and do good, not be lazy and gamble, if you wish to earn happiness. Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction.”
- “Sympathy, love, fortune… We all have these qualities but still tend to not use them!”
- Riches, prestige, everything can be lost. But the happiness in your heart can only be dimmed; it will always be there as long as you live, to make you happy again.
- “I’ve found that there is always some beauty left—in nature, sunshine, freedom, in yourself.”
- “People can so easily be tempted by slackness and by money.”
Anne Frank Quotes About Hope and Optimism
- “I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.”
- “Where there’s hope, there’s life. It fills us with fresh courage and makes us strong again.”
- “As long as this exists, this sunshine and this cloudless sky, and as long as I can enjoy it, how can I be sad?”
- “Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.”
- “I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out.”
- “I have often been downcast but never in despair.”
- “As long as you can look fearlessly at the sky, you’ll know that you’re pure within and will find happiness once more.”
Anne Frank Quotes About Human Nature
- “Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.”
- “I think it’s odd that grown-ups quarrel so easily and so often and about so many unimportant things.”
- “There’s only one rule you need to remember: laugh at everything and forget everybody else! It sounds egotistical, but it’s actually the only cure for those suffering from self-pity.”
- “You can be lonely even when you are loved by many people, since you are still not anybody’s one and only.”
- “People who have a religion should be glad, for not everyone has the gift of believing in heavenly things.”
Anne Frank Quotes About Courage
- “In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit.”
- “I know what I want, I have a goal, an opinion, I have a religion and love. Let me be myself and then I am satisfied. I know that I’m a woman, a woman with inward strength and plenty of courage.”
- “The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.”
- “And finally I twist my heart round again, so that the bad is on the outside and the good is on the inside, and keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would so like to be, and could be, if there weren’t any other people living in the world.”
Anne Frank Quotes About Dreams
- “Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!”
- “I want to go on living even after my death! And therefore I am grateful to God for this gift, this possibility of developing myself and of writing, of expressing all that is in me.”
- “I long to ride a bike, dance, whistle, look at the world, feel young and know that I’m free, and yet I can’t let it show.”
- “I finally realized that I must do my schoolwork to keep from being ignorant, to get on in life, to become a journalist, because that’s what I want!”
Anne Frank Quotes on War and Injustice
- “One day this terrible war will be over. The time will come when we’ll be people again and not just Jews!”
- “I don’t believe the war is simply the work of politicians and capitalists. Oh no, the common man is every bit as guilty; otherwise, people and nations would have rebelled long ago! There’s a destructive urge in people, the urge to rage, murder and kill. And until all of humanity, without exception, undergoes a metamorphosis, wars will continue to be waged, and everything that has been carefully built up, cultivated and grown will be cut down and destroyed, only to start all over again!”
- “I’ve reached the point where I hardly care whether I live or die. The world will keep on turning without me, I can’t do anything to change events anyway.”
- “Who would ever think that so much went on in the soul of a young girl?”
- “Who has inflicted this on us? Who has made us Jews different from all other people? Who has allowed us to suffer so terribly up till now?”
- “What one Christian does is his own responsibility, what one Jew does is thrown back at all Jews.”
If you’d like to read more of Anne Frank’s uplifting thoughts and words, we recommend you read The Diary of A Young Girl.
