102 Brené Brown Quotes about Daring Greatly and Vulnerability

Do you enjoy listening to Brené Brown’s ideas on courage, leadership, and love? Then you will definitely like our list of the most powerful and inspirational Brené Brown quotes. P.S.: You may also like our selection of thoughtful gratitude quotes.

Dr. Cassandra Brené Brown is one of the top researchers on subjects such as vulnerability, empathy, and courage. Her TED talks have inspired millions of viewers and her numerous #1 New York Times bestsellers have propelled the research on authenticity and imperfection.

“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”
Brené Brown

Millions of women across the country deeply resonate with Brené Brown’s message about embracing the imperfect. Her thoughts articulate the sentiment of many women who struggle to accommodate their successful careers with raising a family and being a supportive and lovely mother.

Inspirational Brené Brown quotes like this help you to ditch perfectionism, so that you can start living

Brené Brown was perhaps one of the first to openly speak out about the “cult of perfection” and the damage it does on our individual lives.

102 Brené Brown Quotes about Daring Greatly and Vulnerability

By giving up the need for perfection, Brené Brown shows us how we can enrich our lives and lead a happier and more fulfilled existence. But she also highlights how important it is to emphasize with others and to deepen our connectedness with each other.

Enjoy reading this list of encouraging Brené Brown quotes

1.

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
Brené Brown, originally by Howard Thurman

2.

“Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It’s about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen.”
Brené Brown

3.

“Perfectionism is self-destructive simply because there’s no such thing as perfect. Perfection is an unattainable goal.”
Brené Brown

4.

“Living a connected life ultimately is about setting boundaries, spending less time and energy hustling and winning over people who don’t matter, and seeing the value of working on cultivating a connection with family and close friends.”
Brené Brown

5.

“In its original Latin form, sacrifice means to make sacred or to make holy.”
Brené Brown

6.

“Just because we didn’t measure up to some standard of achievement doesn’t mean that we don’t possess gifts and talents that only we can bring to the world. Just because someone failed to see the value in what we can create or achieve doesn’t change its worth or ours.”
Brené Brown

7.

“I define connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.”
Brené Brown

8.

“Those who have a strong sense of love and belonging have the courage to be imperfect.”
Brené Brown

9.

“What separates privilege from entitlement is gratitude.”
Brené Brown

10.

“Integrity is choosing courage over comfort; choosing what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy; and choosing to practice our values rather than simply professing them.”
Brené Brown

11.

“After doing this work for the past twelve years and watching scarcity ride roughshod over our families, organizations, and communities, I’d say the one thing we have in common is that we’re sick of feeling afraid. We want to dare greatly.”
Brené Brown

12.

“Perfection doesn’t exist, and I’ve found what makes children happy doesn’t always prepare them to be courageous, engaged adults.”
Brené Brown

13.

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.”
Brené Brown

14.

“Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are. Choosing authenticity means cultivating the courage to be imperfect.”
Brené Brown

15.

“Choosing to be curious is choosing to be vulnerable because it requires us to surrender to uncertainty.”
Brené Brown

16.

“Vulnerability is not knowing victory or defeat, it’s understanding the necessity of both; it’s engaging. It’s being all in.”
Brené Brown

17.

“The truth about who we are lives in our hearts. Our call to courage is to protect our wild heart against constant evaluation, especially our own. No one belongs here more than you.”
Brené Brown

18.

“If we can’t stand up to the “never good enough” and “who do you think you are?” we can’t move forward.”
Brené Brown

19.

“Stay in your own lane. Comparison kills creativity and joy.”
Brené Brown

20.

“If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.”
Brené Brown

21.

“True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness. True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.”
Brené Brown

22.

“We cannot grow when we are in shame, and we can’t use shame to change ourselves or others.”
Brené Brown

23.

“When we are willing to risk venturing into the wilderness, and even becoming our own wilderness, we feel the deepest connection to our true self and to what matters the most.”
Brené Brown

24.

“The level to which we protect ourselves from being vulnerable is a measure of our fear and disconnection.”
Brené Brown

25.

“I often say that Wholeheartedness is like the North Star: We never really arrive, but we certainly know if we’re headed in the right direction.”
Brené Brown

26.

“The willingness to show up changes us, it makes us a little braver each time.”
Brené Brown

27.

“I now see how owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.”
Brené Brown

28.

“Courage is like – it’s a habitus, a habit, a virtue: You get it by courageous acts. It’s like you learn to swim by swimming. You learn courage by couraging.”
Brené Brown

29.

“Just because someone isn’t willing or able to love us, it doesn’t mean that we are unlovable.”
Brené Brown

30.

“Pain is unrelenting. It will get our attention. Despite our attempts to drown it in addiction, to physically beat it out of one another, to suffocate it with success and material trappings, or to strangle it with our hate, pain will find a way to make itself known.”
Brené Brown

31.

“It’s in our biology to trust what we see with our eyes. This makes living in a carefully edited, overproduced and photoshopped world very dangerous.”
Brené Brown

32.

“Sufficiency isn’t two steps up from poverty or one step short of abundance. It isn’t a measure of barely enough or more than enough. Sufficiency isn’t an amount at all. It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough.”
Brené Brown

33.

“You are imperfect, you are wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.”
Brené Brown

34.

“We risk missing out on joy when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary.”
Brené Brown

35.

“Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.”
Brené Brown

36.

“Not enough of us know how to sit in pain with others. Worse, our discomfort shows up in ways that can hurt people and reinforce their own isolation. I have started to believe that crying with strangers in person could save the world.”
Brené Brown

37.

“Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage.”
Brené Brown

38.

“Perfect and bulletproof are seductive, but they don’t exist in the human experience.”
Brené Brown

39.

“I define connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.”
Brené Brown

40.

“When we stop caring about what people think, we lose our capacity for connection. When we become defined by what people think, we lose our willingness to be vulnerable.”
Brené Brown

41.

“Research shows that perfectionism hampers success. In fact, it’s often the path to depression, anxiety, addiction, and life paralysis.”
Brené Brown

42.

“I assumed that people weren’t doing their best so I judged them and constantly fought being disappointed, which was easier than setting boundaries. Boundaries are hard when you want to be liked and when you are a pleaser hellbent on being easy, fun, and flexible.”
Brené Brown

43.

“When I let go of trying to be everything to everyone, I had much more time, attention, love, and connection for the important people in my life.”
Brené Brown

44.

“True belonging is not passive. It’s not the belonging that comes with just joining a group. It’s not fitting in or pretending or selling out because it’s safer. It’s a practice that requires us to be vulnerable, get uncomfortable, and learn how to be present with people without sacrificing who we are. We want true belonging, but it takes tremendous courage to knowingly walk into hard moments.”
Brené Brown

45.

“We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness, and affection.”
Brené Brown

46.

“If we have one or two people in our lives who can sit with us and hold space for our shame stories, and love us for our strengths and struggles, we are incredibly lucky.”
Brené Brown

47.

“Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.”
Brené Brown

48.

“We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can’t have both. Not at the same time.”
Brené Brown

49.

“Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.”
Brené Brown

50.

“The universe is not short on wake-up calls. We’re just quick to hit the snooze button.”
Brené Brown

51.

“When we fail to set boundaries and hold people accountable, we feel used and mistreated. This is why we sometimes attack who they are, which is far more hurtful than addressing a behavior or a choice.”
Brené Brown

52.

“We’re all grateful for people who write and speak in ways that help us remember that we’re not alone.”
Brené Brown

53.

“We don’t have to do all of it alone. We were never meant to.”
Brené Brown

54.

“If you own this story you get to write the ending.”
Brené Brown

55.

“Our sense of worthiness—that critically important piece that gives us access to love and belonging—lives inside of our story.”
Brené Brown

56.

“I believe that owning our worthiness is the act of acknowledging that we are sacred. Perhaps embracing vulnerability and overcoming numbing is ultimately about the care and feeding of our spirits.”
Brené Brown

57.

“If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive.”
Brené Brown

58.

“We can talk about courage and love and compassion until we sound like a greeting card store, but unless we’re willing to have an honest conversation about what gets in the way of putting these into practice in our daily lives, we will never change. Never, ever.”
Brené Brown

59.

“Faith is a place of mystery, where we find the courage to believe in what we cannot see and the strength to let go of our fear of uncertainty.”
Brené Brown

60.

“The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it. It’s our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows.”
Brené Brown

61.

“Hope is not an emotion; it’s a way of thinking or a cognitive process.”
Brené Brown

62.

“People often silence themselves, or “agree to disagree” without fully exploring the actual nature of the disagreement, for the sake of protecting a relationship and maintaining connection.”
Brené Brown

63.

“Shame works like the zoom lens on a camera. When we are feeling shame, the camera is zoomed in tight and all we see is our flawed selves, alone and struggling.”
Brené Brown

64.

“Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them – we can only love others as much as we love ourselves.”
Brené Brown

65.

“We cannot ignore our pain and feel compassion for it at the same time.”
Brené Brown

66.

“What we know now is that when we deny our emotion, it owns us. When we own our emotion, we can rebuild and find our way through the pain.”
Brené Brown

67.

“Perfectionism is a self-destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame.”
Brené Brown

68.

“Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness.”
Brené Brown

69.

“We live in a world where most people still subscribe to the belief that shame is a good tool for keeping people in line. Not only is this wrong, but it’s dangerous.”
Brené Brown

70.

“What we know matters but who we are matters more.”
Brené Brown

71.

“We’re a nation hungry for more joy: Because we’re starving from a lack of gratitude.”
Brené Brown

72.

“Nothing has transformed my life more than realizing that it’s a waste of time to evaluate my worthiness by weighing the reaction of the people in the stands.”
Brené Brown

73.

“Compassionate people ask for what they need. They say no when they need to, and when they say yes, they mean it. They’re compassionate because their boundaries keep them out of resentment.”
Brené Brown

74.

“How can we expect people to put value on our work when we don’t value ourselves enough to set and hold uncomfortable boundaries?”
Brené Brown

75.

“When I look at narcissism through the vulnerability lens, I see the shame-based fear of being ordinary. I see the fear of never feeling extraordinary enough to be noticed, to be lovable, to belong, or to cultivate a sense of purpose.”
Brené Brown

76.

“We cannot selectively numb emotions, when we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive emotions.”
Brené Brown

77.

“We are complex beings who wake up every day and fight against being labeled and diminished with stereotypes and characterizations that don’t reflect our fullness.”
Brené Brown

78.

“You cannot shame or belittle people into changing their behaviors.”
Brené Brown

79.

“When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity that surges between them.”
Brené Brown

80.

“If we don’t allow ourselves to experience joy and love, we will definitely miss out on filling our reservoir with what we need when hard things happen.”
Brené Brown

81.

“Research tells us that we judge people in areas where we’re vulnerable to shame, especially picking folks who are doing worse than we’re doing. If I feel good about my parenting, I have no interest in judging other people’s choices. If I feel good about my body, I don’t go around making fun of other people’s weight or appearance. We’re hard on each other because we’re using each other as a launching pad out of our own perceived shaming deficiency.”
Brené Brown

82.

“When we’re anxious, disconnected, vulnerable, alone, and feeling helpless, the booze and food and work and endless hours online feel like comfort, but in reality, they’re only casting their long shadows over our lives.”
Brené Brown

83.

“Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed and rare.”
Brené Brown

84.

“Understanding the difference between healthy striving and perfectionism is critical to laying down the shield and picking up your life.”
Brené Brown

85.

“Connection is why we’re here. We are hardwired to connect with others, it’s what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it there is suffering.”
Brené Brown

86.

“Research shows that playing cards once a week or meeting friends every Wednesday night at Starbucks adds as many years to our lives as taking beta blockers or quitting a pack-a-day smoking habit.”
Brené Brown

87.

“If you trade your authenticity for safety, you may experience the following: anxiety, depression, eating disorders, addiction, rage, blame, resentment, and inexplicable grief.”
Brené Brown

88.

“I define a leader as anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes, and who has the courage to develop that potential.”
Brené Brown

89.

“One of the greatest challenges of becoming myself has been acknowledging that I’m not who I thought I was supposed to be or who I always pictured myself being.”
Brené Brown

90.

“We’re a nation of exhausted and over-stressed adults raising over-scheduled children.”
Brené Brown

91.

“If we want to live a Wholehearted life, we have to become intentional about cultivating sleep and play, and about letting go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self-worth.”
Brené Brown

92.

“Are you the adult that you want your child to grow up to be?”
Brené Brown

93.

“Until we can receive with an open heart, we’re never really giving with an open heart. When we attach judgment to receiving help, we knowingly or unknowingly attach judgment to giving help.”
Brené Brown

94.

“When we own our stories, we avoid being trapped as characters in stories someone else is telling.”
Brené Brown

95.

“People may call what happens at midlife “a crisis,” but it’s not. It’s an unraveling—a time when you feel a desperate pull to live the life you want to live, not the one you’re “supposed” to live. The unraveling is a time when you are challenged by the universe to let go of who you think you are supposed to be and to embrace who you are.”
Brené Brown

96.

“Imperfections are not inadequacies; they are reminders that we’re all in this together.”
Brené Brown

97.

“We don’t judge people when we feel good about ourselves.”
Brené Brown

98.

“Of all the things trauma takes away from us, the worst is our willingness, or even our ability, to be vulnerable. There’s a reclaiming that has to happen.”
Brené Brown

99.

“Generosity is not a free pass for people to take advantage of us, treat us unfairly, or be purposefully disrespectful and mean.”
Brené Brown

100.

“One of the reasons we judge each other so harshly in this world of parenting is because… we perceive anyone else who’s doing anything differently than what we’re doing as criticizing our choices.”
Brené Brown

101.

“I’m learning that recognizing and leaning into the discomfort of vulnerability teaches us how to live with joy, gratitude, and grace.”
Brené Brown

102.

“Healthy striving is self-focused: “How can I improve?” Perfectionism is other-focused: “What will they think?”
Brené Brown

I hope you enjoyed this collection of Brené Brown quotes. Do you have a favorite quote of the famous author?

Stay victorious!