There are no persons more solicitous about the preservation of rank, than those who have no rank at all.
—William Shenstone (English Poet)

There is not a fiercer hell than the failure in a great object.
—John Keats (English Poet)

When a man takes the road to destruction, the gods help him along.
—Aeschylus (Greek Playwright)

Everyone believes very easily whatever they fear or desire.
—Jean de La Fontaine (French Poet)

Both man and womankind belie their nature when they are not kind.
—Gamaliel Bailey (American Journalist)

A good face is a letter of recommendation.
—Common Proverb

What I call a good patient is one who, having found a good physician, sticks to him till he dies.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician, Essayist)

Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.
—Ayn Rand (Russian-born American Novelist)

Blemishes are hid by night and every fault forgiven; darkness makes any woman fair.
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (Roman Poet)

What is an adult? A child blown up by age.
—Simone de Beauvoir (French Philosopher)

Seeing is believing, but feeling’s the truth.
—Thomas Fuller (English Cleric, Historian)

Doing good is the only certainly happy action of a man’s life.
—Philip Sidney (English Soldier, Poet, Courtier)

The friend that can be bought is not worth having.
—Irish Proverb

An early-rising man… a good spouse but a bad husband.
—Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Colombian Novelist, Short-Story Writer)

The way I see it, it doesn’t matter what you believe just so you’re sincere.
—Charles M. Schulz (American Cartoonist)

There are evils that have the ability to survive identification and go on for ever… money, for instance, or war.
—Saul Bellow (Canadian-born American Novelist)

The giver should forget, but the receiver should remember forever.
—Polish Proverb

Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct from ability, which is capacity to act wisely on the thing apprehended.
—Alfred North Whitehead (English Mathematician, Philosopher)

I don’t believe in just ordering people to do things. You have to sort of grab an oar and row with them.
—Harold S. Geneen (American Businessman)

Behaviour that’s admired is the path to power among people everywhere.
—Seamus Heaney (Irish Poet, Playwright)

Still the bubbling mind; herein lies freedom and bliss eternal.
—Sivananda Saraswati (Hindu Spiritual Teacher)

Instead of wanting to throttle your loved ones when they give you a hard time, it is better to look at them as mirrors of what you still need to work on in terms of our personal growth.
—Susan Jeffers (American Self-Help Author)

Life is all memory except for the one present moment that goes by so quick you can hardly catch it going.
—Tennessee Williams (American Playwright)

Everything changes but change.
—Israel Zangwill (English Writer, Political Activist)

If you don’t know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere.
—Henry Kissinger (American Diplomat)

Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems.
—Scott Adams (American Cartoonist)

Never have a companion that casts you in the shade.
—Baltasar Gracian (Spanish Philosopher, Prose Writer)

Language is not only the vehicle of thought, it is a great and efficient instrument in thinking.
—Humphry Davy (British Chemist)

It is always easier to believe than to deny. Our minds are naturally affirmative.
—John Burroughs (American Naturalist, Writer)

Cards are war, in disguise of a sport.
—Charles Lamb (British Essayist, Poet)

Never fight an inanimate object.
—P. J. O’Rourke (American Journalist)

Act with a determination not to be turned aside by thoughts of the past and fears of the future.
—Robert E. Lee (American Military General)

No one else’s roadmap to success will get you there.
—John Eliot (American Psychologist)

The dream reveals the reality which conception lags behind. That is the horror of life—the terror of art.
—Franz Kafka (Austrian Novelist)

Acquisition means life to miserable mortals.
—Hesiod (Greek Poet)

Immense power is acquired by assuring yourself in your secret reveries that you were born to control affairs.
—Andrew Carnegie (Scottish-American Industrialist, Philanthropist)

Life loves the liver of it.
—Maya Angelou (American Poet)

Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmastime.
—Laura Ingalls Wilder (American Author of Children’s Novels)

It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations.
—Charles Dickens (English Novelist)

Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.
—Anatole France (French Novelist)

As high as we have mounted in delight, in our dejection do we sing as low.
—William Wordsworth (English Poet)

Hope knows not if fear speaks truth, nor fear whether hope be blind as she.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne (English Poet)

Very simple ideas lie within the reach only of complex minds.
—Remy de Gourmont (French Poet, Writer)

We do not need to go out and find love; rather, we need to be still and let love discover us.
—John O’Donohue (Irish Philosopher, Priest)

More women grow old nowadays through the faithfulness of their admirers than through anything else.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet, Playwright)

Learn young about hard work and manners – and you’ll be through the whole dirty mess and nicely dead again before you know it.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (American Novelist)

It is much safer to reconcile an enemy than to conquer him; victory may deprive him of his poison, but reconciliation of his will.
—Owen Feltham (English Essayist)

Everyone needs hope, often desperately. Look for honest ways to give it.
—Marty Nemko (American Career Coach)

Imagination is the eye of the soul.
—Joseph Joubert (French Essayist)

In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker.
—Plutarch (Greek Biographer)

Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will, your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind, and your soul is revealed by your actions.
—Agatha Christie (British Novelist)

Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.
—Louis Brandeis (American Jurist)

A man’s worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions.
—Marcus Aurelius (Emperor of Rome, Stoic Philosopher)

Justice delayed is justice denied.
—William Ewart Gladstone (English Liberal Statesman)

Not alone for that which is mine will I rejoice, but for that which has been withheld, which was coveted and longed for but denied, for I am what I am for having bad to rise superior to the need.
—Muriel Strode (American Author, Businesswoman)

A fool must now and then be right, by chance.
—William Cowper (English Anglican Poet)

The morning of life is like the dawn of day, full of purity, of imagery, and harmony.
—Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand (French Writer, Statesman)

The busier we are, the more acutely we feel that we live.
—Immanuel Kant (Prussian German Philosopher)

Love doesn’t mean doing extraordinary or heroic things. It means knowing how to do ordinary things with tenderness.
—Jean Vanier (French-Canadian Humanitarian)

I really wonder what gives us the right to wreck this poor planet of ours.
—Kurt Vonnegut (American Novelist)

Only in love are unity and duality not in conflict.
—Rabindranath Tagore (Bengali Poet, Polymath)

A shy failure is nobler than an immodest success.
—Kahlil Gibran (Lebanese-born American Philosopher)

Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem, in my opinion, to characterize our age.
—Albert Einstein (German-born Theoretical Physicist)

That which is given with pride and ostentation is rather an ambition than a bounty.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (Roman Stoic Philosopher)

Always do what you feel deeply in the within to be the true thing to do.
—Wallace Wattles (American New Thought Author)

We like to be deceived.
—Blaise Pascal (French Philosopher, Scientist)

Know whence you came. If you know whence you came, there is really no limit to where you can go.
—James Baldwin (American Novelist, Social Critic)

Knowledge is the consequence of time, and multitude of days are fittest to teach wisdom.
—Jeremy Collier (English Anglican Clergyman)

The waste of life occasioned by trying to do too many things at once is appalling.
—Orison Swett Marden (American New Thought Writer)

The frontiers are not east or west, north or south, but wherever a man fronts a fact.
—Henry David Thoreau (American Philosopher)

We ought to give thanks for all fortune: it is good, because it is good, if bad, because it works in us patience, humility and the contempt of this world and the hope of our eternal country.
—C. S. Lewis (Irish-born Author, Scholar)

The best words for resolving a disagreement are, “I could be wrong; I often am.” It’s true.
—Brian Tracy (American Author)

When you work seven days a week, fourteen hours a day, you get lucky.
—Armand Hammer (American Entrepreneur, Businessman)

You may call for peace as loudly as you wish, but where there is no brotherhood there can in the end be no peace.
—Max Lerner (American Author)

Teenagers have never been known for their eagerness to share what’s really going on inside. Between the eye rolls and one-word answers, many parents find themselves facing a wall of silence when trying to connect with their struggling teen. But something remarkable happens when you hand that same quiet teenager a paintbrush, a guitar, or a journal. Suddenly, the words they couldn’t speak appear on paper. The emotions they kept buried come alive in color and sound.

Creative expression is quietly revolutionizing how we approach teen mental health. While traditional talk therapy remains valuable, many adolescents find it easier to process difficult emotions through art, music, writing, and movement rather than sitting face-to-face with an adult asking how they feel.

Why Teens Go Silent

The teenage years bring a perfect storm of changes. Bodies are transforming, social dynamics feel like life or death, academic pressure mounts, and the future looms with terrifying uncertainty. Add social media comparison and a global news cycle that rarely offers hope, and it’s no wonder so many teens retreat inward.

When emotional pain becomes overwhelming, silence often feels safer than vulnerability. Teens worry about burdening their parents, being judged by peers, or simply not having the words to describe the tangle of feelings inside them. Depression, anxiety, trauma, and stress create what psychologists call “alexithymia,” a difficulty identifying and describing emotions. For teens still developing emotional literacy, this challenge intensifies.

Many families eventually seek support from a teen depression treatment center when their child’s withdrawal becomes concerning. These specialized facilities recognize that one-size-fits-all approaches don’t work. That’s why creative therapies have become central to modern adolescent mental health treatment.

The Power of Creative Outlets

Creative expression bypasses the verbal roadblocks that trap so many teenagers. When teens can’t find words, they can find colors. When they can’t explain their anxiety, they can express it through drumbeats or dance movements. The creative process itself becomes the conversation.

Art therapy allows teens to externalize internal struggles. A teenager might paint their depression as a heavy gray cloud or sculpt their anxiety into tangled clay. These concrete representations make abstract feelings manageable and discussable. Suddenly, a therapist and teen have something tangible to explore together, without the pressure of direct confrontation.

Music therapy taps into rhythm and melody to regulate emotions and express what words cannot. Whether writing lyrics, learning an instrument, or simply listening to carefully selected songs, music creates a safe container for painful emotions. The vibrations and patterns in music can actually calm the nervous system, offering immediate relief while building long-term coping skills.

Writing therapy, including poetry and journaling, gives teens privacy and control. They can write without fear of interruption or judgment. They can edit, cross out, or burn what they’ve written. Many teens who refuse to speak in therapy will fill notebooks with their truth, gradually building trust and communication skills.

Movement and dance therapy recognize that trauma and emotion live in the body, not just the mind. Teens who’ve learned to disconnect from their feelings often reconnect through physical expression. Movement releases stored tension and rebuilds the mind-body connection that stress and trauma disrupt.

Real Change Through Creative Process

The magic isn’t just in the final product but in the process itself. When a teen picks up a paintbrush or guitar, they’re making choices, taking action, and creating something from nothing. This builds agency, a crucial quality that depression strips away. Each creative decision reinforces that their choices matter and they can affect their environment.

Creative work also builds frustration tolerance and problem-solving skills. A melody that won’t resolve, a poem that won’t flow, or a drawing that doesn’t match the vision teaches persistence. These small victories in the studio translate to resilience in daily life.

Perhaps most importantly, creative expression helps teens develop their identity separate from their struggles. They’re not just “the depressed kid” or “the anxious one.” They’re a poet, a painter, a musician. This identity expansion opens new possibilities for how they see themselves and their future.

Finding the Right Support

While creative activities at home offer tremendous value, professional guidance amplifies their therapeutic impact. Trained art, music, and drama therapists know how to guide teens through creative processes that promote healing, not just distraction. They understand developmental stages, trauma responses, and how to hold space for difficult emotions that surface during creation.

For teens experiencing severe depression, anxiety, or other mental health challenges, comprehensive treatment often combines creative therapies with traditional counseling, family therapy, and sometimes medication. This integrated approach addresses mental health from multiple angles, meeting teens where they are and building from their strengths.

Opening the Door

If your teen has gone silent, consider offering creative outlets without pressure or expectation. Stock the house with art supplies, instruments, or journals. Share creative activities that interest them, whether that’s photography, digital art, songwriting, or skateboarding. Watch for what makes their eyes light up.

Sometimes the path back to connection doesn’t run through words at all. It runs through color, sound, movement, and imagination. When teens find their voice through creative expression, they’re not just making art. They’re making sense of their world, building coping skills, and discovering that what’s inside them deserves to exist outside too.

The silence might not break all at once, but gradually, creatively, healing begins.

Some one speaks admirably of the well-ripened fruit of sage delay.
—Honore de Balzac (French Novelist)

A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them.
—Carl Gustav Jung (Swiss Psychologist)

Many speak the truth when they say that they despise riches, but they mean the riches possessed by other men.
—Charles Caleb Colton (English Clergyman, Aphorist)

How often in the various amusements of the world is one tempted to pause a moment and ask oneself whether one really likes it!
—Anthony Trollope (English Novelist)

Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile. This is a party of government and I will lead it as party of government.
—Tony Blair (British Statesman)

Good nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit, and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty.—It shows virtue in the fairest light; takes off, in some measure, from the deformity of vice; and makes even folly and impertinence supportable.
—Joseph Addison (English Poet, Playwright, Politician)

Always live up to your standards – by lowering them, if necessary.
—Mignon McLaughlin (American Journalist)

Whether a man is burdened by power or enjoys power; whether he is trapped by responsibility or made free by it; whether he is moved by other people and outer forces or moves them – this is of the essence of leadership.
—Theodore H. White (American Journalist)

If you suppress grief too much, it can well redouble.
—Moliere (French Playwright)

Profundity of thought belongs to youth, clarity of thought to old age.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (German Philosopher, Scholar)

Only when the clamor of the outside world is silenced will you be able to hear the deeper vibration. Listen carefully.
—Sarah Ban Breathnach (American Self-help Author)

Laughter and levity habituate a man to lewdness.
—The Talmud (Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith)

We are all of us the worse for too much liberty.
—Terence (Roman Comic Dramatist)

Art distills sensations and embodies it with enhanced meaning.
—Jacques Barzun (American Cultural Historian)

Comfort and prosperity have never enriched the world as much as adversity has. Out of pain and problems have come the sweetest songs, and the most gripping stories.
—Billy Graham (American Baptist Religious Leader)

What rules the world is idea, because ideas define the way reality is perceived.
—Irving Kristol (American Political Writer)

What you are will show in what you do.
—Thomas Edison (American Inventor)

There are no mistakes or failures, only lessons.
—Denis Waitley (American Motivational Speaker)

There is a mean in everything.—Even virtue itself hath its stated limits, which, not being strictly observed, it ceases to be virtue.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (Roman Poet)

There is no liberty to men whose passions are stronger than their religious feelings; there is no liberty to men in whom ignorance predominates over knowledge; there is no liberty to men who know not how to govern themselves.
—Henry Ward Beecher (American Protestant Clergyman)

If you want to annoy your neighbors, tell the truth about them.
—Pietro Aretino (Italian Author)

Bread of flour is good; but there is bread, sweet as honey, if we would eat it, in a good book.
—John Ruskin (English Art Critic)

Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence.
—Napoleon I (Emperor of France)

To accuse others for one’s own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete.
—Epictetus (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

The extremes of vice and virtue are alike detestable; absolute virtue is as sure to kill a man as absolute vice is, let alone the dullnesses of it and the pomposities of it.
—Samuel Butler

Nothing happens by itself. It all will come your way, once you understand that you have to make it come your way, by your own exertions.
—Ben Stein (American Writer)

Pride, which inspires us with so much envy, serves also to moderate it.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (French Writer)

History is the devil’s scripture.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (English Romantic Poet)

The essence of pleasure is spontaneity.
—Germaine Greer (Australia Academic)

He is incapable of a truly good action who finds not a pleasure in contemplating the good actions of others.
—James Joyce (Irish Novelist)

I am a lie who always speaks the truth.
—Jean Cocteau (French Poet, Artist)

If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.
—Cicero (Roman Philosopher)

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.
—Buddhist Teaching

Candor and generosity, unless tempered by due moderation, leads to ruin.
—Tacitus (Roman Orator, Historian)

When you set goals, something inside of you starts Saying, “Let’s go, let’s go,” and ceilings start to move up.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)