Skip to main content

Daily Inspiration Quote by Kevin Costner

"You have to decide if you're going to wilt like a daisy or if you're just going to go forward and live the life that you've been granted"

About this Quote

Costner’s line is a piece of plainspoken Americana that pretends it’s giving you a choice while quietly daring you to pick the tougher one. “Wilt like a daisy” is deliberately domestic: not an oak, not a warrior, just a pretty, polite flower that collapses the moment the weather turns. It’s a shaming image, but softened by its gentleness. He’s not calling you weak; he’s suggesting you’re opting into fragility.

The pivot phrase, “go forward,” is the real engine. It’s less about heroism than momentum, the kind of pragmatic resilience that runs through Costner’s screen persona: the steady man in a collapsing system who keeps moving because stopping would feel like surrender. The subtext is conservative in the best sense of the word: conserve your agency. Life will be unfair, random, “granted” to you without negotiation, so treat it like a ration you’re responsible for using well.

That “granted” also carries a quiet spiritual and existential note. It implies you didn’t earn this life and you don’t fully control it, which makes self-pity feel not only unproductive but slightly ungrateful. The intent isn’t to deny pain; it’s to deny pain the final word.

In an era of algorithmic doomscrolling and performative despair, the quote lands because it’s almost stubbornly analog: a reminder that endurance is less a grand epiphany than a daily refusal to fold.

Quote Details

TopicMotivational
SourceHelp us find the source
Cite

Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Costner, Kevin. (2026, January 16). You have to decide if you're going to wilt like a daisy or if you're just going to go forward and live the life that you've been granted. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/you-have-to-decide-if-youre-going-to-wilt-like-a-133777/

Chicago Style
Costner, Kevin. "You have to decide if you're going to wilt like a daisy or if you're just going to go forward and live the life that you've been granted." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/you-have-to-decide-if-youre-going-to-wilt-like-a-133777/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"You have to decide if you're going to wilt like a daisy or if you're just going to go forward and live the life that you've been granted." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/you-have-to-decide-if-youre-going-to-wilt-like-a-133777/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

More Quotes by Kevin Add to List
Kevin Costner Quote on Resilience and Choosing Forward
Click to enlarge Portrait | Landscape

About the Author

Kevin Costner

Kevin Costner (born January 18, 1955) is a Actor from USA.

36 more quotes available

View Profile

Similar Quotes