In life you will meet two kinds of people: Those who build you up and those who tear you down. But in the end, you will thank them both.

This saying circulates widely in modern inspirational culture—especially on social media, greeting cards, and self-help compilations—typically credited to “Anonymous.” It reflects a late-20th-/early-21st-century idiom of personal growth: framing relationships in terms of encouragement versus criticism and treating adversity as a catalyst for resilience. Because it is transmitted primarily through quotation aggregators and reposted graphics rather than traceable print publication, it has not stabilized around a single verifiable first appearance or attributable speaker. As a result, it functions more as a piece of contemporary folk wisdom than as a documentable remark from a specific historical moment.

The quote divides social experience into two archetypes: supporters who “build you up” and detractors who “tear you down.” Its twist is the claim that both groups can be worth thanking—supporters for affirmation and help, detractors for the hard lessons they force: self-knowledge, boundaries, perseverance, and motivation. The underlying ethic is stoic and pragmatic: you cannot control others’ behavior, but you can control how you metabolize it into growth. It also implies a retrospective stance—only “in the end” does the value of painful encounters become legible—encouraging readers to reframe setbacks as formative rather than purely damaging.