Strength

Quick answer

The core meaning of Strength is Gentle resilience over brute force. Upright, it usually points to Courage, patience, compassion, gentleness overcoming force. Symbolizes taming ra; reversed, it may suggest Self-doubt, weakness, untamed instincts, impatience. May indicate being overwhel.

Card imagery

A woman in white gently strokes the head of a lion and softly closes its jaws. The infinity symbol floats above her head, and a garland of flowers circles her waist.

Upright meaning

Courage, patience, compassion, gentleness overcoming force. Symbolizes taming raw desires and instincts through inner resilience and love rather than brute strength.

Reversed meaning

Self-doubt, weakness, untamed instincts, impatience. May indicate being overwhelmed by fear, or handling matters with either too heavy or too timid a hand.

Love, Career, Money and Growth

Love

In love, Strength points to Gentle resilience over brute force. Read it back against how the relationship actually behaves and what you are both choosing.

Career

In career matters, Strength points to Gentle resilience over brute force. Start by working out which resources you control and what your next move is.

Money

In money matters, Strength points to Gentle resilience over brute force. Do not treat a symbolic reading as an investment conclusion — go by facts, budget and your own risk tolerance.

Personal growth

For personal growth, Strength points to Gentle resilience over brute force. Write down the question it raises, then turn that into an action you can actually check.

Yes or No

Upright

Yes

Reversed

No

This is our own quick read, based on which way the card’s meaning leans. Traditions disagree about individual cards, and an "Undecided" needs to be weighed against the position in the spread and your actual situation rather than taken as a one-word answer.

Waite’s Original Text (1911)

Inner Symbolism (original)

A woman, over whose head there broods the same symbol of life which we have seen in the card of the Hierophant, is closing the jaws of a lion. The only point in which this design differs from the conventional presentations is that her beneficent fortitude has already subdued the lion, which is being led by a chain of flowers. For reasons which satisfy myself, this card has been interchanged with that of Justice, which is usually numbered eight. As the variation carries nothing with it which will signify to the reader, there is no cause for explanation. Fortitude, in one of its most exalted aspects, is connected with the Divine Mystery of Union; the virtue, of course, operates in all planes, and hence draws on all in its symbolism. It connects also with innocentia inviolata, and with the strength which resides in contemplation.

These higher meanings are, however, matters of inference, and I do not suggest that they are transparent on the surface of the card. They are intimated in a concealed manner by the chain of flowers, which signifies, among many other things, the sweet yoke and the light burden of Divine Law, when it has been taken into the heart of hearts. The card has nothing to do with self-confidence in the ordinary sense, though this has been suggested—but it concerns the confidence of those whose strength is God (Nature), who have found their refuge in Him. There is one aspect in which the lion signifies the passions, and she who is called Strength is the higher nature in its liberation. It has walked upon the asp and the basilisk and has trodden down the lion and the dragon.

Original Upright Meaning

Power, energy, action, courage, magnanimity; also complete success and honors.

Original Reversed Meaning

Despotism, abuse of power, weakness, discord, sometimes even disgrace.

Quoted from A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. The text is in the public domain.