Mindful Quotes and Sayings

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This article explores various aspects of mindfulness, along with some mindful quotes.

What is it with mindfulness? Why is there such interest, such a buzz, around mindfulness?

Too often, life zips by. There’s no time to experience what’s happening now because you’re busy thinking about what needs doing tomorrow, or you’re caught up with thoughts about what did or didn’t happen yesterday. Your mind is chattering with commentary or judgment.

But thinking is not the enemy. It’s essential to your life. Your mind can think back and reflect on past events and experiences and learn from those experiences, and you can reflect with pleasure on the good times. Your mind can also think about the future. It can plan and look forward to forthcoming events.

This ability to think back to the past and forward to the future is not, though, always a blessing. Your mind’s ability to project backward and forwards means that you can get stuck in the past, going back over and dwelling on events. You can also be paralyzed by worries and anxiety about the future.

Mindfulness is a way to have a more helpful relationship with this thinking, to recognize when your thoughts are being unhelpfully dragged back to the past or catapulted into the future. Mindfulness is about knowing where you are (being in the moment) but also having an awareness of – but not getting stuck in – where you have been (reflection) and where you are going (anticipating).

Table of Contents

But how can mindfulness be helpful in your everyday life – as you go to and from work, in your job, with your family and friends, with cooking and eating, and even sleeping?

Many of us work in a fast-paced, stressful world, dealing with a flood of information including email, meetings, text messages, phone calls, interruptions, and distractions at work. Family life can also be fast-paced and stressful – managing a job, a home, and the variety of demands as you try to meet everyone’s needs and your commitments. Thinking about what needs doing and what you didn’t do, getting frustrated, stressed, and anxious.

Unfortunately, a good part of our time passes that way for most of us. We’re in one place doing one thing but thinking of things we aren’t doing and places we aren’t at.

It’s easy to stop noticing what’s going on within you and around you – your surroundings and other people – and to end up living in your head, caught up in your thoughts without being aware of how those thoughts are controlling what you feel and do. It’s easy to waste ‘now’ time, missing what is happening in the only moment that exists.

Mindfulness enables you to experience and appreciates your life instead of rushing through it, constantly trying to be somewhere else. Mindfulness is not another set of instructions. It is simply a shift in your awareness of your life – your routines and habits, work, and relationships.

I. Mindfulness isn’t a set of instructions.

It’s simply a framework of guiding principles to help provide perspective, focus, and calm progress in the big events in your life and the ordinary everyday moments and activities – the comings and goings of your daily life.

Mindfulness is not something limited to Buddhists, mystics, academics, or psychologists. Mindfulness is a simple process that anyone can do.

It’s not always easy, though. Often, you have to remind yourself to be mindful. And, at any one time, when you recognize that you are being (or have been) mindful – that you’ve been aware, acknowledged and accepted what’s happened, that you’ve been focused and engaged, or that you’ve let go of the past and adopted a beginner’s mind – be aware how you got there and recreate it as often as possible.

Be the most mindful version of yourself!

II. Mindfulness Quotes

‘Like your body, your mind also gets tired so refresh it by wise sayings.’ – Hazrat Ali
‘Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand-and melting like a snowflake.’ – Francis Bacon
‘Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our mind.’ – Bob Marley
‘Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.’ – Albert Einstein
‘The only happiness found on top of the mountain is the happiness you bring up there.’ – Unknown
‘For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them.’ – Thích Nhat Hanh
‘Mindfulness is the ultimate mobile device; you can use it anywhere, anytime, unobtrusively.’ – Sharon Salzberg

III. Meditation Quote

‘Perspective is everything when you are experiencing the challenges of life.’ – Joni Eareckson Tada
‘When you forgive, you in no way change the past – but you sure do change the future.’ – Bernard Meltzer
‘Holding a grudge over someone is painful, but holding over yourself is the worst. Learn to forgive yourself, not just other people.’ – Robin Williams
‘One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.’ – Luciano Pavarotti
‘The secret to staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age.’ – Lucille Ball
‘Awareness allows us to get outside of our mind and observe it in action.’ – Dan Brulé
‘Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.’ – James Thurber
‘Who forces time is pushed back by time; who yields to time finds time on his side.’ – The Talmud
‘The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.’ – Michael Altshuler

IV. Live in The Present Quote

‘Life is just like an old-time rail journey … delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed. The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride.’ – Gordon B. Hinckley
‘My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance and inverse proportion to my expectations.’ – Michael J. Fox
‘I’m less interested in why we’re here. I’m wholly devoted to while we’re here.’ – Erika Harris
‘The most important trip you may take in life is meeting people halfway.’ – Henry Boye
‘I never look back, darling. It distracts from the now.’ – Edna Mode, from The Incredible
‘Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.’ – Eckhart Tolle
‘I see the big picture. Everything is in perspective now. Let’s just say I’m the kind of guy who knows how to enjoy the moment.’ – John Sununu
‘You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.’ – John Bunyan

V. Be Present in The Moment Quotes

‘The first duty of love is to listen.’ – Paul Tillich
‘Think of listening as a form of meditation. Quiet your mind and focus your attention on listening.’ – Linda Eve Diamond
‘Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.’ – Meister Eckhart
‘Every day is a new beginning. Take a deep breath and start again.’ – Unknown
‘There is more to life than increasing its speed.’ – Gandhi
‘Slow down and enjoy life. It’s not only the scenery you miss by going too fast – you also miss the sense of where you’re going and why.’ – Eddie Cantor

VI. A Clear Mind Quotes

‘We do not remember days; we remember moments.’ – Cesare Pavese
‘The authentic self is the soul made visible.’ – Sarah Ban Breathnach
‘The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.’ – William Gibson
‘You can’t plow a field simply by turning it over in your mind.’ – Gordon B. Hinckley
‘How soon is now? When you say it’s gonna happen “now”, well, when exactly do you mean?’ – Morrissey
‘The future is always beginning now.’ – Mark Strand
‘Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.’ – Mother Teresa
‘Your future depends on your dreams. So go to sleep.’ – Mesut Barazany
‘A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow.’ – Charlotte Brontë
‘Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.’ – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

VII. Grounding Quotes

‘Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.’ – Thích Nhat Hanh
‘When you own your breath, nobody can steal your peace.’ – Unknown
‘You will never reach your destination if you stop to throw stones at every dog that barks.’ – Winston Churchill
‘Focusing is about saying no.’ – Steve Jobs
‘The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another’s, smile at someone and receive a smile in return are to me continual spiritual exercises.’ – Leo Buscaglia

VIII. Buddha Quotes On Meditation

‘Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, we cannot live without a spiritual life.’ – Buddha
“Radiate boundless love towards the entire world.” – Buddha
“A disciplined mind brings happiness.” – Buddha
“Give, even if you only have a little.” – Buddha
“Conquer anger with non-anger. Conquer badness with goodness. And,conquer meanness with generosity. Conquer dishonesty with truth.” – Buddha
“Those who cling to perceptions and views wander the world offending people.” – Buddha
“Drop by drop is the water pot filled. Likewise, the wise man, gathering it little by little, fills himself with good.” – Buddha
“I will not look at another’s bowl intent on finding fault: a training to be observed.” – Buddha
“Let none find fault with others; let none see the omissions and commissions of others. But let one see one’s acts, done and undone.” – Buddha
“Should a person do good, let him do it again and again. Let him find pleasure therein, for blissful is the accumulation of good.” – Buddha

IX. Mindful Thought

‘How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.’ – Annie Dillard
‘Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.’ – Arthur Ashe
‘Habit is a cable; we weave a thread each day, and at last, we cannot break it.’ – Horace Mann
‘The hard must become a habit. The habit must become easy. The easy must become beautiful.’ – Doug Henning
‘It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you’re not.’ – Denis Waitley
‘Accept your past without regret, handle your present with confidence and face your future without fear.’ – Unknown

X. Zen Quotes of the Day:

‘I speak two languages. Body and English.’ – Mae West
‘Our bodies change our minds, and our minds can change our behavior, and our behavior can change our outcomes.’ – Amy Cuddy
‘The face is more honest than the mouth will ever be.’ – Daphne Orebaugh
‘The physical language of the body is so much more powerful than the words.’ – Bill Irwin
‘You can do anything but not everything.’ – David Allen
‘If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.’ – Amit Ray

Also Read: How to Stop Negative Thinking?