Karma Quotes & Sayings

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Do you believe in Karma? These karma quotes and sayings are here to help you see how your actions impact your future and that of others.

Karma means different things to different people, from being a central tenet of Hinduism and Buddhism, to a basic non-religious belief that we receive the energy back that we’ve put into the universe.

Even the Judeo-Christian concept of “reaping what we sow” seems to imply the presence of karma.

So whether you believe in karma before reading or not, these quotes about karma will show you that “what goes around, comes around.”

Top 10 Karma Quotes

Karma, when properly understood, is just the mechanics through which consciousness manifests.

Deepak Chopra

When you truly understand karma, then you realize you are responsible for everything in your life.

Keanu Reeves
LH Leslie-Smith quote "Karma is the destiny man weaves for himself"
“Karma is the destiny man weaves for himself.” – L.H. Leslie-Smith

When karma lands, it lands hard.

Tom Fitton

How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.

Wayne Dyer

Like gravity, karma is so basic we often don’t even notice it.

Sakyong Mipham

Karma is karma. Karma is in life. You do the wrong things, you get the wrong things out of it.

Antonio Brown
Efrat Cybulkiewicz quote "Karma is extremely efficient if one is extremely patient"
“Karma is extremely efficient if one is extremely patient.” – Efrat Cybulkiewicz

The universe does not carry debts. It always returns back to you what you gave it.

Drishti Bablani

Karma bides its time. You will always have to watch out. Karma is unforgiving and always gets payback.

Benjamin Bayani

Quotes about Karma

Karma moves in two directions. If we act virtuously, the seed we plant will result in happiness. If we act non-virtuously, suffering results.

Saying Lipham

To the worldy man Karma is a stern Nemesis, to the spiritual man Karma unfolds itself in harmony with his highest aspirations.

William Q. Judge

Just try to do the right thing, and that’s immediate karma: ‘I feel good about myself.’

Linda Thompson

Sometimes you get the karma. Sometimes you are the karma.

Amie Kissel
Emma Robertson quote "Great Karma additionally interprets into great well-being"
“Great Karma additionally interprets into great well-being.” – Emma Robertson

Karma is not just about the troubles, but also about surmounting them.

Rick Springfield

Your karma should be good, and everything else will follow. Your good karma will always win over your bad luck.

Rohit Shetty

As long as karma exists, the world changes. There will always be karma to be taken care of.

Nina Hagen

You have to be careful when involving yourself with someone else’s karma.

Brownell Landrum

Karma is only in space time and causality. Your real self resides non-locally.

Deepak Chopra

Hate begets hate and if karma and punishment is the only language you understand then the road ahead will be rocky.

Tanushree Dutta

I think we all follow our destiny, we all have karma, we all have certain life paths and life journeys that we have to take.

Bebe Buell

There’s a natural law of karma that vindictive people, who go out of their way to hurt others, will end up broke and alone.

Sylvester Stallone

My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.

Thích Nhat Hanh

If you give a good thing to the world, then over time your karma will be good, and you’ll receive good.

Russell Simmons
Stephen Richards quote "Karma, simply put, is an action for an action, good or bad"
“Karma, simply put, is an action for an action, good or bad.” – Stephen Richards

Karma is justice. It does not reward or punish, because we have to earn all that we receive.

Mary T. Brown

If karma doesn’t catch up, God will surely pick up the slack.

Anthony Liccione

Karma is a tricky thing. To serve karma, one must repay good karma to others. To serve Karma well, one must sometimes deliver bad karma where it is due.

M.R. Mathias

It is impossible to build one’s own happiness on the unhappiness of others. This perspective is at the heart of Buddhist teachings.

Daisaku Ikeda

Not only is there often a right and wrong, but what goes around does come around. Karma exists.

Donald Van de Mark

Before you act, you have freedom, but after you act, the effect of that action will follow you whether you want it to or not. That is the law of karma.

Paramahansa Yogananda

Believing in Karma

I believe in Karma. If the good is sown, the good is collected. When positive things are made, that returns well.

Yannick Noah

I believe in karma, and I believe if you put out positive vibes to everybody, that’s all you’re going to get back.

Kesha

I’m a very firm believer in karma, and put it this way: I get a lot of good parking spots.

Al Jourgensen

The holistic doctrine of Karma gives us a reason for everything and everything for a reason.

Jonn Mumford

Karma is like the patterns of a formal dance or a familiar song. No variation is possible, and the highest ideal is to move through the measures correctly.

Kij Johnson

I try to live with the idea that karma is a very real thing. So I put out what I want to get back.

Megan Fox
Asha Bhosle quote "I believe in destiny and the philosophy of karma"
“I believe in destiny and the philosophy of karma.” – Asha Bhosle

I’m a true believer in karma. You get what you give, whether it’s bad or good.

Sandra Bullock

Your believing or not believing in karma has no effect on its existence, nor on its consequences to you. Just as a refusal to believe in the ocean would not prevent you from drowning.

F. Paul Wilson

One never escapes karma every action is stored subconsciously.

Deeksha Arora

There are the waves, and there is the wind, seen and unseen forces. Everyone has these same elements in their lives, the seen and unseen, karma and free will.

Kuan Yin

Karma comes after everyone eventually. You can’t get away with screwing people over your whole life, I don’t care who you are. What goes around comes around. That’s how it works. Sooner or later the universe will serve you the revenge that you deserve.

Jessica Brody

Living Karmically

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Before you act, you have freedom, but after you act, the effect of that action will follow you whether you want it to or not. That is the law of karma.

Paramahansa Yogananda

Live a good and honorable life. Then, when you are older, you can look back and enjoy it a second time.

Dalai Lama

Life is an echo. What you send out, comes back. What you sow, you reap.

Zig Ziglar

Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.

Buddha

Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity.

Edwin Hubbel Chapin

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
"By each crime and every kindness, we birth our future"
“By each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.” – David Mitchell

Sometimes you get what’s coming around. And sometimes you are what’s coming around.

Jim Butcher, Grave Peril

Learn to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.

Leonardo da Vinci

What we do in life echoes in eternity.

Russell Crowe, Gladiator

Once you’ve lived a little you will find that whatever you send out into the world comes back to you.

Slash

When you see a good person, think of becoming like her/him. When you see someone not so good, reflect on your own weak points.

Confucius

You cannot do harm to someone because someone has done harm to you. You will pay just like they will.

Ericka Williams

Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Men are not punished for their sins, but by them.

Elbert Hubbard

Treat other people’s home as you want them to respect yours because what goes around comes around.

Ana Monnar

Karma and Fate Quotes

Is Fate getting what you deserve, or deserving what you get?

Jodi Picoult

Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.

Eckhart Tolle

Karma is not fate, for man acts with free will, creating his own destiny. The Vedas tell us, if we sow goodness, we will reap goodness; if we sow evil, we will reap evil. Karma refers to the totality of our actions and their concomitant reactions in this and previous lives, all of which determines our future.

Satguru Subramuniyaswami
Rick Riordan fate quote "Strange things conspire when one tries to cheat fate"
“Strange things conspire when one tries to cheat fate.” – Rick Riordan

The law is simple. Every experience is repeated or suffered till you experience it properly and fully the first time.

Ben Okri

This is your karma. You do not understand now, but you will understand later.

H. Raven Rose

Karma isn’t fate. Nor is it a punishment imposed on us by some external agent. We create our own karma. Karma is the result of the choices that we make every moment of every day.

Tulku Thondup

The results of karma, whether good or bad, may not manifest right away. In may happen in the same lifetime or in a future life. We may even receive both positive and negative reactions at the same time.

Benjawan Poomsan

Not only is there often a right and wrong, but what goes around does come around, Karma exists.

Dr. Ken Baker

Even chance meetings are the result of karma… Things in life are fated by our previous lives. That even in the smallest events there’s no such thing as coincidence.

Haruki Murakami

Karma is the root cause of success and failure in every aspect of life.

Zhi Gang Sha

But this was what happened when you didn’t want to visit and confront the past: the past starts visiting and confronting you.

Bret Easton Ellis, Lunar Park

The universe does not carry debts, it always returns back to you what you gave it.

Drishti Bablani

Each individual is solely responsible for his or her own actions, and every action will produce a reaction equal in every way to the suit of the action.

Stephen Arroyo

You reap what you sow: Life is like a boomerang. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later, with astounding accuracy.

Grant M. Bright

Stop blaming others for the pains and sufferings you have. They are because of you, your karma, and your own disposition.

Girdhar Joshi
"A boomerang returns back to the person who throws it"
“A boomerang returns back to the person who throws it.” – Vaz Nazarian

Often when someone hurts you, they aren’t hurting you because you are you. They are hurting you because they are them.

Karen Salmansohn

The law of Karma is a manifestation of God’s will.

Ramana Maharshi

Karma Sayings

If your actions were to boomerang back on you instantly, would you still act the same?

Alexandra Katehakis

If karma doesn’t catch up, God will surely pick up the slack.

Anthony Liccone

Every moment of your life, you perform an action—physically, mentally, emotionally, and energy-wise. Each action creates a certain memory. That is karma.

Sadhguru

In the long run, every man will pay the penalty for his own misdeeds. The man who remembers this will be angry with no one, indignant with no one, revile no one, blame no one, offend no one, hate no one.

Epictetus

If you give your best to someone it will most definitely come back to you, often from a different person altogether.

Hrishikesh Agnihotri

Remember the unkindness, dishonesty, and deception you display toward others… don’t be shocked when it comes back to bite you.

Sarah Moore

The love you send into the world, you will find, is the love that returns to you.

Avina Celeste

I want revenge, but I don’t want to screw up my karma.

Susan Colasanti

Karma, as a philosophy, maintains hope in the midst of hopelessness and provides us with the courage to continue our personal evolution.

Jonn Mumford

For the keynote of the law of Karma is equilibrium, and nature is always working to restore that equilibrium whenever through man’s acts it is disturbed.

Christmas Humphries

The law of Karma is the law of the conservation of energy on the moral and spiritual planes of nature.

William Q. Judge

Even if things don’t unfold the way you expected, don’t be disheartened or give up.

Daisaku Ikeda

Sooner or later in life, we will all take our own turn being in the position we once had someone else in.

Ashly Lorenzana

What do you think about karma now? Whether or not you believe your actions and thoughts are destined to return to you in some way, it still pays to live by the Golden Rule.

We hope these thoughts on karma encourage you to be kinder, do more good, and lead an upright life simply because it’s the right thing to do. And if these things return to you, then all the better!

At the very least, the concept of karma shows us that our actions have consequences, even if they aren’t immediate. So do your best, be your best, and see what happens when you do.

Photo of author

Quincy Seale

Quincy is KIM's editor, and has collected and shared inspiring quotes and stories since 2005. Quincy holds an MBA from the University of Dundee and an MSc from the University of Edinburgh, and lives in San Antonio with his wife Natalie, son Alex, and his dog Oban.