Mindfulness Quotes for Inner Knowing

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Feeling a little scattered? These mindfulness quotes are a great way to feel present, centered, and refocused.

Being mindful is important no matter what we’re doing. Working, listening, parenting, and anything under the sun can be enjoyed more and done better when approached mindfully.

Even simply doing nothing with more mindfulness can become meditative and help with relaxation and clarity. Being mindful means being fully aware in all situations.

So find a good mindfulness quote and be more aware of yourself and your surroundings today.

Top 10 Mindfulness Quotes

Mindfulness isn’t difficult, we just need to remember to do it.

Sharon Salzberg

In mindfulness one is not only restful and happy, but alert and awake.

Thich Nhat Hanh
Jan Bays quote "Mindfulness is awareness without criticism or judgment"Pin
“Mindfulness is awareness without criticism or judgment.” – Jan Chozen Bays

Right mindfulness is not a tool or an instrument, but a path.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Life is a dance. Mindfulness is witnessing that dance.

Amit Ray

Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

Mindfulness gives you time. Time gives you choices. Choices, skillfully made, lead to freedom.

Bhante Henepola Gunaratana
Rumi quote "Let go of your mind and then be mindful"Pin
“Let go of your mind and then be mindful.” – Rumi

You can’t be mindful when your mind’s full.

Jack Butcher

Mindfulness is a way of befriending ourselves and our experience.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

Quotes about Mindfulness

Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the present experience.

Sylvia Boorstein

Within you, there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.

Hermann Hesse

Mindfulness is the kind of light that shows us the way. It is the living Buddha inside of each of us. Mindfulness gives birth to insight, awakening, compassion, and love.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Mindfulness meditation helps you tackle every little problem one by one with equanimity and presence rather than worry about 100 problems all at once and never do anything about anything.

Scott Barry Kaufman

How we pay attention to the present moment largely determines the character of our experience, and therefore, the quality of our lives.

Sam Harris
Nell Newman quote "Cultivating a generous spirit starts with mindfulness"Pin
“Cultivating a generous spirit starts with mindfulness.” – Nell Newman

When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Mindfulness is clarity. Clarity of thought. Clarity of intent. Clarity of action. When you possess this level of clarity you are able to be in control of most levels of your life. And being in control is one of the most powerful feelings one can experience.

Adrian Lliopoulos

Mindfulness meditation should be more than just watching what you are doing. What you really need to watch is your motivation.

Thubten Zopa Rinpoche

With mindfulness we can see the poetry and beauty all around us. We can see the miracles of life.

Thich Nhat Hanh

The first and best victory is to conquer self.

Plato

Paradise is not a place; it’s a state of consciousness.

Sri Chinmoy

Becoming awake involves seeing our confusion more clearly.

Rumi

In mindfulness, we start to see the world as it is, not as we expect it to be, how we want it to be, or what we fear it might become.

Mark Williams, Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

Mindfulness practice is not an evasion or an escape. It means entering vigorously into life — with the strength generated by the energy of mindfulness.

Thich Nhat Hanh
Ram Dass mindfulness quote "Wherever you are, be all there"Pin
“Wherever you are, be all there.” – Ram Dass

Every day has its drama. If you are waiting for a day without drama, you are waiting for death. Mindfulness is what gives us the space to meet all drama without tension. While we can’t always be free of drama, we can be free from the effects of it. It’s called peace of mind.

Thibaut

Mindfulness is a pause – the space between stimulus and response: that’s where choice lies.

Tara Brach

Observe the space between your thoughts, then observe the observer.

Hamilton Boudreaux

Mindfulness, simply stated, means paying attention to what is happening; it’s about what is really going on.

Nell Newman

As the fletcher whittles and makes straight his arrows, so the master directs his straying thoughts.

Buddha

Observing not absorbing.

Maryam Hasnaa

As long as we have practiced neither concentration nor mindfulness, the ego takes itself for granted and remains its usual normal size, as big as the people around one will allow.

Ayya Khema

Just because our eyes are open does not mean we are awake.

Haemin Sunim

Mindfulness is simply being aware of what is happening right now without wishing it were different; enjoying the pleasant without holding on when it changes (which it will); being with the unpleasant without fearing it will always be this way (which it won’t).

James Baraz
Scott Kaufman quote "Empathy is the new mindfulness"Pin
“Empathy is the new mindfulness.” – Scott Barry Kaufman

The best way to capture moments is to pay attention. This is how we cultivate mindfulness. Mindfulness means being awake. It means knowing what you are doing.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

If we want to become mindful, rather than just knowing about mindfulness, we need to establish our own regular practice.

Thich Nhat Hanh

If it’s out of your hands, it deserves freedom from your mind too.

Ivan Nuru

Everything is created twice. First in the mind and then in reality.

Robin Sharma

If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.

Amit Ray

Mindfulness is deliberately paying full attention to what is happening around you– in your body, heart, and mind.

Jan Chozen Bays

Mindfulness is a quality that’s always there. It’s an illusion that there’s a meditation and post-meditation period, which I always find amusing, because you’re either mindful or you’re not.

Richard Gere

The desire to know your own soul will end all other desires.

Rumi

Mindfulness means being awake. It means knowing what you’re doing.

Jon Kabat-Zinn
Jiddu Krishnamurti saying "Observe without division"Pin
“Observe without division.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti

A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it isn’t open.

Frank Zappa

Mindfulness helps us to live in harmony with our thoughts, words, and actions.

Amit Ray

On Being Mindful

No thought, no mind, no choice – just being silent, rooted in yourself.

Osho

Things that have a consciousness are higher than those that don’t.

Marcus Aurelius

Being mindful means that we suspend judgment for a time, set aside our immediate goals for the future, and take in the present moment as it is rather than as we would like it to be.

J. Mark G. Williams

The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.

Socrates

Be aware of your breathing. Notice how this takes attention away from your thinking and creates space.

Eckhart Tolle

The way you speak to others can offer them joy, happiness, self-confidence, hope, trust, and enlightenment. Mindful speaking is a deep practice.

Thich Nhat Hanh

When you breathe in mindfully, there is a happy reunion between body and mind. This doesn’t take any fancy technique.

Thich Nhat Hanh
"If you get tired, learn to rest not to quit"Pin
“If you get tired, learn to rest not to quit.” – Bansky

There is a great beauty in observation, in seeing things as they are.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

When we are mindful, deeply in touch with the present moment, our understanding of what is going on deepens, and we begin to be filled with acceptance, joy, peace and love.

Thich Nhat Hanh

A flower does not think of competing with the flower next to it.  It just blooms.

Zen Shin

It’s like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.

Bruce Lee, Enter The Dragon

Mindful and creative, a child who has neither a past, nor examples to follow, nor value judgments, simply lives, speaks and plays in freedom.

Arnaud Desjardins

Always mind your surroundings.

Liam Neeson, Batman Begins

Focusing Inward

Your goal is not to battle with the mind, but to witness the mind.

Swami Muktananda

The first important step into the now is to become aware of whatever surrounds you.

Eckhart Tolle

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.

Carl Jung

When the mind is completely aware it becomes extraordinarily silent, quiet; it is not asleep, but highly awake in that silence.

Jiddu Krishnamurti
"The quieter you become the more you can hear"Pin
“The quieter you become, the more you can hear.” – Ram Dass

With awareness, we can make concious choices, instead of letting our habitual thoughts and patterns run the show.

Tamara Levitt

When you learn to just sit and become completely present, you naturally become completely quiet, with none of that jazz going on inside. A person who can’t really sit as if there were nothing else to do also won’t be able to act because he’ll never be completely all here.

Alan Watts

You begin by letting thoughts flow and watching them. The very observation slows down the mind until it stops altogether. Once the mind is quiet, keep it quiet. Don’t get bored with peace, be in it, go deeper in it.

Nisargadatta Maharaj

If you listen completely, entirely, wholly, at the actual moment of listening there is no confusion, and that moment is enough.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Inner emptiness is not a void to be filled with comforts; it is a window to be looked through.

Alan Watts

If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.

William Blake

The body and mind are interdependent. They are inseparable in the art of introspection.

Geeta Iyengar

Every time we become aware of a thought, as opposed to being lost in a thought, we experience that opening of the mind.

Joseph Goldstein
"In a world deluged by irrelevant information, clarity is power"Pin
“In a world deluged by irrelevant information, clarity is power.” – Yuval Noah Harari

When you focus on what works for you and what doesn’t, you step out of that comparison cycle and spiral into your real, beautiful life.

Robyn Conley Downs

Pause practice creates an open doorway to the sacredness of the place in which you find yourself.

Pema Chodron 

Quotes on Being Present

This is the real secret of life – to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now.

Alan Watts

Training your mind to be the present moment is the number one key to making healthier choices.

Susan Albers

Always hold fast to the present. Every situation, indeed every moment, is of infinite value, for it is the representative of a whole eternity.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The only way to live is by accepting each minute as an unrepeatable miracle.

Tara Brach

Is it possible for the mind each day to be so totally aware that problems no longer exist?

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

Buddha

A serious mind can never be in the present. Only a playful mind, only children, are in the present. So be more childlike… play more.

Osho
Sahil Lavingia quote "The present moment contains the fullness of space"Pin
“The present moment contains the fullness of space.” – Sahil Lavingia

The way to live in the present is to remember that ‘This too shall pass.’ When you experience joy, remembering that ‘This too shall pass’ helps you savor the here and now. When you experience pain and sorrow, remembering that ‘This too shall pass’ reminds you that grief, like joy, is only temporary.

Joey Green

Imagine witnessing every situation, person, and thing just as it is.

Byron Katie

Look past your thoughts, so you may drink the pure nectar of This Moment.

Rumi

In this moment, there is plenty of time. In this moment, you are precisely as you should be. In this moment, there is infinite possibility.

Victoria Moran

Be happy in the moment, that’s enough, each moment is all we need, not more.

Mother Teresa

Your life should be a continuous death and a continuous resurrection, so that you remain fresh to the very last breath.

Osho

Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life.

Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

When I dance, I dance; when I sleep, I sleep; yes, and when I walk alone in a beautiful orchard, if my thoughts drift to far-off matters for some part of the time for some other part I lead them back again to the walk, the orchard, to the sweetness of this solitude, to myself.

Michel de Montaigne

Now is the only reality. All else is either memory or imagination.

Osho
"The past has no power over the present moment"Pin
“The past has no power over the present moment.” – Eckhart Tolle

He said, ‘There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called yesterday and the other is called tomorrow, so today is the right day to love, believe, do, and mostly live.

Dalai Lama

The only thing that is ultimately real about your journey is the step that you are taking at this moment. That’s all there ever is.

Eckhart Tolle

Only those who have cultivated the art of living completely in the present have any use for making plans for the future. For when the plans mature they will be able to enjoy the results.

Alan Watts

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 melting like a snowflake.

Francis Bacon

It is opening to or receiving the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant, just as it is, without either clinging to it or rejecting it.

Sylvia Boorstein

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.

Marcus Aurelius

Go Live Mindfully

We hope you enjoyed these mindfulness quotes and find a way to apply them in your life.

Mindfulness isn’t just about being in the present, it’s also about being in yourself.

Being mindful doesn’t just apply to meditating. It means being aware and approaching every aspect of life with clarity and acceptance.

So start living mindfully to feel more present, composed, and capable. Let us know how it’s working for you inn the comments.

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.