80 Meditation Quotes to Help You Calm Your Mind

Whether you’re new to the practice of meditation or you just need some encouragement to continue on, these meditation quotes will inspire you to focus your mind and redirect your thoughts.

Calming your mind is no easy feat, especially in this fast-paced modern world that we live in.

When you’re constantly connected, with no sense of boundaries between work life and home life, it’s no wonder that your body and mind are burned out and tired.

That’s why meditation has become so popular is Western societies in the last few decades – as a respite and reprieve from the anxieties and worries of modern life. 

Why is meditation important?

It seems almost silly to sit and do nothing, but meditation can help with so many different ailments and lead to a happier life.

If you need some encouragement to pick up or continue your practice, take a look at our meditation quotes.

We’ve combed through tons of meditation quotes to find the best ones to inspire you to practice meditation and to relax your mind in this hectic world.

No matter what kind of life you live, you can find a way to release stress with meditation.

Below is our collection of inspirational, wise, and powerful meditation quotes and sayings.

Check out our most popular quote article, a list of short inspirational quotes for daily inspiration.

If you enjoy this collection, check out our inspirational quotes category page.

Calm Your Mind with These Meditation Quotes

1. “Half an hour’s meditation each day is essential, except when you are busy. Then a full hour is needed.” – Saint Francis de Sales

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2. “Sleep is the best meditation.” – Dalai Lama

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3. “Meditation has been a loyal friend to me. It has helped me write my books.” – Alice Walker

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4. “This is love: the flowering of love is meditation.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti

5. “Many scientists think that philosophy has no place, so for me it’s a sad time because the role of reflection, contemplation, meditation, self inquiry, insight, intuition, imagination, creativity, free will, is in a way not given any importance, which is the domain of philosophers.” – Deepak Chopra

6. “The real meditation practice is how we live our lives from moment to moment to moment.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn

7. “At the end of the day, I can end up just totally wacky, because I’ve made mountains out of molehills. With meditation, I can keep them as molehills.” – Ringo Starr

8. “Writing is a very focused form of meditation. Just as good as sitting in a lotus position.” – Alan Moore

9. “I’ve been practicing modalities of Eastern philosophy since about 1972. What I’ve learned through my meditation is a sense of equanimity, a sense of all things being equal.” – Goldie Hawn

10. “Meditation is the tongue of the soul and the language of our spirit.” – Jeremy Taylor

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Meditation quotes to relax your mind

11. “Without meditation, I’d probably be dead.” – Mike Love

12. “Meditation can be like a battle with yourself, your thoughts, your body.” – Tara Stiles

13. “Meditation, especially for people who don’t know very much about it and think it’s this very hippy dippy thing, can really be powerful, terrifying even, as it lifts the rug up on your subconscious and the dust comes flying out.” – Amanda Palmer

14. “The purpose of meditation is personal transformation.” – Henepola Gunaratana

15. “We may not realise it, but dancing is a form of meditation.” – Neve Campbell

16. “I’ve never been good at meditation, but surfing is the closest I’ve ever come to that inner something.” – Yvonne Strahovski

17. “Morning meditation is important to start every day on a positive note.” – Susan Burton

18. “We tend to think of meditation in only one way. But life itself is a meditation.” – Raul Julia

19. “Walking is magic. Can’t recommend it highly enough. I read that Plato and Aristotle did much of their brilliant thinking together while ambulating. The movement, the meditation, the health of the blood pumping, and the rhythm of footsteps… this is a primal way to connect with one’s deeper self.” – Paula Cole

20. “Watching birds has become part of my daily meditation affirming my connection to the earth body.” – Carol P. Christ

Meditation quotes to inspire your practice

21. “Meditation is the soul’s perspective glass.” – Owen Feltham

22. “Quiet the mind, and the soul will speak.” – Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati

23. “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” – Buddha

24. “Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom.” – James Allen

25. “Whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. What is soft is strong.” – Lao Tzu

26. “To really do nothing, with perfection, is as difficult as doing everything.” – Alan Watts

27. “Praying is talking to the Universe. Meditation is listening to it.” – Paulo Coelho

28. “Meditation is the ultimate mobile device; you can use it anywhere, anytime, unobtrusively.” – Sharon Salzberg

29. “Meditation is not spacing-out or running away. In fact, it is being totally honest with ourselves.” – Kathleen McDonald

30. “Within you there is a stillness and sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.” – Hermann Hesse

Meditation quotes to give you peace

31. “Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity.” – Voltaire

32. “Truth is the offspring of silence and meditation.” – Isaac Newton

33. “If you meditate regularly, even when you don’t feel like it, you will make great gains, for it will allow you to see how your thoughts impose limits on you. Your resistances to meditation are your mental prisons in miniature.” – Ram Dass (see more Ram Dass quotes)

34. “Meditation is the weight room for the mind.” – Ed Latimore

35. “Meditation is not you going through thoughts – it’s letting thoughts go through you.” – Naval Ravikant

36. “While meditating we are simply seeing what the mind has been doing all along.” – Allan Lokos

37. “Many people are alive but don’t touch the miracle of being alive.” –Thich Nhat Hanh

38. “Be the master of mind rather than mastered by mind.” – Japanese proverb

39. “Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.” – Alan Watts

40. “A happy life consists in tranquility of mind.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero

Meditation quotes that will make your day

41. “The only way to live is by accepting each minute as an unrepeatable miracle.” – Tara Brach

42. “Doing a three-minute meditation every day may change your life: It is the gateway drug to slowing down.” – Anne Lamott

43. “I have been a seeker and I still am, but I stopped asking the books and the stars. I started listening to the teaching of my soul.” – Rumi

44. “Meditation is painful in the beginning but it bestows immortal bliss and supreme joy in the end.” – Swami Sivananda

45. “Remain calm, serene, always in command of yourself. You will then find out how easy it is to get along.” – Paramahansa Yogananda

46. “Our thinking minds deprive us of the happiness that comes when we are living fully in the moment.” – Ram Dass

47. “To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.” – Marilyn vos Savant

48. “Self-knowledge is the first step to maturity.” – Jane Austen

49. “Meditation is such a more substantial reality than what we normally take to be reality.” – Richard Gere

50. “Silence is not an absence but a presence.” – Anne D. LeClaire

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More quotes about meditation to inspire you

51. Meditation applies the brakes to the mind.” – Ramana Maharshi

52. “Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment.” – Alan Watts

53. “Practice meditation regularly. Meditation leads to eternal bliss. Therefore meditate, meditate.” – Sivananda

54. “Meditation is acceptance. It is the acceptance of life within us, without us and all around us. Acceptance of life is the beginning of human satisfaction.” – Sri Chinmoy

55. Meditation is listening to the divine within.” – Edgar Cayce

56. “Meditation allows us to directly participate in our lives instead of living life as an afterthought.” – Stephen Levine

57. “Your goal is not to battle with the mind, but to witness the mind.” – Swami Muktananda

58. “The soul always knows what to do to heal itself. The challenge is to silence the mind.” – Caroline Myss

59. “Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about befriending who we are already.” – Pema Chodron

60. “If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything.” – Shunryu Suzuki

Meditation quotes for when you need peace and stillness

61. “Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.” ― Thich Nhat Hang

62. “To understand the immeasurable, the mind must be extraordinarily quiet, still.” ― Jiddu Krishnamurti

63. “Sometimes you need to sit lonely on the floor in a quiet room in order to hear your own voice and not let it drown in the noise of others.” ― Charlotte Eriksson

64. “Beautify your inner dialogue. Beautify your inner world with love, light and compassion. Life will be beautiful.” ― Amit Ray

65. “Meditation is a way for nourishing and blossoming the divinity within you.” ― Amit Ray

66. “Meditation makes the entire nervous system go into a field of coherence.” ― Deepak Chopra

67. “I learned a few years ago that balance is the key to a happy and successful life, and a huge part of achieving that balance is to instill rituals into your everyday life – a nutritious balanced diet, daily exercise, time for yourself through meditation, reading, journaling, yoga, daily reflection, and setting goals.” ― Gretchen Bleiler

68. “Exercise, prayer, and meditation are examples of calming rituals. They have been shown to induce a happier mood and provide a positive pathway through life’s daily frustrations.” ― Chuck Norris

69. “Your morning sets up the success of your day. So many people wake up and immediately check text messages, emails, and social media. I use my first hour awake for my morning routine of breakfast and meditation to prepare myself.” ― Caroline Ghosn

70. “I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will which will stake even existence upon its fulfillment.” ― Benjamin Disraeli

Meditation Quotes To Connect With Your Soul

71. “Meditation is the golden key to all the mysteries of life.” ― Rajneesh

72. “Meditation, in all its forms and traditions, is an invitation to listen, to open, to quietly enlist the courage to be touched and formed by life.” ― Mark Nepo

73. “Meditation is not passive sitting in silence. It is sitting in awareness, free from distraction, and realizing the clear understanding that arises from concentration.” ― Nhat Hanh

74. “Meditation can help us embrace our worries, our fear, our anger; and that is very healing. We let our own natural capacity of healing do the work.” ― Nhat Hanh

75. “Meditation brings wisdom; lack of meditation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what holds you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom.” ― Gautama Buddha

76. “Delight in meditation and solitude.  Compose yourself, be happy.  You are a seeker.” ― Gautama Buddha

77. “Suffering is due to our disconnection with the inner soul. Meditation is establishing that connection.” ― Amit Ray

78. “Meditation is not a means to an end. It is both the means and the end.” ― Jiddu Krishnamurti

79. “One does not practice meditation to become a great meditator. We meditate to  wake up and live, to become skilled at the art of living.” ― Elizabeth Lesser

80. “The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large.” ― Confucius

Which of these meditation quotes inspired you to still your mind?

Whether you’re new to the practice of meditation or you just need some encouragement to continue on, we hope that this selection of meditation quotes has helped to calm your mind and fill your heart with wonderful energy and love.

So many famously kind and influential people have benefited from this ancient practice, and there’s scientific evidence that it can help with various ailments and illnesses.

Even if you’re just starting out, meditating for as little as fifteen minutes a day can amazing effects on both your mind and body.

Give your mind and body a break with a relaxing session of meditation, and you’ll be sure to feel the effects start to ripple outward into the rest of your life.

Start your day with meditation and meditation quotes to fuel the best lifestyle possible.

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