Yoga Info

Quotes

This page contains thought-provoking quotations.
We add a new quote to the top of the page every day.

Sitting quietly

What life can compare with this? Sitting quietly by the window, I watch leaves fall and the flowers bloom as the seasons come and go.
- Seccho (982-1052), China

Character

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
- Helen Keller

Eternity

Didst thou ever descry a glorious eternity in a winged moment of time?
Didst thou ever see a bright infinite in the narrow point of an object?
Then thou knowest what spirit means,
the spire top whither all things ascend harmoniously
and where they meet and sit contented in an unfathomed depth of life.
- Peter Sterry (1613-1672)

Many interests

People with many interests live, not only longest, but happiest.
- George Matthew Allen

Opinions

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts.
- Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Leave a trail

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Greatness

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
- Mark Twain

Harmony

The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.
- Carl Sagan

Influence

Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others; it is the only means.
- Albert Einstein

Action

Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
- Chinese proverb

Make a Life

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
- Winston Churchill

Optimism

A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.
- Harry S. Truman

Kindness & Compassion

You cannot enter the door of yoga without kindness and compassion for the other.
- Changkya

Foundations

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost;
that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
- Henry David Thoreau

Significant

All that happens means something; nothing you do is ever insignificant.
- Aldous Huxley

Choice

None so deaf as those that will not hear.
None so blind as those that will not see.
- Matthew Henry

Transformation

You seek too much information and not enough transformation.
- Shirdi Sai Baba

Recognition

Lack of proper recognition of your own value is always harmful and can lead to a state of mental, emotional and spiritual paralysis.
- The Dalai Lama

Pessimism

No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars
or sailed an uncharted land,
or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.
- Helen Keller

Judgment

As rain falls equally on the just and the unjust,
do not burden your heart with judgments
but rain your kindness equally on all.
- The Buddha

Evil

Little evil would be done in the world if evil never could be done in the name of good.
- Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

Attitude

Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass. It is about learning to dance in the rain.

Fear

Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.
- Dostoyevsky

Trust

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Progress

Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.
- George Bernard Shaw

Trust

Trust yourself. Create the kind of life you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.
- Foster C. McClellan

Great truths

All great truths begin as blasphemies.
- George Bernard Shaw

Beginning

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
- Lao Tzu

Balance

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness and the word ‘happy’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.
- Carl Jung

Ideas

If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple.
But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.
- George Bernard Shaw

Civilization

The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.
- Sigmund Freud

Improve the world

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.
- Anne Frank

Message

Once, while Gandhi’s train was pulling slowly out of the station, a reporter ran up to him and asked him for a message to take back to the people. Gandhi’s reply was a hurried line scrawled on a scrap of paper: "My life is my message."

Best portion

The best portion of a good person's life- their little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.
- William Wordsworth

Tomorrow

Tomorrow - A mystical land where 98% of all human productivity, motivation and achievement are stored.
- Unknown

Humility

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.
- Rick Warren

Live, Learn

Live as if you were to die tomorrow.
Learn as if you were to live forever.
- Mahatma Gandhi

Suffering

It is the sufferings and insecurities of our lives that, although painful and distressing, teach us not to cling on to the impermanent things of this world. Not even the greatest master could teach us so well. We should honour and respect them, not shun their company.
- T’ao-Shan

To Live

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
- Oscar Wilde

Thought

If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right.
- Henry Ford

Rise again

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
- Confucius

Experience

Experience is not what happens to someone;
it is what they do with what happens to them.
- Aldous Huxley

Forgiveness

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
- Mahatma Gandhi

Strength

Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.

Potential

Most people live-whether physically, intellectually or morally-in a very restricted circle of their potential being. We all have reservoirs of life to draw upon of which we do not draw.
- William James

Security

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
- Helen Keller

Message

My life is my message.
- Mahatma Gandhi

Imaginary Lines

Divisions are imaginary lines drawn by small minds.
- Paramhansa Yogananda

Three Things

Three things in human life are important.
The first is to be kind.
The second is to be kind.
And the third is to be kind.
- Henry James

To see

...To see the world in a grain of sand,
And heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
- William Blake

Smile

Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.
- Mother Teresa

Freedom

Freedom can never be reached by the weak. Throw away all weakness. Tell your body that it is strong, tell your mind that it is strong, and have unbounded faith and hope in yourself.
- Swami Vivekananda

Present Moment

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, not to anticipate troubles, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.
- The Buddha

Forget

Forget mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it.
- William Durant

Set Sail

Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So, throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
- Mark Twain

Love

Where there is love there is life.
- Mahatma Gandhi

Remedy

Don't find fault, find a remedy.
- Henry Ford

Rejoice

When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.
- Indian saying

Opportunity

We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Small Steps

Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small steps.
- Henry Ford

Unite

Divide and rule, a sound motto. Unite and lead, a better one.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Why not?

You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, 'Why not?'
- George Bernard Shaw

A Zen story:

A samurai warrior approached master Hakuin and asked, "What is hell and heaven?" The master took one look at the samurai and started insulting him saying, "You are such a scruffy looking warrior you would never understand anything." The Samurai became furious and pulled out his sword. "There!" said Hakuin. "This is hell." The Samurai had a flash of illumination and was overcome with gratitude, humbly bowing before the master. Hakuin said, "There! This is heaven."
- Ram Nutakki

Finding Fault

Some people find fault like there's a reward for it.
- Zig Ziglar

Awareness

Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.
- James Thurber

Light

It’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
- Chinese proverb

Reason

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
- Galileo Galilei

There you are

And remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
- Confucius

A blessing

An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
- Henry David Thoreau

Discovery

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.
- Galileo Galilei

Speech versus action

A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.
- Confucius

A common message

All major religious traditions carry basically the same message, that is love, compassion and forgiveness. The important thing is they should be part of our daily lives.
- Dalai Lama

You know

At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.
- Lao Tzu

Truth and error

An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.
- Mohandas Gandhi

Change

Let he that would change the world first change himself.
- Socrates

Illusion

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
- Albert Einstein

Obstacles

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.
- Henry Ford

Worth living

The unexamined life is not worth living.
- Socrates

Health

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
- Jiddu Krishnamurti

On the move

An ant on the move does more than a dozing ox.
- Lao Tzu

Practice

An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.
- Mohandas Gandhi

Counting

Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.
- Albert Einstein

An eye for an eye

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
- Mohandas Gandhi

Simplify

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.
- Albert Einstein

A different drummer

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
- Henry David Thoreau

Mistakes

A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
- Albert Einstein

Quiet desperation

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.
- Henry David Thoreau

Be the change

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
- Mohandas Gandhi

Let it alone

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
- Henry David Thoreau

It's simple

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
- Confucius

Save yourself

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.
- Buddha

Simplify

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.
- Henry David Thoreau

Mindfulness

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

Poverty

Poverty consists, not in the decrease of ones possessions but in the increase of one's greed.
- Plato

Nothing New

And let us bathe our hands in blood, up to the elbows
And besmear our words
Then we will walk forth, even to the market place.
And weaving our red weapons o'er our heads
Let us all cry "peace, freedom and liberty
- Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

Our Choice

Most of us choose a warm, pleasant fantasy over cold, hard reality.
- Anon

Peace and war

You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
- Einstein

Warning

Military service causes death, mutilation, poverty, homelessness, and complicated feelings of having been suckered.
- Anon

How are we doing in Iraq?

Do you know what astonished me most in the world? The inability of force to create anything. In the long run, the sword is always beaten by the spirit.
- Napoleon Bonaparte