70 Mindfulness Quotes: Change the Way You Lead & Work

Unlock focus, elevate your leadership, and find clarity everyday with the wisdom instilled in these mindfulness quotes!

The ability to stay focused and calm under pressure is the hallmark of effective leadership – especially in today’s fast-paced, high-pressure world of business. Below is a list of mindfulness quotes organized by theme. These wise words will help you cut through the distraction, manage anxiety, cultivate self-awareness, and ultimately, change the way you lead and work!

(by Jonathan M. Pham)

Short Mindfulness Quotes

1. Wherever you are, be there totally. – Eckhart Tolle

2. The universe is not outside of you. – Rumi

3. Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future. – Buddha

4. Rule your mind or it will rule you. – Horace

5. This very moment is the perfect teacher. – Pema Chödrön

Inspirational Mindfulness Quotes

6. People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. – Thich Nhat Hanh

7. Mindfulness frees us of forgetfulness and dispersion and makes it possible to live fully each minute of life. Mindfulness enables us to live. – Thich Nhat Hanh

8. Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens. – Carl Jung

9. The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change. – Carl Rogers

10. 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

Positive mindfulness quotes

Mindfulness Quotes for Work

11. You cannot manage other people, unless you manage yourself first. – Peter Drucker

12. Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration, and resentment. – Dale Carnegie

13. Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be. – Wayne W. Dyer

14. In a world of distraction, single-tasking is a superpower. – Timothy Ferriss

Read more: 35 Work Life Balance Quotes – Work Smarter, Live Fuller

Mindfulness Quotes for Leadership

15. Mindful leadership keeps you cool and energetic in any situation, so that you can make the best possible decisions. – Amit Ray

16. Unless you challenge yourself, you cannot grow. Mindful leadership is the art of growing by challenging the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual imposed limits on the self. – Amit Ray

17. Leadership grows like tall trees. It needs both toughness and flexibility – toughness for accountability – flexibility to adapt changes with a compassionate & caring heart for self and others. – Amit Ray

18. Mindfulness helps leaders to constantly be aware of the culture they envision and to align their thoughts, words and actions with that desired culture. – Kathirasan K

19. You can evaluate the quality of your authority by looking deeply to see if compassion is the foundation of your leadership. – Thich Nhat Hanh

Read more: 110 Leadership Quotes – Daily Doses of Inspiration to Unlock Greatness

Mindfulness Quotes about Life

20. Life isn’t as serious as the mind makes it out to be. – Eckhart Tolle

21. The little things? The little moments? They aren’t little. – Jon Kabat-Zinn

22. Nothing is worth more than this day. You cannot relive yesterday. Tomorrow is still beyond your reach. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

23. Mindfulness is about love and loving life. When you cultivate this love, it gives you clarity and compassion for life, and your actions happen in accordance with that. – Jon Kabat-Zinn

24. Do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know the side you are used to is better than the one to come? – Rumi

Mindfulness Quotes for Difficult Times

25. If it’s out of your hands, it deserves freedom from your mind too. – Ivan Nuru

26. If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it’s not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever. – Dalai Lama XIV

27. Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. – Matthew 6:34

28. Let difficulty transform you. And it will. In my experience, we just need help in learning how not to run away. – Pema Chödrön

29. When you feel frustrated or upset by a person or a situation, remember that you are not reacting to the person or the situation, but to your feelings about the person or the situation. – Deepak Chopra

30. Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. – Viktor Frankl

Mindfulness Quotes for Anxiety

31. Your calm mind is the ultimate weapon against your challenges. So relax. – Bryant McGill

32. Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy. – Leo Busaglia

33. My philosophy is that worrying means you suffer twice. – J. K. Rowling

34. Where there is peace and meditation, there is neither anxiety nor doubt. – Francis Of Assisi

35. You don’t have to control your thoughts; you just have to stop letting them control you. – Dan Millman

Read more: 40 Self Care Quotes – Your Ultimate Professional Asset

Mindfulness Quotes for Mental Health

36. The first and best victory is to conquer self. – Plato

37. The pursuit, even of the best things, ought to be calm and tranquil. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

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

39. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. – Carl Jung

40. There is a simple technique for self-regulation called “affect labeling,” which simply means labeling feelings with words. When you label an emotion you are experiencing (for example, “I feel anger”), it somehow helps you manage that emotion. – Chade-Meng Tan

Read more: 48 Mental Health Quotes – Turning Struggle Into Strength

Mindfulness Meditation Quotes

41. 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

42. Meditation is the only intentional, systematic human activity which at bottom is about not trying to improve yourself or get anywhere else, but simply to realize where you already are. – Jon Kabat-Zinn

43. I have so much to accomplish today that I must meditate for two hours instead of one. – Mahatma Gandhi

44. Mindfulness isn’t difficult. We just need to remember to do it. – Sharon Salzberg

45. Aimlessness does not mean doing nothing. It means not putting something in front of you to chase after. – Thich Nhat Hanh

Read more: 70 Self Reflection Quotes – Looking Inward to Move Forward

Mindfulness Grounding Quotes

46. The present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life. – Eckhart Tolle

47. Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally. – Jon Kabat-Zinn

48. The miracle of mindfulness is, first of all, that you are here. Being truly here is very important—being here for yourself, and for the one you love. – Thich Nhat Hanh

49. Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor. – Thich Nhat Hanh

50. Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet. – Thich Nhat Hanh

Read more: 85 Resilience Quotes for Work – A Dose of Daily Fortitude

Famous mindfulness quotes

Mindfulness Self Awareness Quotes

51. The moment you become truly aware of your automatic behaviours, something magical is about to happen. – Rúna Magnúsdóttir

52. Look at other people and ask yourself if you are really seeing them or just your thoughts about them…. Without knowing it, we are coloring everything, putting our spin on it all. – Jon Kabat-Zinn

53. In Asian languages, the word for ‘mind’ and the word for ‘heart’ are same. So if you’re not hearing mindfulness in some deep way as heartfulness, you’re not really understanding it. – Jon Kabat-Zinn

54. Usually when we hear or read something new, we just compare it to our own ideas. If it is the same, we accept it… If it is not, we say it is incorrect. In either case, we learn nothing. – Thich Nhat Hanh

55. A foolish person thinks, ‘I already know that.’ He keeps anything new from coming into his mind. A wise person thinks, ‘I don’t know the whole story.’ She opens herself up to even greater wisdom. – Haemin Sunim

Read more: 70 Self Awareness Quotes – Insights for Growth & Abundance

Mindfulness Gratitude Quotes

56. I don’t have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness – it’s right in front of me if I’m paying attention and practicing gratitude. – Brené Brown

57. Be mindful. Be grateful. Be positive. Be true. Be kind. – Roy T. Bennett

58. When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love. – Marcus Aurelius

59. Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. – Helen Keller

60. Living in the moment brings you a sense of reverence for all of life’s blessings. – Oprah Winfrey

Read more: 75 Gratitude Quotes – Simple Words with Profound Power

Best mindfulness quotes

Daily Mindfulness Quotes

61. Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the PRESENT. – Master Oogway

62. When we get too caught up in the busyness of the world, we lose connection with one another – and ourselves. – Jack Kornfield

63. Every morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most. – Buddha

64. Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment. – Thich Nhat Hanh

65. The feeling that any task is a nuisance will soon disappear if it is done with mindfulness. – Thich Nhat Hanh

Read more: 65 Happy Work Quotes – When Job Becomes Passion

Good morning mindfulness quotes

Funny Mindfulness Quotes

66. If it weren’t for my mind, my meditation would be excellent. – Pema Chodron

67. Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive. – Elbert Hubbard

68. Stressed spelled backward is desserts. Coincidence? I don’t think so! – Anonymous

69. If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito. – Dalai Lama

70. If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign? – Laurence J. Peter

Read more: 75 Positive Thinking Quotes – Here’s to Your Best Self

Mindfulness quote of the day

Other resources you might be interested in:

• 60 Self Love Quotes: From Insecurity to Inner Confidence
• 45 Workplace Wellness Quotes: Beyond the Paycheck
• 40 Empathy Quotes: Cultivating Connection for Success
• 45 Self Control Quotes: A Daily Toolkit for Mastery