Skip to content

Quotes about Being Present

Terri Guillemets Quote on Clouds and What They Can Remind Us About Life

    “Why do I love clouds? Because you can’t save a cloud like you can save a leaf or a flower or a rock – clouds are now.”

    Terri Guillemets

    Beyond the Quote (204/365)

    As I sit here struggling to find the right words to write, I find myself looking out the window, captivated by the movement of the clouds through the sky. It’s nothing special. Or it’s something really special? I can’t tell.

    Read More »Terri Guillemets Quote on Clouds and What They Can Remind Us About Life

      “Any action you take may not bear fruit immediately. Until it does—do not resist what is. If there is no action you can take, and you cannot remove yourself from the situation either, then use the situation to make you go more deeply into surrender, more deeply into the Now, more deeply into Being. When you enter this timeless dimension of the present, change often comes about in strange ways without the need for a great deal of doing on your part.”

      Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (Page 210)

        “I have lived with several Zen masters—all of them cats. Even ducks have taught me important spiritual lessons. Just watching them is a meditation. How peacefully they float along, at ease with themselves, totally present in the Now, dignified and perfect as only a mindless creature can be. Occasionally, however, two ducks will get into a fight—sometimes for no apparent reason, or because one duck has strayed into another’s private space. The fight usually lasts only for a few seconds, and then the ducks separate, swim off in opposite directions, and vigorously flap their wings a few times. They then continue to swim on peacefully as if the fight had never happened. When I observed that for the first time, I suddenly realized that by flapping their wings they were releasing surplus energy, thus preventing it from becoming trapped in their body and turning into negativity. This is natural wisdom, and it is easy for them because they do not have a mind that keeps the past alive unnecessarily and then builds an identity around it.”

        Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (Page 190)

          “I have learned to offer no resistance to what is; I have learned to allow the present moment to be and to accept the impermanent nature of all things and conditions. Thus have I found peace.”

          Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (Page 187)

            “Whenever two or more egos come together, drama of one kind or another ensues. But even if you live totally alone, you still create your own drama. When you feel sorry for yourself, that’s drama. When you feel guilty or anxious, that’s drama. When you let the past or future obscure the present, you are creating time, psychological time—the stuff out of which drama is made. Whenever you are not honoring the present moment by allowing it to be, you are creating drama.”

            Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (Page 182)

              “There is nothing you can ever do or attain that will get you closer to salvation than it is at this moment. This may be hard to grasp for a mind accustomed to thinking that everything worthwhile is in the future. Nor can anything that you ever did or that was done to you in the past prevent you from saying yes to what is and taking your attention deeply into the Now. You cannot do this in the future. You do it now or not at all.”

              Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (Page 147)

              Paul Hogan Poem on Capturing Moments (and Maybe When Not To)

                “Camera loaded, the light

                near sundown blushes

                the grey, beat wood

                of the boathouse, flashes

                along arcs of the waves.

                Don’t photograph this. Don’t render it

                immutable now. Let it

                distort, let it unravel,

                reconstruct itself.

                This image will retell

                this here and now for years,

                without conclusion —

                It will never change,

                it will always be different,

                we will never agree. For now,

                let the light slip down

                around you. Don’t

                remember this yet.”

                Paul Hogan, Point of Departures (Page 37)

                Beyond the Quote (167/365)

                In a world where the camera on our phone takes better pictures than most DSLR cameras from just a few years ago, where 4K quality can be held in the palm of one hand and activated with the push of one thumb, where so much of what we see and hear in the world can be so vividly captured and contained within the confines of a memory chip that’s smaller than a penny and backed up by an imaginary cloud—the line between knowing when to be present in a moment and when to capture a moment can become incredibly blurred. Hell, if we wanted to, we could record every moment we ever wanted to and store it into a neat and tidy timeline of moments that could quite literally make up the story of our lives. Rather than our life “flashing before our eyes” at the end, we could playback our lives in a flash with just a few clicks on a computer screen.

                Read More »Paul Hogan Poem on Capturing Moments (and Maybe When Not To)

                Richard Carlson Quote on Letting Go Of Expectations and A Short Story About Finding Inner Peace

                  “Whenever you expect something to be a certain way and it isn’t, you’re upset and you suffer. On the other hand, when you let go of expectations, when you accept life as it is, you’re free.”

                  Richard Carlson, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

                  Beyond the Quote (159/365)

                  A wealthy westerner, in search of peace of mind travels east to find a guru who might be able to help. After searching far and wide, through many towns and villages, he finally gets word of just the guru who can help. When they finally meet, the wise guru asks the wealthy westerner what is in the bag that he is holding so close to his heart. The wealthy man explains that it is a large sum of money that will be rewarded to whomever can help him find the inner peace that he so desperately hopes to find. The wise guru paused for a moment and reflected on the offer. Then, to everybody’s surprise, snatched the bag of money right from the man’s hands and ran away!

                  Read More »Richard Carlson Quote on Letting Go Of Expectations and A Short Story About Finding Inner Peace

                  Richard Carlson Quote on How Wherever You Go, There You Are.

                    “Something wonderful begins to happen with the simple realization that life, like an automobile, is driven from the inside out, not the other way around. As you focus more on becoming more peaceful with where you are, rather than focusing on where you would rather be, you begin to find peace right now, in the present. Then, as you move around, try new things, and meet new people, you carry that sense of inner peace with you. It’s absolutely true that, ‘Wherever you go, there you are.’

                    Richard Carlson, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

                    Beyond the Quote (140/365)

                    One of the tragedies that we experience every day is missing out on the moment because we’re somewhere else. Our consciousness is constantly twisted up in what already happened and what we’re anticipating might happen next. And I’m not talking about a few moments out of every day—I’m talking about the vast majority of our moments every day. Let’s see how the following examples sits with you.

                    Read More »Richard Carlson Quote on How Wherever You Go, There You Are.

                    Richard Branson Quote on Living In Every Moment—Not A Select Few Moments

                      “I don’t think of work as work and play as play.  It’s all living.”

                      Richard Branson, via Talk Like TED

                      Beyond the Quote (139/365)

                      When you are able to live life completely immersed in the present moment, Richard Branson is dead on, it’s ALL living. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, where you are, or who you’re with—it’s all a part of the whole life experience and we should be soaking it ALL in for what it is. For, what else do we ever have besides this moment? If we’re not living in this moment now, are we reserving life for a future point in time? When we lose touch with “the now” and mentally wander elsewhere, are we voluntarily letting go of chunks of our life? Let’s break it down.

                      Read More »Richard Branson Quote on Living In Every Moment—Not A Select Few Moments

                      Ryan Holiday Quote on How Being Present May Be The Hardest Thing In The World

                        “Being present demands all of us.  It’s not nothing.  It may be the hardest thing in the world.”

                        Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 25)

                        Beyond the Quote (138/365)

                        If you’ve ever tried to meditate, then you know how hard it is to be completely present for even a moment of time. Our brains are like monkeys diagnosed with ADD who just drank Red Bulls after taking a long napthey’re out of control. We’re constantly wandering to different trains of thought, replaying past situations, simulating future situations, and thinking about seemingly random and arbitrary things like monkeys and Red Bull and squirrels.

                        Read More »Ryan Holiday Quote on How Being Present May Be The Hardest Thing In The World

                          “During the recording of her album Interiors, the musician Rosanne Cash posted a simple sign over the doorway of the studio.  ‘Abandon Thought, All ye Who Enter Here.’  Not because she wanted a bunch of unthinking idiots working with her, but because she wanted everyone involved—included herself—to go deeper than whatever was on the surface of their minds.  She wanted them to be present, connected to the music, and not lost in their heads.” ~ Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 43)

                            “Don’t reject a difficult or boring moment because it is not exactly what you want.  Don’t waste a beautiful moment because you are insecure or shy.  Make what you can of what you have been given.  Live what can be lived.  That’s what excellence is.  That’s what presence makes possible.” ~ Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 28)

                              “We want to learn to see the world like an artist: While other people are oblivious to what surrounds them, the artist really sees.  Their mind, fully engaged, notices the way a bird flies or the way a stranger holds their fork or a mother looks at her child.  They have no thoughts of the morrow.  All they are thinking about is how to capture and communicate their experience.  An artist is present.  And from this stillness comes brilliance.” ~ Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 28)

                                “Who is so talented that they can afford to bring only part of themselves to bear on a problem or opportunity?  Whose relationships are so strong that they can get away with not showing up?  Who is so certain that they’ll get another moment that they can confidently skip over this one?  The less energy we waste regretting the past or worrying about the future, the more energy we will have for what’s in front of us.” ~ Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 27)

                                  “There’s no greatness in the future.  Or clarity.  Or insight.  Or happiness.  Or peace.  There is only this moment.  Not that we mean literally sixty seconds.  The real present moment is what we choose to exist in, instead of lingering on the past or fretting about the future.  It’s however long we can push away the impressions of what’s happened before and what we worry or hope might occur at some other time.  Right now can be a few minutes or a morning or a year—if you can stay in it that long.” ~ Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 27)

                                    “Being present demands all of us.  It’s not nothing.  It may be the hardest thing in the world.” ~ Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 25)

                                    Eckhart Tolle Quote on Taking Responsibility and Making the Present Moment Your Ally

                                      “Maybe you are being taken advantage of, maybe the activity you are engaged in is tedious, maybe someone close to you is dishonest, irritating, or unconscious, but all this is irrelevant.  Whether your thoughts and emotions about this situation are justified or not makes no difference.  The fact is that you are resisting what is.  You are making the present moment into an enemy.  You are creating unhappiness, conflict between the inner and the outer.  Your unhappiness is polluting not only your own inner being and those around you but also the collective human psyche of which you are an inseparable part.  The pollution of the planet is only an outward reflection of an inner psychic pollution: millions of unconscious individuals not taking responsibility for their inner space.”

                                      Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (Page 77)

                                      Beyond the Quote (82/365)

                                      It’s easy to point fingers, to yell at a screen, to identify all of the faults in other people’s decisions and actions—it’s hard to take responsibility and make positive decisions yourself.  What’s makes this harder is that you might even be right.  The mess of the world might very well be the fault of another—or the fault of many others.  But as Tolle points out, whether your thoughts and emotions about a given situation are justified or not makes no difference.

                                      Read More »Eckhart Tolle Quote on Taking Responsibility and Making the Present Moment Your Ally