Breath Quotes

“Your breathing should flow gracefully,
like a river, like a watersnake crossing
the water, and not like a chain of rugged mountains or the gallop of a horse. To master our breath is to be in control of our bodies and minds. Each time we find ourselves dispersed and find it difficult to gain control of ourselves by different means, the method of watching the breath should always be used.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation

“I do my job like I breathe — so if I can’t breathe I’m in trouble.”
― Karl Lagerfeld

“O my love, my wife!
Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.”
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

“The river is now. This moment. This breath between us. The space between your heartbeats. The moment before you blink. The instant a thought flashes through your mind. It is everything that is around us. Life. Energy. Flowing, endlessly flowing, carrying you from then...to now...to tomorrow. Listen: you can hear the music of it. Of the passage of time.”
― Lisa Mangum

“The city takes a breath on Sunday. Of all that’s lost with the pursuit of what’s next, I hope we don’t lose that…”
― Hawksley Workman, Hawksley Burns For Isadora

“And then we ease him out of that worn-out body with a kiss, and he's gone like a whisper, the easiest breath.”
― Mark Doty

“When life is foggy, path is unclear and mind is dull, remember your breath. It has the power to give you the peace. It has the power to resolve the unsolved equations of life.”
― Amit Ray, Beautify your Breath - Beautify your Life

“And she was terribly aware that she was alive. Not just living and breathing, but ...alive.”
― Mary Balogh, Simply Love

“Divide the constant tide and random noisiness of energetic flow, with conscious recurring moments of empty mind, solitude, gratitude and deep...slow...breathing. Of this, the natural law of self-preservation demands.”
― T.F. Hodge, From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph over Death and Conscious Encounters With the Divine Presence

“We humans can never claim to do nothing, we breath, we pulse, we regenerate.”
― Suzanne Weyn, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

“In the end it's not about how many breaths you took.
In the end it's about the moments that took your breath away.”
― Volksweisheitheit

“Be thankful for a breath of fresh air to be alive and well. Allow love and happiness to penetrate throughout your mind and soul. Take time to relax and live in the moment, the now, the present. Enjoy today.”
― Amaka Imani Nkosazana

“Like go for a walk, say a little prayer
Take a deep breath of mountain air
Put on my glove and play some catch
It's time that I make time for that
Wade the shore and cast a line
Look up a long lost friend of mine
Sit on the porch and give my girl a kiss
Start livin', that's the next thing on my list.”
― Toby Keith

“To expect to be kissed having bad breath is the secret of a fool.”
― Dejan Stojanovic

“The breath of the mind is attention 128”
― Joseph Joubert, The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert: A Selection

“If we assume that the last breath of, say, Julius Caesar has by now become thoroughly scattered through the atmosphere, then the chances are that each of us inhales one molecule of it with every breath we take.”
― James Jeans, An Introduction to the Kinetic Theory of Gases

“Outside, as she passed the kitchen window, she watched her breath appear before her in the lamplight and then it died away in moist clouds. This was the smoke of her internal fire and her soul. Every breath was a letter to the world. These she mailed into the cold air leaning back with pursed lips to send it upward. ”
― Paulette Jiles, Enemy Women

“Rest:
as beautiful and necessary a task as any.
How else can we remember to breathe?
to think?
to shut out the world?
to not think?
to regain the strength
to take on the world?
to take in the world
with all our senses?
to dream?”
― Shellen Lubin

“Meditation is a mysterious method of self-restoration.

It involves “shutting” out the outside world, and by that means sensing the universal “presence” which is, incidentally, absolute perfect peace.

It is basically an existential “time-out”—a way to “come up for a breath of air” out of the noisy clutter of the world.

But don’t be afraid, there is nothing arcane or supernatural or creepy about the notion of taking a time-out. Ball players do it. Kids do it, when prompted by their parents. Heck, even your computer does it (and sometimes not when you want it to).

So, why not you?

A meditation can be as simple as taking a series of easy breaths, and slowly, gently counting to ten in your mind.”
― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“Death’s life should have listened to the moonly whispers of breathing in the coldest nights”
― Munia Khan

“The smell of the sea pleased him so much that he wanted one day to take it in, pure and unadulterated, in such quantities that he could get drunk on it. And later, when he learned from stories how large the sea is and that you can sail upon it in ships fit days on end without ever seeing land, nothing pleased him more than the image of himself shutting high up in the crow's nest of the foremost mast on such ship, gliding on through the endless shell of the sea -- which really was no smell, but a breath, an exhilaration of breath, the end of all smells -- dissolving with pleasure in that breath.”
― Patrick Suskind

“Every breath of mine had your name in it!”
― Avijeet Das

“Just be sure you brush your teeth tonight. Morning breath is a fresh sea breeze compared to the hellitosis of blood breath.”
― Jaye Wells, Silver-Tongued Devil

“Take every breath as an event.”
― Arzum Uzun

“Savor your existence. Live every moment. Do not waste a breath.”
― Nando Parrado, Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home

“Water is such a lifesaver into which we cannot breathe but without taking it into us we cannot live”
― Munia Khan

“Although our brain and nervous system only represent two percent of our body weight, they use a full 20 percent of oxygen we consume. When our breathing is dysfunctional oxygen supply is limited, and the conscious mind will work a little slower and perceive incoming stimuli as slightly more stressful and threatening”
― Anders Olsson, Conscious Breathing

“The city outside, so busy, so full of life, seemed in stark contrast to the deathly silence inside their home. It seemed...like a muffled silence, as if the house itself was holding its breath, waiting...”
― Marie McWilliams, Broken Mirrors

“Posted 7/17/18

The Breath – Let the Breath be the Boss

When we begin sitting, it’s good to begin with several big breaths, filling up the abdominal area,, the middle chest, and the upper chest until we’re full of air, and then just letting it out and holding the exhalation for a moment. Do this three or four times. In a sense, it’s artificial, but it helps to create a certain balance and forms a good basis for sitting.

Once we’ve done this, the next step is to forget it: forget controlling our breath. We won’t entirely forget, of course, but it’s useless to control the breath. Instead, just experience it, which is very different. We’re not trying to make the breath long, slow, and even, as many books suggest. Instead, what we want is to let the breath be the boss, so that the breath is breathing us.

If the breath is shallow, let it be that. As we become our breathing, the breath of its own accord starts to slow down. The breath stays shallow because we want to think rather than experience our lives. When we do this everything becomes more shallow and controlled.”
― Charlotte Joko Beck, Nothing Special: A Zen Buddhist Guide to Awakening Through Daily Life's Feelings, Relationships, and Work

“Put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that bottle of pop.

Turn off that cellphone, computer, and remote control.

Open the door, then close it behind you.

Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel the earth gathering essences of plants to clean.

Give it back with gratitude.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems