40 Yoga Quotes to Inspire Your Practice, and Life
Yoga philosophy speaks of timeless beauty and wisdom, and the practice itself is a vehicle for unraveling the beauty and wisdom within you. So you can live and love better in the world. If you could use some grace on the mat, read these yoga quotes. Yoga your own way: that's love.
40 Yoga Quotes Highlighting the Practice of Peace and Love
1. “The harmonizing of opposing forces is a key aspect of yoga — hot energy is united with cool energy, strong with soft, and masculine with feminine.” – Tara Fraser
2. “Yoga takes us to the present moment, the only place where life exists.” – Ellen Brenneman
3. “The asanas are useful maps to explore yourself, but they are not the territory.” – Donna Farhi
4. "Yoga is not about touching your toes, it is what you learn on the way down." – Jigar Gor
5. “The practice of Yoga brings us face to face with the extraordinary complexity of our own being.” – Sri Aurobindo
6. “That’s exactly how it is in yoga. The places where you have the most resistance are actually the places that are going to be the areas of the greatest liberation.” – Rodney Yee
7. “Words fail to convey the total value of yoga. It has to be experienced.” – BKS Iyengar
8. “The aim of yoga is to eliminate the control that material nature exerts over the human spirit, to rediscover through introspective practice what the poet T.S. Eliot called ‘the still point of the turning world.’” – Barbara Stoler Miller
9. "Yoga is the perfect opportunity to be curious about who you are." – Jason Crandell
10. “Yoga teaches us to cure what need not be endured and endure what cannot be cured.” – B.K.S. Iyengar
11. “Exercises are like prose, whereas yoga is the poetry of movements. Once you understand the grammar of yoga; you can write your poetry of movements.” ― Amit Ray, Yoga and Vipassana: An Integrated Life Style
12. “You cannot do yoga. Yoga is your natural state. What you can do are yoga exercises, which may reveal to you where you are resisting your natural state.” – Sharon Gannon
13. “A photographer gets people to pose for him. A yoga instructor gets people to pose for themselves.” – Terri Guillemets
14. "For those wounded by civilization, yoga is the most healing salve." – Terri Guillemets
15. “Yoga is essentially a practice for your soul, working through the medium of your body.” – Tara Fraser
16. “In our uniquely human capacity to connect movement with breath and spiritual meaning, yoga is born.” – Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa
17. “Yoga does not remove us from the reality or responsibilities of everyday life but rather places our feet firmly and resolutely in the practical ground of experience. We don’t transcend our lives; we return to the life we left behind in the hopes of something better.” – Donna Farhi
18. “The ultimate essence of yoga is the contact and the union between the individual consciousness and the divine consciousness.” – Raphael, Essence and Purpose of Yoga: The Initiatory Pathways to the Transcendent
19. "To perform every action artfully is yoga." – Swami Kripalvananda
20. “Yoga is not a religion. It is a science, science of well-being, science of youthfulness, science of integrating body, mind and soul.” ― Amit Ray, Yoga and Vipassana: An Integrated Life Style
21. “Practicing yoga during the day is a matter of keeping your eyes on the road and one ear turned toward the infinite.” – Erich Schiffmann
22. “Yoga is a dance between control and surrender – between pushing and letting go – and when to push and when to let go becomes part of the creative process, part of the open-ended exploration of your being.” – Joel Kramer
23. “Yoga teaches us that we can have whatever we may want in life if we are willing to provide it for others first.” ― Sharon Gannon
24. "Yoga is not about self-improvement, it’s about self-acceptance." – Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa
25. “Yoga is the unifying art of transforming dharma into action, be it through inspired thought, properly nurturing our children, a painting, a kindness or an act of peace that forever moves humanity forward. ” – Micheline Berry
26. “In asana practice we learn to cherish each breath, to cherish every cell in our bodies. The time we spend on the mat is love in action.” – Rolf Gates
27. “Mountain pose is an affirmation. You can conquer anything with your natural boldness and resolute strength. Only you can reach the peak of your success.” – Terri Guillemets
28. "Yoga is almost like music in a way; there’s no end to it." – Sting
29. “The very heart of yoga practice is abhyasa – steady effort in the direction you want to go.” – Sally Kempton
30. “Yoga accepts. Yoga gives.” – April Vallei
31. “Yoga is a way to freedom. By its constant practice, we can free ourselves from fear, anguish and loneliness.” – Indra Devi
32. “The reward for doing yoga well is simple—you get to do a better job at living a fulfilling life.” — Randal Williams
33. "While doing yoga we are more ourselves, and more than ourselves." – Valerie Jeremijenko
34. “Yoga is 99% practice and 1% theory.” – K. Pattabhi Jois
35. “Yoga is the art work of awareness on the canvas of body, mind, and soul.” ― Amit Ray, Yoga and Vipassana: An Integrated Life Style
36. “Yoga is a light, which once lit, will never dim. The better your practice, the brighter the flame.” – B.K.S. Iyengar
37. “Yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to the self.” – The Bhagavad Gita
38. "The attitude of gratitude is the highest yoga." – Yogi Bhajan
39. “Yoga is for internal cleansing, not external exercising. Yoga means true self-knowledge.” – Sri Krishna Pattabhi Jois
40. “The post begins when you want to get out of it.” – Baron Baptiste
. . .
Tell me:
Which of these quotes is your favorite?
Tell me in the comments. I read every single one, and I'd love to know!
With love,
Jen
P.S. Need a little more help letting go, accepting yourself, breathing? Get my book Sleep Rituals for 100 at-home practices (with a chapter on cozy yoga poses) that are all about you and the present moment. It’s more than a book about sleeping better. It’ll help you feel better so you can live and love better. And that’s… everything.
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