120 Quotes to Inspire Mindfulness and Understanding the Mind [Tips]9 min read

A selection of top 120 inspirational thoughts that encourage you to better understand the mind, integrate better coping strategies into your life and reduce needless stress and suffering. I have personally chosen the best amongst 1500 quotes. These quotes do not assume any belief on your part.

=> At the bottom of this page, you can download the free PDF for easy reference.

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves. ― Buddha

 

The mind commands the body and is instantly obeyed. The mind commands itself and meets resistance. ― St. Augustine

 

What happened to you is not as important as what happened in you. – Giovanni Dienstmann

 

Concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world. ― Albert Einstein

 

Failing to understand the workings of one’s own mind is bound to lead to unhappiness. ― Marcus Aurelius

 

If you do not monitor the stories you plant in your head, you will get lost amongst the weeds of your thoughts. – Sepi Tajima

 

It is the mind that makes good or ill, that makes wretch or happy, rich or poor. ― Edmund Spenser

 

Only in quiet waters things mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world. ― Hans Margolius

 

To see a thing clearly in the mind makes it begin to take form. ― Henry Ford

 

The biggest enemy you have to deal with is yourself. If there’s no enemy within, then the enemy outside can do us no harm. ― Les Brown.

 

The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation, but your thoughts about it. – Eckhart Tolle

 

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. ― John Milton

 

Just as dogs love to chew bones, the mind loves to get its teeth into problems. That’s why it does crossword puzzles and builds atom bombs. ― Eckhart Tolle

 

The country would be far better if the population were half as interested in keeping their minds in as good condition as they tried to keep their bodies. ― John Saul

 

Dispositions of the mind, like limbs of the body, acquire strength by exercise. ― Thomas Jefferson

 

The mind grows by what it feeds on. ― Josiah Gilbert Holland

 

The monsters of the mind are far worse than those that actually exist. Fear, doubt, and hate have hamstrung more people than beasts ever have. ― Christopher Paolini

 

Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind. ― Jeffrey Eugenides

 

There never can be a man so lost as one who is lost in the vast and intricate corridors of his own lonely mind, where none may reach and none may save. ― Isaac Asimov

 

Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not yours, not personal. They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go. Nothing that comes and goes is you. ― Eckhart Tolle

21

Those who exert the first influence upon the mind, have the greatest power. ― Horace Mann

 

There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect. ― Ronald Reagan

 

To swallow and follow, whether old doctrine or new propaganda, is a weakness still dominating the human mind. ― Charlotte Perkins Gilman

 

If the structures of the human mind remain unchanged, we will always end up re-creating the same world, the same evils, the same dysfunction. ― Eckhart Tolle

 

Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order. ― John Adams

 

The speed of the human mind is remarkable. So is its inability to face the obvious. ― Simon Mawer

 

He is the happiest man who is engaged in a business which tasks the most faculties of his mind. ― Henry Ward Beecher

 

If you would make your mind strong, you must give it strong food. ― Reuen Thomas

 

There are materials enough in every man’s mind to make a hell there. ― Henry Ward Beecher

 

I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another. ― Thomas Jefferson

 

Tyrants have not yet discovered any chains that can fetter the mind. ― Charles Caleb Colton

 

The mind is nothing less than a garden of inestimable value which man should strive to cultivate. ― William Scott Downey

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. ― Carl Jung

 

You must maintain strength of body in order to preserve strength of mind. ― Luc De Clapiers

 

As an orchard when manured produces pleasant trees and luscious fruit, so does a cultivated mind produce pure thoughts and noble actions. ― William Scott Downey

 

The greatest business of a man is to improve his mind. ― Wellins Calcott

 

Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another. ― Napoleon Hill

 

Do not brood over your past mistakes and failures as this will only fill your mind with grief, regret and depression. Do not repeat them in the future. ― Swami Sivananda

 

You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength. ― Marcus Aurelius

 

An ill principle in the mind is worse than the matter of a disease in the body. ― Benjamin Whichcote

41

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

 

Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain but it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving. ― Dale Carnegie

 

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. ― Joseph Addison

 

There is a big difference between believing in your mind and believing in yourself. It is vital to distinguish the two.  – Sepi Tajima

 

You don’t need strength to let go of something. What you really need is understanding. ― Guy Finley

 

To keep the body in good health is a duty, otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear. ― Buddha

 

A woman’s mind is cleaner than a man’s; she changes it more often.  ― Oliver Herford

 

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

 

You do not understand even life. How can you understand death? ― Confucius

 

To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to. ― Kahlil Gibran

 

Everyone hears only what he understands. ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. ― Aristotle

 

A matter that becomes clear ceases to concern us. ― Friedrich Nietzsche

 

The human mind works at low efficiency. 20% is the figure usually given. When, momentarily, there is a flash of greater power it is termed a hunch, or insight, or intuition. ― Isaac Asimov

 

The mind can weave itself warmly in the cocoon of its own thoughts, and dwell a hermit anywhere. ― James Russell Lowell

 

A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things, but cannot receive great things. ― Eliza Cook

 

It’s a good thing to turn your mind upside down now and then, like an hour-glass, to let the particles run the other way. ― Christopher Morley

 

The heart has its reasons, but the mind makes the excuses. ― Amit Abraham

 

When you make a choice, you change your future. ― Deepak Chopra

 

All problems are illusions of the mind. ― Eckhart Tolle

61

I was going to change my clothes, but I changed my mind instead. ― Jarod Kintz

 

The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled. ― Plutarch

 

A truly open mind means forcing our imaginations to conform to the evidence of reality, and not vice versa. ― Lawrence M. Krauss

 

Don’t change your mind just because people are offended; change your mind if you’re wrong. ― Criss Jami

 

Live to learn to love. Learn to love to live. Love to live to learn so that you may live the life that you yearn. ― Rico Dasheem

 

Books open your mind, broaden your mind, and strengthen you as nothing else can. ― William Feather

 

Your battles inspired me – not the obvious material battles but those that were fought and won behind your forehead. ― James Joyce

 

Your mind can be either your prison or your palace. What you make it is yours to decide. ― Bernard Kelvin Clive

 

The mind can never be satisfied. ― Wallace Stevens

 

A full belly is of little worth where the mind is starved. ― Mark Twain

 

Rise above the deceptions and temptations of the mind. This is your duty. You are born for this only; all other duties are self-created and self-imposed owing to ignorance. ― Sivananda Saraswati

 

Sometimes, being true to yourself means changing your mind. ― Vera Nazarian

 

You can do what you decide to do but you cannot decide what you will decide to do. ― Sam Harris

 

The word ‘innocence’ means a mind that is incapable of being hurt. ― Jiddu Krishnamurti

 

An active mind cannot exist in an inactive body. ― George S. Patton Jr.

 

The mind is left bereft when it is nothing more than a tool of regurgitation. ― Corey Taylor

 

A mind is like a puzzle; you must unlock it to read its hidden secrets. ― Melissa de la Cruz

 

Great minds think alike because a greater Mind is thinking through them. ― Criss Jami

 

If you fill your mind with a beautiful thought, there will be no room in it for an ugly one. ― Frances Hodgson Burnett

 

You are only as strong as the thoughts that constantly dwell in your mind. ― Edmond Mbiaka

81

There is nothing so disobedient as an undisciplined mind, and there is nothing so obedient as a disciplined mind. ― Gautama Buddha

 

Your future is only as bright as your mind is open. ― Rich Wilkins

 

Bring the mind into sharp focus and make it alert so that it can immediately intuit truth, which is everywhere. The mind must be emancipated from old habits, prejudices, restrictive thought processes and even ordinary thought itself. ― Bruce Lee

 

If you can’t change your mind, you can’t change anything. ― Orna Ross

 

There’s no better way to inform and expand you mind on a regular basis than to get into the habit of reading good literature. ― Stephen R. Covey

 

Most people believe the mind to be a mirror, more or less accurately reflecting the world outside them, not realizing on the contrary that the mind is itself the principal element of creation. ― Rabindranath Tagore

 

A man’s mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions. ― Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

 

Mind is a flexible mirror, adjust it, to see a better world. ― Amit Ray

 

I’ll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there’s evidence of any thinking going on inside it. ― Terry Pratchett

 

A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge. ― George R.R. Martin

 

A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that’s unlocked and opens inwards; as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push. ― Ludwig Wittgenstein

 

I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet. ― Mahatma Gandhi

 

You don’t have to stay trapped in your thoughts just because you think them. ― Doug Dillon

 

Small minds cannot grasp great ideas; to their narrow comprehension, their purblind vision, nothing seems really great and important but themselves. ― James Frazer

 

The mind is the pilot. We think of things before the body does them. ― Walt Disney

 

The only way for you to keep your mind straight is to run from those who would confuse you. ― Kristin Cashore

 

The mind is the attribute of man. When man is born, he comes into existence with only one weapon with him -the reasoning mind. ― Ayn Rand

 

You can, when you choose, sharpen the pencil of your mind to a very fine point. Specialize, my boy, specialize. ― Samuel Hopkins Adams

 

Of all the tyrannies on human kind, the worst is that which persecutes the mind. ― John Dryden

 

The one freedom you truly need to aspire is the freedom FROM your mind. ― Sepi Tajima

101

I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit. ― John Steinbeck

 

He who is continually changing his point of view sees more, and more clearly, than one who, statue-like, forever stands upon the same pedestal; however lofty and well-placed that pedestal may be. ― Arthur Helps

 

The mind is international and supra-national; it ought to serve not war and annihilation, but peace and reconciliation. ― Hermann Hesse

 

The mind is everything. What you think you become. ― Buddha

 

Our minds are sort of electrochemical computers. Your thoughts construct patterns like scaffolding in your mind. You are really etching chemical patterns. In most cases, people get stuck in those patterns, just like grooves in a record, and they never get out of them. ― Steve Jobs

 

A man’s mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind. ― James Allen

 

My mind is a bad neighborhood that I try not to go into alone. ― Anne Lamott

 

Mind is the master-power that moulds and makes. ― James Allen

 

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives. ― Henry David Thoreau

 

The mind commands the body and immediately it obeys. The mind orders itself, and meets resistance. ― Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

 

Cognitive psychology tells us that the unaided human mind is vulnerable to many fallacies and illusions because of its reliance on its memory for vivid anecdotes rather than systematic statistics. ― Steven Pinker

 

Few minds wear out; more rust out. ― Christian Nestell Bovee

Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue. ― Buddha

 

To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him. ― Buddha

 

There is nothing mind can do that cannot be better done in the mind’s immobility and thought-free stillness. ― Sri Aurobindo

 

To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders. ― Lao Tzu

 

Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve. ― Mary Kay Ash

 

The mind is a powerful force. It can enslave us or empower us. It can plunge us into the depths of misery or take us to the heights of ecstasy. Learn to use is wisely. ― David Cuschieri

 

Watch your thoughts, they become words; watch your words, they become actions; watch your actions, they become habits; watch your habits, they become character; watch your character, for it becomes your destiny. ― Frank Outlaw

 

Just as iron which is not used grows rusty, and water putrefies and freezes in the cold, so the mind of which no use is made is spoilt. ― Leonardo Da Vinci


Final Words

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