If you haven’t noticed, I love quotes—life purpose quotes, meaning of life quotes, art of living quotes, you name it. I’ve spent years collecting hundreds of my favorite intentional living quotes of all-time (see links at the bottom of this page).
There’s something special about the short form of a single sentence.
And, an impactful quote can stay with you longer than an entire book.
The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotation.
— Isaac D’Israeli
Hopefully you’ll find a few new art of living quotes here to add to your collection.
25+ Art of Living Quotes to Inspire the Ultimate “Work” of our Lives
On the Greatest Art, Play, & Spirituality
“All artforms are in the service of the greatest of all arts: the art of living.” — Bertolt Brecht
“Just as writing can become calligraphy when it’s creatively, skillfully, and consciously performed, so can all other activities become art. In this case, we are reflecting upon life itself as an artistic statement—the art of living.” — H.E. Davey
“If you make anything more important than the actual living, then, you don’t know the art of living.” — Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
“He (Thoreau) declined to give up his large ambition of knowledge and action for any narrow craft or profession, aiming at a much more comprehensive calling, the art of living well.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
“A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play, his labour and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself he always seems to be doing both.” — L. P. Jacks
“Our spiritual traditions have carried virtues across time. They are tools for the art of living. They are pieces of intelligence about human behavior that neuroscience is now exploring with new words and images: what we practice, we become. What’s true of playing the piano or throwing a ball also holds for our capacity to move through the world mindlessly and destructively or generously and gracefully. I’ve come to think of virtues and rituals as spiritual technologies for being our best selves in flesh and blood, time and space. There are superstar virtues that come most readily to mind and can be the work of a day or a lifetime—love, compassion, forgiveness. And there are gentle shifts of mind and habit that make those possible, working patiently through the raw materials of our lives.” — Krista Tippett
“All happenings, great and small, are parables whereby God speaks. The art of life is to get the message.” — Malcolm Muggeridge
“The great moral teachers of humanity were in a way artistic geniuses in the art of living.” — Albert Einstein
“The richer we have become materially, the poorer we become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly in the air like birds and swim in the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.” — Anonymous (often attributed to Martin Luther King Jr.)
On Oneness, Mindfulness, & Attention
“There are three words that convey the secret of the art of living, the secret of all success and happiness: One With Life. Being one with life is being one with Now. You then realize that you don’t live your life, but life lives you. Life is the dancer, and you are the dance.” — Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“The art of living… is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.” — Alan Watts
“I’ve learned that the key to mastering the ‘art of living’ is learning how to pay attention. When you are mindful, you are in the moment. When you are in the moment, you are mastering the ‘art of living.'” — Marissa Boisvert
“Wherever you are, be there. Lifestyle is not something we do; it is something we experience. And until we learn to be there, we will never master the art of living well.” — Jim Rohn
“The supreme art of living is to strive to live each day well.” — Wilferd Peterson
“One does not practice meditation to become a great meditator. We meditate to wake up and live, to become skilled at the art of living.” — Elizabeth Lesser
“Seeing well transforms mere existence into the art of living.” — Alexandra Stoddard
“One learns the art of dying by learning the art of living: how to become master of the present moment.” — S. N. Goenka
“An old Eastern saying states, ‘Simplicity reveals the master.’ As we gradually master the art of living, a consciously chosen simplicity emerges as the expression of that mastery. Simplicity allows the true character of our lives to show through.” — Duane Elgin, Voluntary Simplicity
On Suffering, Surrender, & Acceptance
“The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living. Yet it is possible to practice the art of living even in a concentration camp, although suffering is omnipresent.” — Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
“The art of living is the art of bringing dreams and reality together.” — Tom Hodgkinson
“All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.” — Havelock Ellis
“The art of living is based on rhythm — on give and take, ebb and flow, light and dark, life and death. By acceptance of all aspects of life, good and bad, right and wrong, yours and mine, the static, defensive life, which is what most people are cursed with, is converted into a dance, ‘the dance of life,’ metamorphosis.” — Henry Miller
“The material and the spiritual are but two parts of one universe and one truth. By overstressing one part or the other, man fails to achieve the balance necessary for harmonious development… Practice the art of living in this world without losing your inner peace of mind. Follow the path of balance to reach the inner wondrous garden of Self-realization.” — Paramahansa Yogananda
“To do whatever is required of you in any situation without it becoming a role that you identify with is an essential lesson in the art of living that each one of us is here to learn.” — Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark. When we are able to take the next step with the trust that we will have enough light for the step that follows, we can walk through life with joy and be surprised at how far we go.” — Henri Nouwen
“Just trust yourself and you’ll learn the art of living.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Bonus: 2 Art of Living Books to go Further
Did the art of living quotes resonate with you? If so, check out these two books:
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu (Stephen Mitchell Version) (Summary | Amazon)
All he (Lao Tzu) left us is his book: the classic manual on the art of living, written in style of gemlike lucidity, radiant with humor and grace and largeheartednens and deep wisdom: one of the wonders of the world.”
— Stephen Mitchell
Enchiridion by Epictetus (Robin Hard Version) (Summary | Amazon)
The Handbook has been much used, from Marcus Aurelius onwards, as a source of Stoic ethical advice for ‘self-help’ or ‘guide to life purposes’…The Handbook and Discourses of Epictetus have been probably the most widely read and influential of all Stoic texts from their first appearance until now.
— Robin Hard
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