Quotes & Sayings About Aliveness

I synonymously felt my heart beat rapaciously, the heart which was once void of anything alive and well. Now the heart was rasping and knocking on my ribcage as if it was demanding to come out, take its root and grow. — Diyar Harraz

The amazing feeling of being alive beautifully conquers the fear of death — Munia Khan

Along with my spiritual practices of meditation, affirmative prayer, and visioning, what catalyzes my sense of aliveness is putting those practices into action by being of service to others. — Michael Beckwith

All things radiate forth an intense aliveness. — David Hawkins

You talk of beauty, love, laughter and life like a precious memory. As if the sunshine of love and laughter shall never flow into your life again. You make it sound like your present and future shall promise you nothing but safety and comfort in a sort of dead, dull way. What killed the spirit of madness, the spark of adventure and the sense of delicious fun ? Your aliveness ? Is this what it is to get old ? — Srividya Srinivasan

There is a way of beholding nature which is a form of prayer, a way of minding something with such clarity and aliveness that the rest of the world recedes. It ... gives the brain a small vacation. — Diane Ackerman

When there is spiritual awakening, you awaken into the fullness, the aliveness, and also the sacredness of now. You were absent, asleep, and now you are present, awake. — Eckhart Tolle

Laughter is essential to our equilibrium, to our well-being, to our aliveness. If we're not well, laughter helps us get well. If we are well, laughter helps us stay that way. — Peter McWilliams

There are no shadows in the Underdark. There is no room for imagination in the Underdark. It is a place for alertness, but not aliveness, a place with no room for hopes and dreams. — R.A. Salvatore

I believe that in our culture of simulation, the notion of authenticity is for us what sex was for the Victorians - threat and obsession, taboo and fascination. I have lived with this idea for many years; yet, at the museum, I found the children's position strangely unsettling. For them, in this context, aliveness seemed to have no intrinsic value. Rather, it is useful only if needed for a specific purpose. Darwin's endless forms so beautiful were no longer sufficient unto themselves. — Sherry Turkle

When you go deeply into the present, gratitude arises spontaneously, even if it's just gratitude for breathing, gratitude for the aliveness that you feel in your body. Gratitude is there when you acknowledge the aliveness of the present moment. — Eckhart Tolle

When our institutions lack movement to propel them forward, the Spirit, I believe, simply moves around them, like a current flowing around a rock in a stream...without that soul work that teaches us to open our deepest selves to God and ground our souls in love, no movement will succeed and no institution will stand...it is the linking of action and contemplation, great work and deep spirituality, that keeps goodness, rightness, beauty, and aliveness flowing...as Pope Francis has said, this moment calls for social poets: sincere and creative people who will rise on the wings of faith to catch the wind of the Spirit, the wind of justice, joy, and peace. (p. 180) — Brian McLaren

To trust in your own aliveness, in your own ability to sustain and be sustained - there are times when there is no greater act of defiance. — Jessica Fechtor

Most people are so distracted by their thoughts, so identified with the voices in their heads, they no longer feel the aliveness within them. To be unable to feel the life that animates the physical body, the very life that you are, is the greatest deprivation that can happen to you. — Eckhart Tolle

Once we've tasted being alive, we can't go back to being dead. Aliveness in God is addictive. — Nancy Groom

But my relief that David Auburn's Proof is less about its ballyhooed higher mathematics than the fragility of life and love was matched by my delight in his fine and tender play. ( ... ) Proof surprises us with its aliveness and intelligent modesty, and we have not met these characters before. — John Heilpern

Obviously there is pain in childbirth. But giving birth is also a moment of awe and wonder, a moment when the true miracle of aliveness, and of a woman's amazing part in that miracle, is suddenly experienced in every cell of one's body. It is in that sense truly an altered state of consciousness. — Riane Eisler

I must learn to love the fool in me
the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries. It alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled, masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of my human aliveness, humility, and dignity but for my Fool. — Theodore Isaac Rubin

I've failed so many times in my life that my recovery time has improved. I'm better at redirecting my attention. I've trained in Radical Aliveness and Core Energetics over the past couple of years and that has allowed me to see how much we project our failures onto others. It has taught me to accept myself. There is real power in owning your truth. — Damon Runyon

Get comfortable in emptiness, it where you connect with your inner existence. — Matthew Donnelly

Love, experienced thus, is a constant challenge; it is not a resting place, but moving, growing, working together; even when there is harmony or conflict, joy or sadness, is secondary to the fundamental fact that two people experience themselves, rather than by fleeing from themselves. There is only one proof for the presence of love: the depth of the relationship, and the aliveness and strength in each person concerned; this is the fruit by which love is recognized. — Erich Fromm

I didn't know there were different lines of aliveness, and two worlds contained by each other. — Lynda Barry

It's why we close the eyes, too. The dead shouldn't have to look on the lewd aliveness of the living. — Glen Duncan

Creativity should include everything that makes one feel alive. — Marty Rubin

This moment is not life waiting to happen, goals waiting to be achieved, words waiting to be spoken, connections waiting to be made, regrets waiting to evaporate, aliveness waiting to be felt, enlightenment waiting to be gained. No. Nothing is waiting. This is it. This moment is life. — Jeff Foster

To me, wholeness is the key to aliveness. It is more than just physical vitality, it is radiance, coming from being at one with yourself and your experience. Life then flows through you. — Richard Moss

All I could think of was you. All I can ever think about is you. Why am I always fighting it? Always fighting thinking about you, fighting this wonderful feeling about you. This aliveness. This love." I look into his eyes and smile like a madwoman. "I love you!" I can't stop saying it. "I love you. Love, love love. — Carolyn Crane

When a difficult situation comes into your life, it is possible to tune in to your mind and say, ?Okay, choose.? Are you going to make yourself miserable or content? Are you going to visualize scarcity or abundance? Are you going to put yourself down for getting angry with your husband or are you simply going to notice what insecurity you were feeling at the time and discuss it with him? The choice is definitely yours. Pick the one that contributes most to your aliveness and growth. — Susan Jeffers

A good poem has its own life. It's like bringing a child into the world. You, the poet, birthed the child, but the child will surprise you continually. I think a work of art has its own aliveness, its own future. — David Whyte

What does one person give to another? He gives of himself, of the most precious he has, he gives of his life. This does not necessarily mean that he sacrifices his life for the other - but that he gives him of that which is alive in him; he gives him of his joy, of his interest, of his understanding, of his knowledge, of his humor, of his sadness
of all expressions and manifestations of that which is alive in him. In thus giving of his life, he enriches the other person, he enhances the other's sense of aliveness by enhancing his own sense of aliveness. He does not give in order to receive; giving is in itself exquisite joy. But in giving he cannot help bringing something to life in the other person, and this which is brought to life reflects back to him. — Erich Fromm

It all happened. It wasn't a dream.
And I'm still alive.
I guess that's something. — Barry Lyga

Once I got started, I wanted the life of a writer so fiercely that nothing could stop me. I wanted the intensity, the sense of aliveness that came from writing fiction. I'm still that way. My life is worth living when I've completed a good paragraph. — Lynne Sharon Schwartz

Choose thoughts that give you the emotions of being alive and excited about life. — Bryant McGill

The experience of being in between-between the time we leave home and arrive at our destination; between the time we leave adolescence and arrive at adulthood; between the time we leave doubt and arrive at faith. It is like the time when a trapeze artist lets go the bars and hangs in midair, ready to catch another support: it is a time of danger, of expectation, of uncertainty, of excitement, or extraordinary aliveness. — Paul Tournier

Spirit is not a mystic concept. The spirit of a person is manifest in her aliveness, brightness of his eyes, in the resonance of her voice and in the ease and gracefulness of his movements. These qualities are related to and stem from a high level of energy in the body ... Sensing the harmony between the internal pulsation of our body and that in the universe, we feel identified with the universal, with God. We are like tuning forks vibrating at the same pitch — Alexander Lowen

Love is possible only if two persons communicate with each other from the center of their existence, hence if each one of them experiences himself from the center of his existence. Only in this 'central experience is human reality, only here is aliveness, only here is the basis for love. Love, experienced thus is a constant challenge; it is not a resting place, but a moving, growing, working together ... they are one with each other by being one with themselves. — Erich Fromm

Ask yourself "Is the inside of me alive? — Matthew Donnelly

There is a joy in the actual taste of vanilla ice cream that does not come from knowing the chemical formula of vanilla. There is a joy, an inherent aliveness in the body that you can experience if you pay attention to your body. But if you live up in your head, in your words all the time, you don't notice it. — Charles Tart

Everybody is dealing with how much of their own aliveness they can bear and how much they need to anesthetize themselves. — Adam Phillips

Sadhana The consumption of a spoonful of clarified butter (ghee in India) on a daily basis a few minutes before a meal does wonders for the digestive system. If you eat clarified butter with sugar, as in sweets, it is digested and turns into fat. But clarified butter without sugar can cleanse, heal, and lubricate the alimentary canal. Additionally, the cleansing of the colon will immediately manifest as a certain glow and aliveness in your skin. Even those who prefer not to consume dairy products could experiment with this because clarified butter passes through the system largely without getting digested. — Sadhguru

The pain was quite extraordinary. And yet also weirdly welcome and restorative, bringing him news of his aliveness and his caughtness in a story larger than himself. — Jonathan Franzen

Aliveness always makes a beautiful. — Erich Fromm

Exercising leadership is an expression of your aliveness ... But when you cover yourself up, you risk losing something as well. In the struggle to save yourself, you can give up too many of those qualities that are the essence of being alive, like innocence, curiosity, and compassion. — Ronald A. Heifetz

In truth we are not separate from each other or from the world, from the whole earth, the sun or moon or billions of stars, not separate from the entire universe. Listening silently in quiet wonderment, without knowing anything, there is just one mysteriously palpitating aliveness. — Toni Packer

It's not the meaning of life we seek but our aliveness. Once we have that, the meaning of life is obvious. — Anodea Judith

It's saying no. That's your first hint that something's alive. It says no. That's how you know a baby is starting to turn into a person. They run around saying no all day, throwing their aliveness at everything to see what it'll stick to. You can't say no if you don't have desires and opinions and wants of your own. You wouldn't even want to. No is the heart of thinking. — Catherynne M Valente

Self-actualizing people are those who have come to a high level of maturation, health and self-fulfillment ... the values that self-actualizers appreciate include truth, creativity, beauty, goodness, wholeness, aliveness, uniqueness, justice, simplicity, and self-sufficiency. — Abraham Maslow

Energy always flows either toward hope, community, love, generosity, mutual recognition, and spiritual aliveness or it flows toward despair, cynicism, fear that there is not enough, paranoia about the intentions of others, and a desire to control. — Michael Lerner

Can one have love? If we could, love would need to be a thing, a substance that one can have, own, possess. The truth is, there is no such thing as "love." "Love" is abstraction, perhaps a goddess or an alien being, although nobody has ever seen this goddess. In reality, there exists only the act of loving. To love is a productive activity. It implies caring for, knowing, responding, affirming, enjoying: the person, the tree, the painting, the idea. It means bringing to life, increasing his/her/its aliveness. It is a process, self-renewing and self-increasing. — Erich Fromm

There are so many minutes and hours and days we spend taking life for granted, not feeling it so much as going along with it. But then there are moments like this, when the aliveness of life is crystalline, palpable, undeniable. It is the ultimate buoy against drowning. It is the ever-saving grace. — David Levithan

Most of us want to be authentic. Yet, we are not who we think we are. We are made up of a rich array of facets and possibilities, many of which we ignore because we label them as "bad". We create a cardboard cutout image of ourselves to look good to others. The discord between who we are and the image we have to live up to slowly kills our aliveness. When we suppress parts of ourselves, it lowers our mojo, sense of fulfillment, leadership effectiveness and impact in the workplace. — Henna Inam

On the whole, it was not the crudest, the simplest, the most animalistic and primitive aspects of the human species that were reflected in the natural phenomena. It was, rather, the more complex, the aesthetic, the intricate, and the elegant aspects of people that reflected nature. It was not my greed, my purposiveness, my so-called 'animal,' so-called 'instincts,' and so forth that I was recognizing on the other side of that mirror, over there in 'nature.' Rather, I was seeing there the roots of human symmetry, beauty and ugliness, aesthetics, the human being's very aliveness and little bit of wisdom. His wisdom, his bodily grace, and even his habit of making beautiful objects are just as 'animal' as his cruelty. — Gregory Bateson

Eroticism. Though I doubt that they ever used this word, they embodied its mystical meaning as a quality of aliveness, a pathway to freedom — Esther Perel

One of the reasons people get old - lose their aliveness - is that they get weighed down by all of their stuff. — Richard Leider

If you seek the realms of light, the best thing to do is to meditate with love and the gentle aliveness. Meditation should not be forced. — Frederick Lenz

But before Christianity was a rich and powerful religion, before it was associated with buildings, budgets, crusades, colonialism, or televangelism, it began as a revolutionary nonviolent movement promoting a new kind of aliveness on the margins of society. — Brian D. McLaren

Without perceiving things through the old filter of past conditioning and conceptualization, one can sense the universe is intensely alive. Even so-called inanimate objects - I often pick up little objects and just look at them and sense that they are alive. Physicists actually confirm that what we perceive as dead matter is not dead at all. Everything is an intensely alive energy field. That aliveness is only an aspect of the aliveness or life that I am. — Eckhart Tolle

We work so hard to get somewhere, to realize a dream, to arrive at some destination, that we often forget that though some satisfaction may be waiting at the end of our endurance and effort, there is great and irreplaceable aliveness in the steps along the way. — Mark Nepo

Fusing the doctrines of Plotinus and Proclus with the creeds and beliefs of Christianity, Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite combined the Neo-Platonic conviction of the fundamental oneness and luminous aliveness of the world with the Christian dogmas of the triune God, original sin and redemption. The universe is created, animated and unified by the perpetual self-realization of what Plotinus had called "the One," what the Bible had called "the Lord," and what he calls "the superessential Light. — Erwin Panofsky

Enthusiasm is when the universe creates through you. You are involved in a creative act. You are bringing something new into this world. When that energy comes in, you feel an intense aliveness that flows into what you do. That is enthusiasm. — Eckhart Tolle

Because they were young. Because one is young only once in a life lived only once. Because recklessness is the only fist to throw at nothingness. How much aliveness can one bear? — Jonathan Safran Foer

I have no interest in the justification of circumstances or producing guilt in others by assigning obligation. I am interested in providing an opportunity for people to experience mastery in the matter of their own lives and the experience of satisfaction, fulfillment, and aliveness. These are a function of the self as context rather than thing, the self as space rather than location or position, the self as cause rather than self at effect. — Werner Erhard

Discovery of purpose is a continuous activity, and revelation of it is an ongoing process ... The most fortunate people on earth are those who have found a calling that is bigger than they are, a reason for living that moves them and fills their lives with constant passion, aliveness, and growth. Your soul's true purpose is to be the love that you are! — Glenda Green

But it is important to realize we are all trapped in mental constructs, and so we separate ourselves from reality; the whole world loses its aliveness-or, rather, we lose our ability to sense that aliveness, the sacredness of nature. When we approach nature through the conceptualizing mind, we see a forest as a commodity, a concept. We no longer see it for what it truly is, but for what we want to use it as. It is reduced. This is how it becomes possible for humans to destroy the planet without realizing what they are doing. — Eckhart Tolle

Feel the energy of your inner body. Immediately mental noise slows down or ceases. Feel it in your hands, your feet, your abdomen, your chest. Feel the life that you are, the life that animates the body. The body then becomes a doorway, so to speak, into a deeper sense of aliveness underneath the fluctuating emotions and underneath your thinking. — Eckhart Tolle

Acting in its purest form is an urge from deep in the human psyche to celebrate our aliveness, to act our dreams and fantasies in a public display of our most private selves. — Darryl Hickman

The thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, hoping that others might then dream along with you, and in this way memory and imagination and language combine to make spirits in the head. There is the illusion of aliveness. — Tim O'Brien

Meditation is just a courage to be silent and alone. Slowly slowly, you start feeling a new quality to yourself, a new aliveness, a new beauty, a new intelligence - which is not borrowed from anybody, which is growing within you. It has roots in your existence. — Rajneesh

Your body talks to you in sensations; feelings of tension, fear, hunger, pleasure, aliveness, and pain are just some of the ways it attempts to communicate with you. This is why staying connected to your physical self - with as little conflict as possible - is fundamental to health and wellbeing. If you spend copious amounts of energy attempting to diminish your body, or if your imagination is limited such that you cannot see beauty in yourself, then you become disconnected from the world around you. You lose perspective and purpose. — Connie Sobczak

Nature is impulsive. To be impulsive is to be fully alive. — Marty Rubin

Spiritual awakening - is becoming awake to the aliveness of this moment. — Eckhart Tolle

Mystery has great power. In the many years I have worked with people with cancer, I have seen Mystery comfort people when nothing else can comfort them and offer hope when nothing else offers hope. I have seen Mystery heal fear that is otherwise unhealable. For years I have watched people in their confrontation with the unknown recover awe, wonder, joy, and aliveness. They have remembered that life is holy, and they have reminded me as well. In losing our sense of Mystery, we have become a nation of burned-out people. People who wonder do not burn out. — Rachel Naomi Remen

The word emptiness comes a cross as a word that means dealing with a large void or insecurity within. When the opposite is true. Being in touch with emptiness means being in touch with your inner existence. — Matthew Donnelly

The next time you find yourself in some way trying desperately to land safely, your compassion might be what finally gives you the courage you need to let go of the controls. In doing so, you might discover that each time you let go, it becomes easier and easier to re-enter the atmosphere of your own aliveness. Gradually you'll come home to the flow of your own living presence, the warmth and space of your awakening heart. — Tara Brach

There's a sense of aliveness that comes from connection, shared experience. And you see it in every place. You see it when ball players jump up and down, gather at home plate, hugging, and it's not just because they're winning, it's that shared moment, that feeling of - we enter the world alone, we leave alone. — Peter Guber

In the classic children's story The Velveteen Rabbit, a stuffed animal becomes "real" because of a child's love. Tamagotchis do not wait passively but demand attention and claim that without it they will not survive. With this aggressive demand for care, the question of biological aliveness almost falls away. We love what we nurture; if a Tamagotchi makes you love it, and you feel it loves you in return, it is alive enough to be a creature. — Sherry Turkle

Then what is the relationship between something that you do and the state of joy? You will enjoy any activity in which you are fully present, any activity that is not just a means to an end. It isn't the action you perform that you really enjoy, but the deep sense of aliveness that flows into — Eckhart Tolle

With awareness there comes choice. And so you are able to say: "I allow this moment to be as it is". And then, suddenly, where before there was irritation, there is now a sense of aliveness and peace. And out of that comes right action. — Eckhart Tolle

Grief is an element of aliveness and the answer to the denial the market demands of us. It is an index of our humanity. It is proof of the presence of our relatedness to each other. It is a communal practice that recognizes that choosing the wilderness of vulnerability, mystery, and anxiety was a good and life-affirming choice. — Walter Brueggemann

When you are present, when your attention is fully in the Now, Presence will flow into and transform what you do. There will be a quality and power in it. You are present when what you are doing is not primarily a means to an end (money, prestige, winning) but fulfilling in itself, when there is joy and aliveness in what you do. — Eckhart Tolle

I tell myself it's a virtue, my failure to sleep in my own house, or at all. I tell myself that I spend more hours than most people aware that I am alive, and that over a lifetime this adds up to more living, more aliveness. I am more alive than the rest of my family. Which is my greatest night fear. Which is why I hunt. I don't ever want to be more alive than they are. — Heidi Julavits

The peace that comes with surrendered action turns to a sense of aliveness when you actually enjoy what you are doing. — Eckhart Tolle

In any moment, no matter how lost we feel, we can take refuge in presence and love. We need only pause, breathe, and open to the experience of aliveness within us. In that wakeful openness, we come home to the peace and freedom of our natural awareness. — Tara Brach

When negative feelings move upon you, reflect, and recognize the danger of feeding those feelings and keeping them alive. — Bryant McGill

I am sure everyone has had the experience of reading a book and finding it vibrating with aliveness, with colour and immediacy. And then, perhaps some weeks later, reading it again and finding it flat and empty. Well, the book hasn't changed: you have. — Doris Lessing

Aliveness, he will teach, is a gift available to all by God's grace. It flows not from taking, but giving, not from fear but from faith, not from conflict but from reconciliation, not from domination but from service. It isn't found in the upper trappings of religion -rules and rituals, controversies and scruples, temples and traditions. No, it springs up from our innermost being like a fountain of living water. It intoxicates us lie the best wine ever and so turns life from disappointment into a banquet. — Brian D. McLaren

Steve's throat swelled with tension as the intimacy of the moment became more tangible. He moved his eyes from the dark, reflective river, to the dark, reflective pupils in Diane's eyes. They seemed to quiver with tenderness - but then they would grow distant. He found himself continually surprised at the "aliveness" of the person standing just a foot away from him now. She wasn't inanimate: she would flinch if he pinched her, and answer if he asked her. And she was beautiful."
From "The Grand Unified Story"
a short story in Zack Love's Stories and Scripts: an Anthology — Zack Love

If uncertainty is unacceptable to you, it turns into fear. If it is perfectly acceptable, it turns into increased aliveness, alertness, and creativity. — Eckhart Tolle

When we limit ourselves by being the person we "should" be, we limit our aliveness. We may achieve success but not fulfillment because we are not living out all the important truths about ourselves, truths we need to slow down to excavate. — Henna Inam

The romantic view of the natural world as a blissful Eden is only held by people who have no actual experience of nature. People who live in nature are not romantic about it at all. They may hold spiritual beliefs about the world around them, they may have a sense of the unity of nature or the aliveness of all things, but they still kill the animals and uproot the plants in order to eat, to live. If they don't, they will die. — Michael Crichton

That we find freedom, aliveness and power not from what contains, locates, or protects us but from what dissolves, reveals and expands us. — Eve Ensler

Something inside you emerges ... an innate, indwelling peace, stillness, aliveness. It is the unconditioned, who you are in your essence. It is what you had been looking for in the love object. It is yourself. — Eckhart Tolle

The only two things in our lives are aliveness and patterns that block our aliveness. — Werner Erhard

A hibernating snail doe not necessarily mean it is dead — Messaoud Mohammed

Express your aliveness by giving - of yourself, of your resources, of your heart. — Patti Digh

Humanity cannot afford to acknowledge all of the blood that it spills and the destruction it inflicts on the world in its effort to perpetuate itself. Desacralization is a process that allows us to sever any relationship we might feel to other living things. By draining the aliveness out of things, we can pretend that our control and manipulation are of little consequence. Man the trapper becomes man the taxidermist, disemboweling nature of its spontaneity and movement, and stuffing it with a leaden inanimateness. — Jeremy Rifkin

Feel the Aliveness within your Body. That anchors You in the Now. — Eckhart Tolle

Authenticity is a choice we make about who we want to be that inspires our greater aliveness. — Henna Inam

Everything is a gift. The degree to which we are awake to this truth is a measure of our gratefullness, and gratefullness is a measure of our aliveness. — David Steindl-Rast

When I prayed I was new," wrote a great theologian of Christian antiquity, "but when I stopped praying I became old." Prayer is the way to renewal and spiritual life. Prayer is aliveness to God. Prayer is strength, refreshment, and joy. — Greek Orthodox Archdiocese Of America