Quotes & Sayings About Peaceful Living

I know, for example, that Mr. Petersen did not experience the flow of time in the same way that I did during those last sixteen months. He told me often, particularly towards the end, that for him time had become a slow, peaceful drift. If I had to guess why this was the case, I'd say that maybe it was because this was time he never expected to have. Or maybe it was more than he was now letting time drift. There was a certain type of contentment in his outlook, which never strayed too far into the future. His life had become simple and uncluttered, and when you're living like that, I think time can seem to stretch out for ever. Matters only change when you start fretting about all the things you need to get done. The more stuff you try to force into it, the less accommodating time becomes. — Gavin Extence

I have seen death face to face and returned to the world of living beings. I have savored the fear of death by the drops, My conviction is strong because my experience is direct. Life is full of agitation and anxieties, death is calm, cool and peaceful. It is not death but the fear of death that is painful. And that fear, I tell you, is entirely baseless. — Manoje Basu

But if anyone were to conduct his life by reason He would find great riches in living a peaceful life And being contented; one is never short of a little But men want always to be powerful and famous So that their fortune rests on a solid foundation And they can spend a placid life in opulence. There isn't a hope of it; to attain great honours You have to struggle along a dangerous way And even when you reach the top there is envy Which can strike you down like lightning into Tartarus. For envy, like lightning, generally strikes at the top Or any point which sticks out from the ordinary level. — Lucretius

When we are capable of living in the moment free from the tyranny of "shoulds," free from the nagging sensation that this moment isn't right, we will have peaceful hearts. — Joan Z. Borysenko

Peace is possible for dead bodies, living bodies can not expect peace on the way to the victory. — Amit Kalantri

May the judge disappear, and the philosopher continue the peaceful exploration of the sea! If his destiny be strange, it is also sublime. Have I not understood it myself? Have I not lived ten months of this unnatural life? And to the question asked by Ecclesiastes three thousand years ago, "That which is far off and exceeding deep, who can find it out?" two men alone of all now living have the right to give an answer - CAPTAIN NEMO AND MYSELF. — Jules Verne

Human has no experience at all about
living in a peaceful world without war. — Toba Beta

America has always been greatest when we dared to be great. We can reach for greatness again. We can follow our dreams to distant stars, living and working in space for peaceful, economic, and scientific gain. Tonight, I am directing NASA to develop a permanently manned space station, and to do it within a decade. — Ronald Reagan

The teacher asks a question.
You know the answer, you suspect
you are the only one in the classroom
who knows the answer, because the person
in question is yourself, and on that
you are the greatest living authority,
but you don't raise your hand.
You raise the top of your desk
and take out an apple.
You look out the window.
You don't raise your hand and there is
some essential beauty in your fingers,
which aren't even drumming, but lie
flat and peaceful.
The teacher repeats the question.
Outside the window, on an overhanging branch,
a robin is ruffling its feathers
and spring is in the air. — Mary Ruefle

Many children, early on, acquire a love of places they have never been. Often, such wonder is summarily crushed on the crawl through the sludge of murky, confused adolescence on to the flat, cracked pan of adulthood with its airless vistas ever lurking beyond the horizon. Oh, well, sometimes such gifts of curiosity, delight and adventure do indeed survive the stationary trek, said victims ending up as artists, scholars, inventors and other criminals bent on confounding the commonplace and the platitudes of peaceful living. But never mind them for now, since, for all their flailing subversions, nothing really ever changes unless in service to convenience. — Steven Erikson

The moment when your heart's rhythm synchronises with the chants of the holy temple, you find God in your soul. It was noisy yet peaceful. They were all dancing in the packed hall, with eyes closed and hands swinging up in the air. It was as if the motto of life was nothing but to enjoy this very moment and taste the love of the almighty. — Sandeep Sharma

I love to garden and cook whenever I get the chance and escape anywhere that's peaceful and quiet. My philosophy on living well is to always stay positive in life. — Francisco Costa

Don't ever believe that you are going to be peaceful-life is not like that. When you are changing all the time, you've got to continue to keep adjusting to change, which means that you are going to be constantly facing new obstacles. That's the joy of living. And once you are involved in the process of becoming, there is no stopping. You're doomed! You're gone! But what a fantastic journey! Every day is new. Every flower is new. Every face is new. Everything in the world is new, every morning of your life. Stop seeing it as a drag! — Leo Buscaglia

Foretold through memories I remember what dangers I was warned of if lived by ways of sinning. That by living a fruitful life with an open mind to love all people would bring me to a place of peaceful tranquility. I wonder if these are all lies. All of them. — Nicholas A. McGirr

We co-existed in peaceful detachment — Tsitsi Dangarembga

No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening - it's painful! But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way" (Hebrews 12:11 NLT). — Rick Warren

Hate destroys, love builds: be a creator. Fear closes, love opens: be an advocate for life. Guilt stagnates, love permits: be a peaceful warrior. Anger takes away, love gives: be a foundation for life. A defeatist attitude makes its own bed while love has the power to design its very own house. — Madelaine Standing

If there is a central theme to what I called "a peaceful warrior's approach to living," and to The Four Purposes of Life, it is that there may be innumerable techniques or methods one can learn (from the Eastern spiritual cultures and from the Western psychological tradition), but that above and beyond all these technologies waits the school of everyday life. — Dan Millman

I'll be living quietly in a house somewhere in the suburbs, enjoying a peaceful existence not writing the book I'm not writing now and, so as to continue not doing so, I will come up with different excuses from the ones I use now to avoid actually confronting myself. Or else I'll be interned in a poorhouse, content with my utter failure, mingling with the riffraff who believed they were geniuses when in fact they were just beggars with dreams, mixing with the anonymous mass of people who had neither the strength to triumph nor the power to turn their defeats into victories. — Fernando Pessoa

The vast majority of Muslims living here are peaceful citizens. Unfortunately, however, we also see religious and political fanaticism among Muslim groups in Germany. — Otto Schily

We're all looking for a peaceful and safe place, but maybe there is no such place. But we keep going no matter what's waiting for us down the road. We don't stop living. — Fuyumi Soryo

It is important to realize that you are fundamentally made up of Life Particles, as is everyone else. Please realize that you, like everyone you meet, possess a MindScreen. Making use of this powerful asset will help you cultivate a healthier, happier and more peaceful life, and it will help you do the same for others. — Ilchi Lee

At the age of twelve I had an attitude toward life that was to endure, that was to make me seek those areas of living that would keep it alive, that was to make me skeptical of everything while seeking everything, tolerant of all and yet critical. The spirit I had caught gave me insight into the suffering of others, made me gravitate toward those whose feelings were like my own, made me sit for hours while others told me of their lives, made me strangely tender and cruel, violent and peaceful. — Richard Wright

My liberty is about living. It's about spreading more love. Even though I was always a peaceful, loving individual, my music sometimes didn't reflect that. But now it's different. My music is reflecting the way I feel. — Snoop Dogg

Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and unnecessary and humorless American class system created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been passed. Thus the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went bang in the noonday sun. — Kurt Vonnegut

I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

There is a great deal of nonsense written on the subject of diversity and multiculturalism, but the fact remains that the great challenge facing our world is that of maintaining clear convictions and strong commitments while living in peaceful proximity with people with different convictions and commitments, avoiding brittle bigotry on the one hand and soggy relativism on the other. — Maria Poggi Johnson

For me, minimalism is about getting rid of unnecessary clutter (in all areas of life!), organizing what is left, and living in a peaceful, contented state, devoid of the extra stress that too much baggage brings to your life. — Kristen D. Smith

A quiet soul, peaceful life — Lailah Gifty Akita

Life can be impossibly tough. At times it seems like there is no escape from either the pressure or monotony of a world where you are corralled into being something or someone you are not. But there is an escape, to more peaceful and gentler places, and a happier state of mind. — Fennel Hudson

Peaceful is he who is living in the moment, but not in the past nor in the future. — Debasish Mridha

Mindfulness increases the awareness of the Nature of the Mind. If we learn to Control our Mind and Listen to our Souls we can consciously choose to be Joyful instead of sad, Peaceful and Loving, Alert and Relaxed. — Natasa Nuit Pantovic

As a Naval officer, I've been all over the world, and one of the foundational lessons I learned was that parents everywhere would like to raise their children to a higher standard of living in a peaceful environment. That's a universal goal for families. — Michael Mullen

Birthed in a riotous sea of heat and violence, this world was never good, never peaceful, never without suffering, pain and anxiety. There was never an armistice between all living and not-so living things, nor can evidence be found to suggest there ever was - or still is - a loosely balanced war tumbling across Creation with the advantage swinging between the forces of light and happiness, and those of darkness and misery. Fire has always burned flesh, water has always drowned babies, and Creation has only ever exhibited but one impulse, one motive, one direction: towards increasing complexity, where complexity - across all systems, animate and inanimate - corresponds precisely to the degree and depth of potential suffering available to those contingent things whose participation in Creation was never solicited. — John Zande

Later I stirred again, knowing the night was passing, but unwilling to wake fully lest this fair vision be lost forever. There was an arm across me, holding the cloak around me; and the same old blanket covered the two of us. Darragh lay behind me, his body curled neatly against my own, his living warmth a part of me, his slow peaceful breathing steady against my hair. I kept quite still. I did not allow myself to return to full consciousness. I thought, if it all ended right now, I wouldn't mind a bit. Let it end now, so I need never wake. And I slipped back into sleep. — Juliet Marillier

No man can have a peaceful life who thinks too much about lengthening it, or believes that living through many consulships is a great blessing. 5. Rehearse this thought every day, that you may be able to depart from life contentedly; for many men clutch and cling to life, even as those who are carried down a rushing stream clutch and cling to briars and sharp rocks. — Seneca.

Most of our healing occurs during quiet moments of rest when we are in contact with unconscious feelings and experiences. I can't imagine life without the peaceful, insightful moments I have during meditation. — Janet Gallagher Nestor

With your thoughts, emotions, and beliefs under control, you can have as much as the richest man and be as peaceful as a Buddhist monk . You can experience inner-happiness and euphoric love. — Maddy Malhotra

The purpose of meditation is to make our mind calm and peaceful. If our mind is peaceful, we will be free from worries and mental discomfort, and so we will experience true happiness. But if our mind is not peaceful, we will find it very difficult to be happy, even if we are living in the very best conditions. — Kelsang Gyatso

He felt his arms ache and, looking down, saw that the girl had stopped struggling. There came that point, that sudden, blissful point, when it was useless to go on living, and when the mind and body came to accept that such was the case. That was a beautiful, peaceful moment, the most relaxed moment of one's life. — Ian Rankin

If forgiveness, kindness and humanity could have changed something; today we would have been living a peaceful world. — M.F. Moonzajer

Don't pray that God would teach you how to love like He loves; pray that He would fill you with Himself and that He would love in and through you. Don't pray that He would teach you to have joy; pray that the living God full of joy would enter into you. Don't pray that He would teach you how to be peaceful; ask for the God of peace, the Prince of peace to infill you. Because if you try to imitate in your own strength, you will be a miserable replica. But if you allow the impartation of Jesus Christ to overtake you, suddenly it all works because it is Him imitating Himself, and He is very good at being God. — Eric Ludy

If it's okay to enrich ourselves by denying foreigners the right to earn a living, why shouldn't we enrich ourselves by invading peaceful countries and seizing their assets? Most of us don't think that's a good idea, and not just because it might backfire. We don't think it's a good idea because we believe human beings have human rights, whatever their colour and wherever they live. Stealing assets is wrong, and so is stealing the right to earn a living, no matter where the victim was born. — Steven E. Landsburg

You better not be touched by love; you are living peacefully. But if you do, you better not be left by it. Because The Wounded in love is only shreds of heart scattered. Even if you manage to regain your heart, you will never be that peaceful person again. Such is the curse of love. — Heenashree Khandelwal

Better to sink with tempests raging o'er
Masts all dismantled and hull gaping wide
Than rest and rot on some unclouded shore
The idle plaything of the listless tide.

Better the grime of battle on the brow,
With grim defeat to crush thy dying hand
Than through long years of peace to tyrant bow
Or dwell captive in a strangers land.

Better the castle with beleaguered gate,
By battle's lightning shivered in a day
Than peaceful walls in pomp of sullen state,
Through centuries sinking to a dull decay.

Better resolve to win thy heart's desire,
And striving bravely, die in the endeavor
Than have the embers of some smothered fire
Lie smouldering in thy saddened soul forever. — Sam Davis

Live in the mysterious. Accepting and being fully at peace with not knowing what's going to happen in the future will allow us to be fully present and more peaceful in the present. — Matthew Donnelly

Excerpt from "The Long Road from Perdition" for the day:
" ... I've always been drawn to the ocean. It is here that I now feel peaceful and can lose my thoughts while immersed in the deafening sounds of waves crashing around me. The spray and mist of the ocean's past seem to be a living, breathing yet wounded animal. The fury of the waves never settled and the spew of the foam touched all that dared to sit near it.
There is no reason to flinch as the waves spray and crash against the shore. It is a natural progression I have learned to endure. However, it is the rescinding of the waves and fluid release of fury that I struggle to understand and coexist with peacefully. I hope one day to master it. — J.R. Stone

Living with this gratitude elevates you ... You become a more joyful person. You become a kinder and more compassionate person. You become a calmer and more peaceful person. You become a person who lives in greater harmony with others. — Zelig Pliskin

If others think I am nuts, naive, gullible, and not living in the real world, that's all right, too... I'll gladly stay in what some have called my fictitious world, my happy and peaceful world, a world full of signs of hope. — Ward Foley

Self-acceptance isn't the beginning of happiness; it's at the core of peaceful and happy living. — K.J. Kilton

Live now, enjoy Life now! Love now, for this now is the precious moment that is creating our lives. Each now is unique
it won't come back in time. In it we leave a footprint, and within that impression are the actions we leave behind. Each step we take, we leave a mark. The path is created by the steps a person takes while walking it. — Jacqueline Ripstein

...and gentle happy and peaceful, tasting the mean goodness of their living like the last of their suppers in their mouths. — James Agee

Nothing can be as peaceful and endless as a long winter darkness, going on and on, like living in a tunnel where the dark sometimes deepens into night and sometimes eases to twilight, you're screened from everything, protected, even more alone than usual. — Tove Jansson

When I ache to live, my mind loves to stay with the peaceful whiteness of a pigeon's care...in boundless amity.. — Munia Khan

If we the children of humanity don't start taking steps to walk towards world peace ... Who will??? Why wait to make a difference ... Start living a peaceful life-style today! — Timothy Pina

Yeah, he'd said, maybe it's just my idea, but really it always hurts, the times it don't hurt is when we just forget, we just forget it hurts, you know, it's not just because my belly's all rotten, everybody always hurts. So when it really starts stabbing me, somehow I feel sort of peaceful, like I'm myself again. — Ryu Murakami

Why should the wealth of the country be stored in banks and elevators while the idle workman wanders homeless about the streets and the idle loafers who hoard the gold only to spend it in riotous living are rolling about in fine carriages from which they look out on peaceful meetings and call them riots? — Erik Larson

Living in love, gratitude and forgiveness, is peaceful and spiritually rejuvenating. Living under the emotional constraints of anger and resentment is draining and toxic to heart and soul. It can be difficult to let go of past hurts, but it can also be freeing and uplifting. More and more, i choose to live in love, gratitude and forgiveness. — Jaeda DeWalt

I say to life, "You are very hard", and I also say: "We are blind, we prefer to be blind. It is easier ... ". Life has to be hard to have any affect on us; even now we hardly notice it. Beyond that can one go? I must. I add, "We are also blind to the miracles of good that come to us. We hardly heed them, we even protest against them". Then I am left where I was, appalled by the hardness of life, knowing we are forced to be unwilling heroes. Suddenly I wonder
is all hardness justified because we are so slow in realizing that life was meant to be heroic? Greatness is required of us. That is life's aim and justification, and we poor fools have for centuries been trying to make it convenient, manageable, pliant to our will. It is also peaceful and tender and funny and dull. Yes, all that. — Florida Scott-Maxwell

Together, we looked down at the tiny house, the sole thing on this vast, flat surface. Like the only person living on the moon. It could be either lonely or peaceful, depending on how you looked at it. "It's a start," I said. — Sarah Dessen

Live together as united people in a beautiful peaceful world. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Day by day, morning by morning, begin your walk with Him in the calm trust that God is at work in everything ... It is your personal business, as a discipline of your heart, to learn to be peaceful and safe in God in every situation ... Remember, friend, where your real living is going on. In your thinking, in your reacting, in your heart of hearts - here is where your walk with God begins and continues. So when you start to move into trusting Him, stay there. Don't wander out again into worry and doubt! — Anne Ortlund

You only need to walk in mindfulness, making peaceful, happy steps on our planet. Breathe deeply, and enjoy your breathing. Be aware that the sky is blue and the birds' songs are beautiful. Enjoy being alive and you will help the living Christ and the living Buddha continue for a long, long time. — Nhat Hanh

A peaceful mind appreciates the present moment as the living embodiment of naked perfection, rather than a means to future attainment. — Eric Micha'el Leventhal

The startling truth is that our best efforts for civil rights, international
peace, population control, conservation of natural resources, and
assistance to the starving of the earth - urgent as they are - will destroy
rather than help if made in the present spirit. For, as things stand, we
have nothing to give. If our own riches and our own way of life are not
enjoyed here, they will not be enjoyed anywhere else. Certainly they
will supply the immediate jolt of energy and hope that methedrine, and
similar drugs, give in extreme fatigue. But peace can be made only by
those who are peaceful, and love can be shown only by those who love.
No work of love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart,
just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no
capacity for living now. — Alan W. Watts

Each day, awakening, are we asked to paint the sky blue? Need we coax the sun to rise or flowers to bloom? Need we teach birds to sing, or children to laugh, or lovers to kiss? No, though we think the world imperfect, it surrounds us each day with its perfections. We are asked only to appreciate them, and to show appreciation by living in peaceful harmony amidst them. The Creator does not ask that we create a perfect world; He asks that we celebrate it. — Robert Breault

There never was, for all I could ever learn, a time when living was easy and peaceful. — Ellis Peters

Belief without any practice is of no use to us. But there are two sides to religious practice: one is the ritualistic, which is terribly important to the people engaged in it, and the other is moral, living your life in a better way. You can pray five times a day and still not lead the moral life. We in our communities put more emphasis on the moral life than on ritual. I don't want to say that in order to restore what we need we have to be believers in any strict sense, though I do mourn the loss of the christian faith because I regard it, in some of its better forms, as a relatively peaceful way of giving people access to this idea. — Roger Scruton

Country living - and definitely living in the country with a lot of animals - isn't peaceful. It's full of blood and guts and murder and rivalry and treachery and chaos, in a lovely green pitiless world. — Susan Orlean

The art of peaceful living comes down to living compassionately & wisely. — Allan Lokos

It seemed perverse to some, but for all their apparent militarism the Gzilt had remained peaceful over many millenia; it was the avowedly peaceful Culture that had , within living memory, taken part in an all-out galactic war against another civilisation. — Iain M. Banks

Success means successful living. When you are peaceful, happy, joyous and doing what you love to do, you are successful. — Joseph Murphy

About once a week I think about going and living in a cave and meditating instead. I think that would be a more peaceful life, where my spiritual journey was not interrupted by egomania so regularly. — Simon Amstell

Removing toxicity from your life is essential to maintaining a peaceful state of mind and an overall quality of health. This purging can and should include any detrimental habits, including negative, controlling, and abusive people. Once you start living an empowered lifestyle that supports your own higher balance, you will find it to be an easy transition from the negative to the positive in every aspect of your life — Gary Hopkins

The saintly soul of Elizabeth shone like a shrine-dedicated lamp in our peaceful home. Her sympathy was ours; her smile, her soft voice, the sweet glance of her celestial eyes, were ever there to bless and animate us. She was the living spirit of love to soften and attract: I might have become sullen in my study, rough through the ardour of my nature, but that she was there to subdue me to a semblance of her own gentleness. And — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Life has two choices: create or destruct. These choices are the backbone for all, within oneself and outside oneself. Too many ways of thinking are described by too many people that have no idea. If you're attached to your ways then detach, so you can change. Use this detachment in your writing, relationships, and understanding of life. Our future as individuals, as nations, and as mankind can only go one way. It's our choice whether we want the painful path or the peaceful path. — Mark Donnelly

We seek a peaceful world, a prosperous world, a free world, a world of good neighbors, living on terms of equality and mutual respect, as Canada and the United States have lived for generations. — Harry S. Truman

I once had a complete life - in love, in envy, in pains. Now, I was living a death. A peaceful, gorgeous, liberating death. — Prashant Chopra