Sitting Quietly Quotes

• Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.

  Matsuo Basho

  Inspirational, Positive, Spring

  110 Copy quote

• The test of an adventure is that when you're in the middle of it, you say to yourself "Oh now I've got myself into an awful mess; I wish I were sitting quietly at home. And the sign that something's wrong with you is when you sit quietly at home wishing you were out having lots of adventure.

  Thornton Wilder

  Home, Adventure, Wish

  Thornton Wilder (2016). “Our Town and Other Plays”, p.293, Penguin UK

  56 Copy quote

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• Never underestimate the power of sitting quietly.

  Josh McDermitt

  Sitting, Underestimate, Never Underestimate

  "Origin Series: Mad Men And The Walking Dead actor Josh McDermitt". Interview with Robert Piper, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

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• I am a book also, words and thoughts and stories held together by flesh. We open and close ourselves to the world. We are read by others or put away by them. We wait to be seen, sitting quietly on shelves for someone to bother having a look inside us.

  Ari Berk

  Book, Waiting, Together

  Ari Berk (2012). “Death Watch”, p.88, Simon and Schuster

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• You can get help from teachers, but you are going to have to learn a lot by yourself, sitting alone in a room.

  Dr. Seuss

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  New York Times, May 21, 1986.

  80 Copy quote

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  Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  134 Copy quote

• Sitting quietly, doing nothing, not knowing what is next and not concerned with what was or what may be next, a new mind is operating that is not connected with the conditioned past and yet perceives and understands the whole mechanism of conditioning. It is the unmasking of the self that is nothing but masks - images, memories of past experiences, fears, hopes, and the ceaseless demand to be something or become somebody.

  Toni Packer

  Memories, Past, Self

  Toni Packer (1995). “The Work of This Moment”, Tuttle Publishing

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• Behold, my friends, the spring is come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love!

  Sitting Bull

  Friends, Spring, Earth

  190 Copy quote

• Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures.

  John F. Kennedy

  Workout, Peace, War

  Final Address to the United Nations General Assembly, delivered 20 September 1963, New York, NY

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• Meditation does not mean just sitting quietly for five or ten minutes. It requires conscious effort. The mind has to be made calm and quiet; at the same time, it has to be vigilant so as not to allow any distracting thoughts or desires to enter.

  Sri Chinmoy

  Mean, Effort, Meditation

  Sri Chinmoy (1978). “Meditation: Man-perfection in God-satisfaction”, p.5, Aum Publications

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• I love just sitting quietly meditating. With an hour free, it depends. I love getting down on the floor and playing with my kids.

  Nicole Kidman

  Kids, Sitting, Hours

  "Nicole Kidman on Family, Time and Technology". Interview with Natasha Wolff, dujour.com. September 27, 2015.

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• I sit cross-legged on the rock The valleys and streams are cold and damp Sitting quietly is beautiful The cliffs are lost in mist and fog I rest happily in this place At dusk the tree shadows are low I look into my mind A white lotus emerges from the dark mud

  Hanshan

  Beautiful, Dark, Rocks

  10 Copy quote

• My liveliness is based on an incredible fear of death. In order to keep death at bay, I do a lot of "Yah! Yah! Yah!" And death says, "All right. He's too noisy and busy. I'll wait for someone who's sitting quietly, half asleep."

  Mel Brooks

  Order, Waiting, Sitting

  "Mel Brooks Is Always Funny and Often Wise in This 1975 Playboy Interview". Interview with Alex Belth, www.thedailybeast.com. February 16, 2014.

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• Aid workers, when handing out food to starving people, quickly learn that the people fighting for it at the front are the people who need it least. It's the people sitting quietly at the back, too weak to fight, who need it the most. And so too with tragedy.

  Louise Penny

  Fighting, People, Tragedy

  Louise Penny (2015). “The Chief Inspector Gamache Series”, p.102, Macmillan

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• Bread takes the effort of kneading but also requires sitting quietly while the dough rises with a power all its own.

  David Richo

  Effort, Sitting, Bread

  David Richo (2002). “How to Be an Adult in Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Loving”, p.13, Shambhala Publications

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• If you feel . . . that well-read people are less likely to be evil, and a world full of people sitting quietly with good books in their hands is preferable to world filled with schisms and sirens and other noisy and troublesome things, then every time you enter a library you might say to yourself, 'The world is quiet here,' as a sort of pledge proclaiming reading to be the greater good.

  Daniel Handler

  Book, Reading, Hands

  4 Copy quote

• I hate both of my parents right now: for sitting quietly in our house, while out in the darkness my heart was beating away all of the seconds of my life, ticking them off one by one until my time was up; for letting the thread between us stretch so far and so thin that the moment it was severed for good they didn't even feel it.

  Lauren Oliver

  Hate, Heart, House

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• For hours she danced and sang and flirted and did this thing that's-she did Marilyn Monroe. And then there was the inevitable drop. And when the night was over and the white wine was over and the dancing was over, she sat in the corner like a child, with everything gone. I saw her sitting quietly without expression on her face, and I walked towards her but I wouldn't photograph her without her knowledge of it. And as I came with the camera, I saw that she was not saying no.

  Richard Avedon

  Children, Wine, Night

  44 Copy quote