Your body is at the kitchen table but your mind is in tomorrow’s meeting, last week’s argument and the email you forgot to send. If you have been searching for present moment quotes, there is a good chance you want more than a nice line: you want a way to actually be where you are. This post gives you both. First, a two-minute grounding exercise you can do anywhere. Then a short collection of quotes about the present moment, with the attributions checked, so the line you copy into a journal or onto a sticky note is the real one.
A two-minute grounding exercise
When thoughts are racing, telling yourself to “be present” rarely works. Giving your attention a simple job does. This is a version of the well-known 5-4-3-2-1 technique, and it takes about two minutes.
- Five things you can see. Name them silently: the mug, the window frame, the shadow on the wall. Be specific about colour or shape.
- Four things you can feel. Your feet on the floor, the weight of your hands, the chair at your back, the air on your face.
- Three things you can hear. Traffic, a fridge hum, your own breathing.
- Two things you can smell. If nothing stands out, notice the absence, or move to somewhere with a smell (coffee, soap, a plant).
- One slow breath. In through the nose for a count of four, out through the mouth for a count of six.
That’s it. You haven’t emptied your mind. You’ve just put it back in the room. Many people find it helps to anchor the habit to something they already do: the kettle boiling, the walk to the car, the moment before opening the laptop.
Present moment quotes worth keeping
Quotes about the present are some of the most misattributed on the internet, so where a line is commonly credited to the wrong person, it’s noted below.
- “Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have.” (Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now)
- “The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.” (Thich Nhat Hanh)
- “Limit yourself to the present.” (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7; translations vary)
- “Forever is composed of nows.” (Emily Dickinson, from the poem beginning “Forever – is composed of Nows –”)
- “Life is available only in the present moment.” (Thich Nhat Hanh)
- “The present moment is the only place where eternity quietly touches ordinary life.” (Time’s Richest Harvest, Book VII)
Two famous lines with the wrong name attached
“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift”
This is often credited to Eleanor Roosevelt, and more recently to Master Oogway in Kung Fu Panda. Versions of it appear much earlier: a form of it is commonly traced to the writer Alice Morse Earle in the early 1900s, and it was later popularised by the cartoonist Bil Keane. If you use it, “anonymous” or “proverb” is the honest attribution.
“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment”
This appears on thousands of images credited to the Buddha, but it is not a known quotation from the early Buddhist texts. It is a modern paraphrase. The idea is close to the Bhaddekaratta Sutta, which is worth reading if the theme speaks to you.
How to keep a present moment quote working for you
A quote you read once is forgotten by lunchtime. A quote you meet every day can slowly change how you notice things. Some simple ways to keep one in sight:
- Pair it with the exercise. Read your chosen line, then do the five-four-three-two-one. The words become the cue.
- Put it where you rush. The front door, the bathroom mirror, the edge of your monitor: places where your mind is usually somewhere else.
- Change it each season. A line stops being seen once it’s familiar. Swap it every few months.
- Write it by hand. Copying a sentence slowly is itself a small act of attention.
If the question underneath all this is “how do I stop my days disappearing?”, the book Time’s Richest Harvest is built around exactly that idea, in short chapters you can read in a few minutes (more about it here).
Noticing the present is also how memories get made, and these making memories quotes are about exactly that.
If you’d like a reminder on the wall
No Time Like the Present
A short proverb set large enough to read from across a room, for the hallway or the desk where your mind most often wanders. See the print
For a related read, our post on time you enjoy wasting looks at why unplanned time isn’t lost time.