90+ Best Mark Nepo Quotes From The Poet And Author Of 'The Book Of Awakening'

Mark Nepo, is a poet and spiritual adviser.

His book, 'The Book Of Awakening' has been a New York Times number one bestseller. The book has been called “one of the finest spiritual guides of our time”.

We have gathered the best Mark Nepo quotes here. This list of the best Mark Nepo quotes should to help you to begin to reconnect with yourself, ask how you are feeling, and bring out the best in you

If you like these Mark Nepo quotes, check out these Leonard Ravenhill quotes and 'When Breath Becomes Air' quotes too.

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Do you want to find the best Mark Nepo quotes? First, let's get an insight into some iconic Mark Nepo quotes from the New York Times bestselling book by Mark Nepo, these quotes are all about being present.

1.“… there are no wrong turns, only unexpected paths.”

-Mark Nepo.

2.“The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains the same, exactly the same. But the amount of bitterness we taste depends on the container we put the pain in. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things... Stop being a glass. Become a lake.”

― Mark Nepo.

3.“What it really comes down to is the clearness of heart to stop defining who I am by those who have hurt me and to take up the risk to love myself, to validate my own existence, pain and all, from the center out.”

― Mark Nepo.

4.“Sometimes the simplest and best use of our will is to drop it all and just walk out from under everything that is covering us, even if only for an hour or so—just walk out from under the webs we've spun, the tasks we've assumed, the problems we have to solve. They'll be there when we get back, and maybe some of them will fall apart without our worry to hold them up.”

― Mark Nepo.

5."But today you are precious and rare and awake. It ushers us into grateful living. It makes hesitation useless."

― Mark Nepo.

6.“Memories are not images of loved ones returning to us. They are the spirits of loved ones visiting us.”

― Mark Nepo.

7.“We tend to make the thing in the way the way.”

-Mark Nepo.

8.“When we need it most, it is nearly impossible to see ourselves with compassion from the slit of a narrowed mind all tensed for battle.”

― Mark Nepo.

9.“It’s like wearing gloves every time we touch something, and then, forgetting we chose to put them on, we complain that nothing feels quite real.”

― Mark Nepo.

10.“Now I want to stand naked before every wind; and though I'm still frightened I will break, I somehow know it's all a part—even the fright—of the rhythm of being alive.”

― Mark Nepo.

11.“Perhaps the hardest thing I've learned, and still struggle with, is that I don't have to be finished in order to be whole.”

-Mark Nepo.

12.“When we hesitate in being direct, we unknowingly slip something on, some added layer of protection that keeps us from feeling the world, and often that thin covering is the beginning of a loneliness which, if not put down, diminishes our chances of joy.”

-Mark Nepo.

13.“Grateful and awake, ask what you need to know now. Say what you feel now. Love what you love now.”

-Mark Nepo.

14.“Over time, staying real becomes the work of keeping our actions in the world connected to the truth of our inner being, allowing our True Self to see the light of day.

― Mark Nepo.

15.“This delicate observation by this Japanese poet is filled with the quiet hope that embedded in our nature, even as we begin, is our gift already unfolded.”

― Mark Nepo.

16.“When we heal ourselves, we heal the world.”

-Mark Nepo.

17.“Those who truly love us will never knowingly ask us to be other than we are”

-Mark Nepo.

18.“Who's to say the effort to be real isn't the beginning of wings?”

-Mark Nepo.

19.“The world needs awakened souls the way a body needs healthy cells.”

-Mark Nepo.

Mark Nepo quotes about God that will provide you with a fresh perspective on religious life and spirit.

20.“Each person is born with an unencumbered spot, free of expectation and regret, free of ambition and embarrassment, free of fear and worry; an umbilical spot of grace where we were each first touched by God”

― Mark Nepo,’ Unlearning Back To God: Essays On Inwardness’.

21.“My friends are the beings through whom God loves me.”

― Mark Nepo, ‘The Book Of Awakening’.

22."We need to meet, embrace and work with what we're given. For what we want and what we're given often serve two different gods. And how we respond to their meeting determines our path."

-Mark Nepo.

23.“The further I wake into this life, the more I realize that God is everywhere and the extraordinary is waiting quietly beneath the skin of all that is ordinary.”

-Mark Nepo.

24.“Even if one glimpses God, there are cuts and splinters and burns along the way.”

- Mark Nepo.

25."Regardless of subject matter, this is the only thing worth teaching: how to uncover that original center and how to live there once it is restored. We call the filming over a deadening of heart, and the process of return, whether brought about through suffering or love, is how we unlearn our way back to God”

― Mark Nepo, 'Unlearning Back To God: Essays On Inwardness'.

26.“We may spend much of our time unaware and unenlightened, yet the presence of Truth and God, like a deep and ancient friend, can shape our entire lives.”

― Mark Nepo, ‘The Book Of Awakening’.

27."Yet when we’re broken or burned by events, we feel betrayed by God. When we’re broken or burned by people, we feel betrayed by other souls.”

― Mark Nepo, 'Seven Thousand Ways To Listen: Staying Close To What Is Sacred'.

28.“Four hundred year old trees, who draw aliveness from the earth like smoke from the heart of God, we come, not knowing you will hush our little want to be big.”

-Mark Nepo.

29.“When we deny what comes through us, it defines us. When we honestly face what comes through us, then who we are grows.”

-Mark Nepo.

30.“I would rather be fooled than not believe.”

-Mark Nepo.

Get Mark Nepo quotes that will make you realize the importance of the gift that life is. Will you find comfort in these Mark Nepo quotes about life?

31."The point of experience is not to escape life but to live it."

-Mark Nepo,‘The Endless Practice: Becoming Who You Were Born to Be'.

32."I think happiness is overrated, but joy is the key to the thousands of possible moods we can feel. And when we can rest in that joy, then peace is the moment of openness that holds all feeling."

-Mark Nepo.

33.“The key to knowing joy is being easily pleased.”

― Mark Nepo.

34.“To walk quietly until the miracle in everything speaks is poetry, whether we write it down or not.”

― Mark Nepo.

35.“So, if you can, give up the want of another and be who you are, and more often than not, love will come at the precise moment you are simply loving yourself.”

― Mark Nepo, ‘The Book Of Awakening’.

36."I've learned that loving your self requires a courage unlike any other. It requires us to believe in and stay loyal to something no one else can see that keeps us in the world - our own self worth."

-Mark Nepo.

37."We are born with only one obligation - to be completely who we are."

-Mark Nepo.

38."A love astounds us or a pain consumes us and we forget that we glow on our own."

-Mark Nepo.

39.“I think happiness is overrated, but joy is the key to the thousands of possible moods we can feel. And when we can rest in that joy, then peace is the moment of openness that holds all feeling.”

- Mark Nepo.

40.“Mysteriously, as elusive as it is, this moment--where the eye is what it sees, where the heart is what it feels--this moment shows us that what is real is sacred”

- Mark Nepo.

41.“Intuitive listening requires us to still our minds until the beauty of things older than our minds can find us.”

- Mark Nepo.

42.“If you try to comprehend air before breathing it, you will die.”

- Mark Nepo.

43."We need experience to release what matters."

-Mark Nepo.

44."Doing small things with love is the atom of bravery.”

-Mark Nepo.

45.“To love by admitting our connection to everything is how we stay well.”

-Mark Nepo.

46."Every human has an unfathomable gift that only meeting life head on will reveal.”

-Mark Nepo.

47.“I had tried so hard to please that I never realized no one was watching.”

― Mark Nepo.

48..“The gift of patience opens when our body, heart, and mind slow enough to move in unison.”

― Mark Nepo, ‘The Endless Practice: Becoming Who You Were Born To Be’.

We all dream and think of nature often. These Mark Nepo quotes on nature and its role in our life show the comfort he finds in nature.

49."Each soul on earth is complete unto itself."

-Mark Nepo.

50.“Part of the blessing and challenge of being human is that we must discover our own true nature.”

- Mark Nepo.

51.“The flower doesn’t dream of the bee. It blossoms and the bee comes.”

― Mark Nepo.

52.“Just as a vine or shrub—no matter how often it is cut back—will keep growing to the light, the human heart—no matter how often it is cut—can reassert its impulse to love.”

― Mark Nepo, ‘The Book Of Awakening’.

53.“Breathe like a fallen leaf and think of nothing. Just breathe and let your heart and mind be carried, however briefly, by the spirit you can't quite see.”

― Mark Nepo, ‘The Book Of Awakening’.

54."The practice of listening is one of the most mysterious, luminous, and challenging art forms on Earth."

-Mark Nepo.

55.“If we are to access the resources of life, we must listen with our common heart to the cries of the world.”

-Mark Nepo.

56.“We begin so aware and grateful. The sun somehow hangs there in the sky. The little bird sings. The miracle of life just happens.”

-Mark Nepo.

57.“Now, I want only to give away all that I’m blessed to know and disappear in the stream.”

― Mark Nepo, ‘Seven Thousand Ways To Listen’.

58.“The sun doesn't stop shining because some people are blind.”

-Mark Nepo.

59.“All the buried seeds crack open in the dark the instant they surrender to a process they can't see.”

- Mark Nepo.

60.“If I dare to hear you I will feel you like the sun and grow in your direction.”

- Mark Nepo.

61.“… I keep looking for one more teacher, only to find that fish learn from the water and birds learn from the sky.”

- Mark Nepo.

62.“The glassblower knows: while in the heat of beginning, any shape is possible. Once hardened, the only way to change is to break.”

-Mark Nepo.

63.“Light is in both the broken bottle and the diamond.”

-Mark Nepo.

64.“Even when clouds grow thick, the sun still pours its light earthward.”

-Mark Nepo.

65.“If you truly hold a stone, you can feel the mountain it came from.”

-Mark Nepo.

66.“Birds learn how to fly, never knowing where flight will take them.”

-Mark Nepo.

67.“Repetition is not failure. Ask the waves, ask the leaves, ask the wind.”

-Mark Nepo.

There are so many inspiring quotes about life, these are the most famous Mark Nepo quotes that are a must-read for those who dream of greatness.

68.“Often we find it easier to think our way around things rather than to feel our way through them.”

― Mark Nepo, ‘The Book Of Awakening’.

69.“Once waking into the realization that eternity is waiting in every moment, I discovered that wealth is time, not money.”

― Mark Nepo.

70."We're quietly aching for something to celebrate."

-Mark Nepo.

71.“If peace comes from seeing the whole, then misery stems from a loss of perspective.”

― Mark Nepo, ‘The Book Of Awakening’.

72.“Can we listen to each other the way veins listen to blood?”

― Mark Nepo, ‘Seven Thousand Ways To Listen: Staying Close To What Is Sacred.’

73."Live your worries through,

and your spirit will wake from its fever,

and you will want others like soup."

-Mark Nepo.

74.“I didn't know the language of my own wisdom. I wanted to be loved and after all the various relationships I went through, I finally realized I am love. I carry love.”

-Mark Nepo.

75.“What we reach for may be different, but what makes us reach is the same.”

- Mark Nepo.

76.“Listening reminds me how precious it is to be here at all. And so, listening is the first step to peace, both inner peace and the compassion that connects people.”

-Mark Nepo, 'Seven Thousand Ways To Listen: Staying Close To What Is Sacred’.

77."Just opening quietly for moments everyday can create a path by which life can reach us, the way rain carves a little stream in the earth by which the smallest flowers are watered."

-Mark Nepo, 'Seven Thousand Ways To Listen: Staying Close To What Is Sacred’.

78.“Keeping a commitment to listening has led me to my own growth, beyond any imagined dream I may have had throughout the years.”

-Mark Nepo.

79.“Live loud enough in your heart and there is no need to speak.”

-Mark Nepo.

80.“We are so unused to emotion that we mistake any depth of feeling for sadness, any sense of the unknown for fear, and any sense of peace for boredom.”

-Mark Nepo.

81.“And where is home? Is it where we begin or where we end up? Is it where we long to be or where life puts us to make good use of our gifts?”

― Mark Nepo, ‘The Exquisite Risk: Daring To Live An Authentic Life’.

82.“We waste so much energy trying to cover up who we are when beneath every attitude is the want to be loved, and beneath every anger is a wound to be healed and beneath every sadness is the fear that there will not be enough time.”

-Mark Nepo.

83.“Fearful people do not want to sit with broken people because they don't want to be slowed down -  don't want to look at what is broken in themselves..”

― Mark Nepo, ‘The Exquisite Risk: Daring To Live An Authentic Life’.

84.“A successful creative expression is one in which the person who  has expressed it was transformed for having encountered it”

- Mark Nepo.

85.“The extraordinary is waiting quietly beneath the skin of all that is ordinary.”

- Mark Nepo.

86.“To listen is to lean in, softly, with a willingness to be changed by what we hear.”

- Mark Nepo.

87.“The simplest and bravest way to counter the plight of disheartenment is to move toward what is precious.”

-Mark Nepo.

88.“What we reach for may be different, but what makes us reach is the same.”

-Mark Nepo.

89.“We are broken open, or we willfully shed.”

-Mark Nepo.

90.“No amount of thinking can stop thinking”

-Mark Nepo.

91.“The humility of wonder opens everything.”

-Mark Nepo.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for Mark Nepo quotes, then why not take a look at these James Allen quotes or [Mark Manson quotes] for more quotes that put life in perspective?

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