Top 35 Leo Babauta Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Instead of focusing on how much you can accomplish, focus on how much you can absolutely love what you’re doing.”

— Leo Babauta

2. “Don’t rush. Go slowly. Be present.”

— Leo Babauta

3. “Simplicity boils down to two steps: Identify the essential. Eliminate the rest.”

— Leo Babauta

4. “Be a curator of your life. Slowly cut things out until you’re left only with what you love, with what’s necessary, with what makes you happy.”

— Leo Babauta

5. “Stop waiting for the right person to come into your life. Be the right person to come to someone’s life.”

— Leo Babauta

6. “The way I define happiness is being the creator of your experience, choosing to take pleasure in what you have, right now, regardless of the circumstances, while being the best you that you can be.”

— Leo Babauta

7. “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” – Lao Tzu.”

— Leo Babauta

8. “At the end of the day, the questions we ask of ourselves determine the type of people that we will become.”

— Leo Babauta

9. “The beginning is half of every action.” Greek Proverb.”

— Leo Babauta

10. “Doing multiple tasks at the same time is less effective than single-tasking. But doing multiple projects at once is sometimes more effective than only one project at once.”

— Leo Babauta

11. “We’re so caught up in trying to do everything, experience all the essential things, not miss out on anything important... We can’t read all the good books, watch all the good films, go to all the best cities in the world, try all the best restaurants, meet all the great people... Life is better when we don’t try to do everything. Learn to enjoy the slice of life you experience, and life turns out to be wonderful.”

— Leo Babauta

12. “We may feel productive when we’re constantly switching between things, constantly doing something, but in all honesty, we’re not. We’re just distracted.”

— Leo Babauta

13. “The Power of Less is perfect for achieving goals: Limit yourself to fewer goals, and you’ll achieve more. At the same time, we’ll look at ways to narrow your focus on your projects, so that you can complete them more effectively and move forward on your goals. We’ll apply limitations to our projects to increase our effectiveness.”

— Leo Babauta

14. “If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things, then this is the best season of your life.” – Wu-Men.”

— Leo Babauta

15. “Enough means having enough to live, and enough to be happy, and enough to thrive.”

— Leo Babauta

16. “Create your own source of built-in happiness. Walk around as a whole, happy person, needing nothing. Then come from this place of wholeness, of self-reliance and independence, and love others. Not because you want them to love you back, not because you want to be needed, but because loving them is an amazing thing to do.”

— Leo Babauta

17. “Knowing thousands of recipes doesn’t feed you, unless you start cooking.”

— Leo Babauta

18. “Doing a huge number of things doesn’t mean you’re getting anything meaningful done.”

— Leo Babauta

19. “Happiness isn’t in the future, it’s not somewhere else. It’s available right inside us, right now, all the time.”

— Leo Babauta

20. “Keep it simple, and focus on what you have to do right now, not on playing with your system or your tools.”

— Leo Babauta

21. “When you’re whole, you don’t need someone else’s validation to be happy – because you accept yourself. You don’t need someone else to love you in order to feel loved – because you love yourself.”

— Leo Babauta

22. “Failure is simply an indicator that something in our method needs to be changed.”

— Leo Babauta

23. “Pause. Breathe. Let all of that fade.”

— Leo Babauta

24. “See how everything is temporary, and wanting it to be permanent will only cause you to suffer. And then see how letting go of that wishing, and accepting the changing nature of things, and being unattached to each moment of those changing things, will help you to be calmer and happier. Embrace the non-attachment. Embrace the changing nature of things as beautiful. Accept the impermanence.”

— Leo Babauta

25. “On Clearing Clutter “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” – William Morris.”

— Leo Babauta

26. “If something’s not giving you value, consider eliminating it from your life.”

— Leo Babauta

27. “Simplifying isn’t meant to leave your life empty – it’s meant to leave space in your life for what you really want to do. Know what those things are before you start simplifying.”

— Leo Babauta

28. “When I look at any moment, even uncomfortable ones, I find that there is a lot to be curious about, a lot to appreciate, a lot to discover and love.”

— Leo Babauta

29. “When you limit your options, you really get good at sticking to what’s there.”

— Leo Babauta

30. “The only way through uncertainty is love.”

— Leo Babauta

31. “The point of simple living, for me has got to be: A soft place to land A wide margin of error Room to breathe Lots of places to find baseline happiness in each and every day.”

— Leo Babauta

32. “Realize that failure isn’t a reason to judge yourself.”

— Leo Babauta

33. “By saying “yes” to every request from others, you allow all your time to be taken up by tasks that are important to others, not necessarily to you.”

— Leo Babauta

34. “There are a million possible reasons someone might do something, and they are not a judgment on you. They are more a statement of what’s going on with the other person.”

— Leo Babauta

35. “I sit quietly with a cup of coffee, and enjoy the silence. I go for a morning run, which relieves stress and is perfect for contemplation. I use the quiet time before my family awakes to write something each morning. And I read, because a good novel is one of my favorite companions.”

— Leo Babauta

36. “Protect your time – it’s your most valuable commodity. Guard it with your life.”

— Leo Babauta