40+ Quotes for Intentional Living
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What is Intentional Living?
Intentional living is about what you pay attention to. It’s thoughtfully choosing how you spend your time, money, energy and caring about where you are, what you repeat, and what you value.
Intentional living looks less like dramatic reinvention and more like small, thoughtful adjustments. It is not about replicating someone else’s life online, obsessively optimizing your routine, or cutting everything down to some aesthetic ideal.
At it’s core, intentional living is noticing the things that actually make your days feel good and life feel aligned.
It’s learning when to say yes, when to say no, and when to stop adding and start tending to what’s already there. It’s noticing what you do (and don’t) need more of. It’s rooted, but not rigid. Curious, but not restless. It allows you to covet a beautiful life without constantly chasing the next version of it.
40 Intentional Living Quotes
Below are some lines that capture that practice from some great thinkers and voices, as well as a few from right here on Quartier Social Club. I’ve broken them down into the four categories that I think most impact an intentional life:
On Attention and Presence
On Contentment and Thoughtful Choice
On Designing a Life You Love
On Community, Place, and Putting Down Roots
I hope you find something that sticks. 🖤
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Quotes On Attention and Presence
A lot of what we call dissatisfaction is really distraction. These are the lines I come back to when I need to slow down and notice what’s already here:
“What is lasting is rarely what is rushed.” - Quartier Social Club
2. “If you are constantly becoming, you have not time for being.” - Quartier Social Club
Reinvention can be valuable — but when you are constantly “rebranding” yourself, you have no time to settle in and learn to savor what lasts.
3. “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” - Simone Weil
This applies not only to important people in your life — but also to the things that deserve your attention, like career, health, and self-care.
4. “Notice what changes when you stop rushing.” - Quartier Social Club
5. “Attention is the Beginning of Devotion.” - David Foster Wallace
What you prioritize is revealed by what you pay attention to.
6. “This is a wonderful day. I haven’t seen this one before.” - Maya Angelou
7. “I don’t have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness. It’s right in front of me if I’m paying attention and practicing gratitude.” - Brene Brown
8. “A good life isn’t found, it’s noticed.” - Quartier Social Club
9. “Attention is what turns an ordinary day into a meaningful one.” - Quartier Social Club
10. “You don’t need more time. You need fewer distractions.” - Quartier Social Club
11. “The problem isn’t that life moves too fast, it’s that we stop paying attention.” - Quartier Social Club
I am always amazed by how much time I have when I cut out unhelpful distractions and focus on staying present in the moment.
12. “Living well requires intention, but first it requires attention.” - Quartier Social Club
Quotes on Contentment and Thoughtful Choice
Finding contentment happens through taking care of what you already have and being thoughtful about what you do (and don’t) invite into your life — whether that is possessions, relationships, tasks, or even thoughts and mindset shifts.
13. “Wealth consists not of having greater possessions, but in having fewer wants.” — Quartier Social Club
Intentional living does not require minimalism, but it does invite you to consider what you actually need versus what society tells you that you do. You can still want and own beautiful things, as long as they are true to your actual desires.
14. “Depth and consistency looks boring online. In real life? It’s magnetic. It’s transformational.” — Quartier Social Club
The best reminder to choose things that help your actual life, not your social media profile.
15. “Intentional living isn’t about having less, it’s about needing less explanation.” — Quartier Social Club
The mark of a truly contented life is when you stop feeling the need to defend or be embarrassed of how you choose to live.
16. “Happiness blooms where you plant roots.” — Quartier Social Club
17. “To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.” — Soren Kierkegaard
Taking the jump towards a more aligned life may appear to set you off course temporarily, but it ultimately gets you closer to your dream life than staying on a path that is not really yours.
18. “Making a home is about building a community, not just collecting possessions.” — Quartier Social Club
19. “What you get by living an intentional life is not as important as what you become by living an intentional life.” — Quartier Social Club
This is my take on the Zig Ziglar quote: “What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.”
20. “Contentment isn’t bought, it’s noticed.” — Quartier Social Club
21. “Living well what what you have is it’s own kind of abundance.” — Quartier Social Club
This quote is from my Substack essay, Learning the Size of Enough.
22. “Notice what is around you, make the most of where you are, and find a rich and rooted life in what you already have.” — Quartier Social Club
23. “Good things take time.”
Quotes On Designing A Life You Love
Designing a life you love isn’t about constant reinvention. It’s about making thoughtful choices, then living with them long enough to notice how it settles and what belongs long-term.
24. “You don’t have to move, buy, or reinvent yourself to create a life you love. You can start right where you are.” — Quartier Social Club
We often think our dream life starts with starting over — sometimes it begins with small shifts.
25. “Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present.” — Albert Calmus
26. “Arrange whatever pieces come your way.” — Virginia Wolf
This quote is my favorite reminder that we can design a life we love with what we have and the circumstances we are in. I wrote all about this in my Substack essay, Designing A Life You Love (Even When You Can’t Change Everything).
27. “It’s good to have an end to journey to, but it’s the journey that matters in the end.” — Ursula K Le Guin
28. “How we spend our days, of course, is how we spend our lives.” — Annie Dillard
29. “Tell me what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” — Mary Oliver
30. “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” — Arthur Ashe
This quote speaks perfectly to the keys to designing a life you love (even when you can’t change everything).
31. “I’m less interested in designing the perfect life as I am in finding ways to love the one I’m in.” — Quartier Social Club
32. “Rejection is redirection.”
A reminder that sometimes “no” isn’t “no” — it’s “not yet” or “not this way” or something better instead.
33. “You don’t need a blank canvas to build something beautiful — you just need the eye of a curator willing to highlight what works.” — Quartier Social Club
From my Substack essay, Designing a Life You Love (Even When You Can’t Change Everything).
34. “Life rarely gives you a fresh slate — which can feel depressing, until you realize constraints aren’t limitations. They’re like writing prompts to inspire your own story.” — Quartier Social Club
35. “Maybe the pressures on your time don’t limit you — maybe they force you to fit in what matters creatively.” — Quartier Social Club
I like to think of limitations not as constraints, but as opportunities to show what matters to us and the lengths we’ll go to nurture that.
36. “Designing a life you love is less like new construction and more like thoughtful renovation.” — Quartier Social Club
Quotes on Home, Place, and Putting Down Roots
Intentional living is impossible without giving attention and care to where you are and how that shapes who you are. These are my favorite quotes that remind me of why place matters for intentional living.
37. “The more you give back to your community, the more it gives back to you.” — Melody Warnick
38. “If you don’t know where you are, you don’t know who you are.” — Wendall Berry
39. “Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.” — James Baldwin
40. “Home is not a destination, but a lifelong adventure.” — Melody Warnick
We all have the ability to root in and make a home wherever we are — and that is a lifelong practice.
41. “Home is where you can be your truest, most authentic self.” — Melody Warnick
42. “Community isn’t something you curate. It’s something you participate in.” — Quartier Social Club
You don’t find a community -- you foster one.
43. “Choosing to stay in one place is not a small life. It is a reflection of your ability to root in, make meaning, and recognize the good.” — Quartier Social Club
From my Substack essay, Dismantling the Shame of Staying Put — why choosing to love where you live is the most defiant move of all.
Principles for Living Well
I created this blog, Quartier Social Club, to help people live well, right where they are. These are my simple rules for intentional living.
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