11 Quotes to End Your Yoga Class with Love and Positivity

Ahh, that feeling at the end of a relaxing yoga session.

You’re calm, quiet, still, and then —

The yoga instructor reads a short poem or passage as you settle into savasana for a few minutes…

As a yoga instructor, you know how to motivate and inspire your clients.

You have your favorite yoga intentions or mantras to read at the beginning of class.

And you have your go-to inspirational quotes to share at the end of class.

While there’s no doubt a perfectly chosen inspirational quote or motivational saying goes hand-in-hand with the “zen state” that follows a great yoga class, sometimes you need to freshen things up and try out new passages — to keep those good vibes rolling after each session.

That’s why we reached out to industry experts to learn their favorite quotes to end their classes full of love and positivity.

Feel free to pair the following quotes with savasana or sprinkle them into whatever your closing ritual may be!

PS. We also rounded up the most creative yoga class names, in case you get stuck managing all those fitness classes.

11 Inspirational Quotes to End Your Yoga Class

International yoga teacher and founder of the Wild Yoga Tribe, Lily Allen-Duenas has a few quotes she loves to end her yoga classes with. Her favorite passages remind students that “through awareness of the body and the breath, there are seeds of enlightenment there.”

• Wherever you are, simply becoming aware of your body and whatever state of relaxation, tension, or pain (or even all of them at once, in different areas) is there, you already are realizing some understanding, some awakening, some awareness—some enlightenment.
  
  And when you know there’s some tension or pain in your body, you may like to do something to help relieve it.
  
  We can say to ourselves as we breathe in and out: Breathing in, I am aware of some tension or pain in my body; breathing out, I allow the tension and pain in my body to release. —Thich Nhat Hanh

• No effort on the yoga path is ever lost, nor can any obstacle ever hold one back forever. Just a little progress on this path can protect one from the greatest fear. —Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Verse 40

Natalia Maldonado of Warrior Life Code is a certified hot yoga instructor, author and coach living in Miami, Florida. She likes to end her class with a few poetic words from Rumi. She also uses some beautiful words on yoga from Madonna to inspire her clients.

• Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all barriers within yourself that you have built against it. —Rumi

• Yoga is a metaphor for life. You have to take it really slowly. You can’t rush. You can’t skip to the next position. You find yourself in very humiliating situations, but you can’t judge yourself. You just have to breathe, and let go. It is a workout for your mind, your body, and your soul. —Madonna

The folks over at YogaLondon — a yoga training certification program — have a great list of short, simple quotes to inspire and motivate their students. We picked out a couple of our favorites…

• Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. —Arthur Ashe

• Yoga is not a work-out, it is a work-in. And this is the point of spiritual practice; to make us teachable; to open our hearts and focus our awareness so that we can know what we already know and be who we already are. —Rolf Gates

Shades of Yoga, an internationally accredited yoga training school in Bali, loves to end their fitness classes with a passage from professor Brené Brown or musician and writer Morgan Harper Nichols. 

• Belonging so fully to yourself that you’re willing to stand alone is a wilderness — an untamed, unpredictable place of solitude and searching. It is a place as dangerous as it is breathtaking, a place as sought after as it is feared.
  
  The wilderness can often feel unholy because we can’t control it, or what people think about our choice of whether to venture into that vastness or not.
  
  But it turns out to be the place of true belonging, and it’s the bravest and most sacred place you will ever stand. —Brené Brown

• Even if you are still trying to carve things out, even without the clarity you thought you would have by now, may you know without a doubt this is a lifelong journey you have been called to, and no matter the time has passed, it is not too late for you.
  
  It is not too late for you, there is so much more this this life, and the journey you have been called to. —Morgan Harper Nichols

Ashish Painuly is a traditional Hatha Yoga teacher, blogger, and a strong believer in the power of words. Ashish understands that “saying positive affirmations” at the beginning and end of something important is a great way to “manifest change” within yourself. 

• You are not a soul, you are not a mind, you are not a body. You are the controller of all three. —Yogi Harbhajan Singh

Priya Patel is the owner of a yoga studio, The Intention Table. She teaches the physical practice of yoga and the philosophy of it. She closes out her classes with an old Apache blessing, which seems to go hand-in-hand with savasana.

• May the sun bring you new energy by day, may the moon softly restore you by night, may the rain wash away your worries, may the breeze blow new strength in your being, may you walk gently through the world and know it’s beauty for all the days of your life. —Apache Blessing

Certified yoga instructor Gagandeep works for Yogic-Experience — a website and community built “to give you an experience of the ancient and authentic art of Yoga.” 

He knows that “the idea of expressing gratitude and giving thanks is a popular trend among yoga teachers for closing a class.”

Here’s his favorite quote, which he says is a great reminder for himself each time as well as his students.

• Yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to the self. —Shrimad Bhagavad Geeta