Biblical Quotes

Divine breathing

Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.

—Genesis 2:7

In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being.

—Job 12:10

The spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

—Job 33:4

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.”

—Ezekiel 37:9

Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of humankind and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws.

—2 Maccabees 7:23

Yet he [Adam] was the creation of your hands, and you breathed into him the breath of life, and he was made alive in your presence.

—2 Esdras 3:5b

…because they failed to know the one who formed them and inspired them with active souls and breathed a living spirit into them.

—Wisdom 15:11

Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was God’s Son!”

—Mark 15:39 par

When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

—John 20:22

Then the channels of the sea were seen, the foundations of the world were laid bare at the rebuke of the Lord, at the blast of the breath of his nostrils.

—2 Samuel 22:16; cf Psalm 18:15

By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his anger they are consumed.

—Job 4:9

By the breath of God ice is given, and the broad waters are frozen fast.

—Job 37:10

But with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked

—Isaiah 11:4

And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will destroy with the breath of his mouth, annihilating him by the manifestation of his coming.

—2 Thessalonians 2:8

Human breathing

…and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it.

—Ecclesiastes 12:7

And when I was born, I began to breathe the common air, and fell upon the kindred earth; my first sound was a cry, as is true of all.

—Wisdom 7:3

How ample a little is for a well-disciplined person! He does not breathe heavily when in bed.

—Sirach 31:19

The Lord knows our thoughts, that they are but an empty breath.

—Psalm 94:11

Do not give me up to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen against me, and they are breathing out violence.

—Psalm 27:12

A faithful witness does not lie, but a false witness breathes out lies.

—Proverbs 14:5

Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest

—Acts 9:1

Creation/creatures breathing

“And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.

—Genesis 1:30

For my part, I am going to bring a flood of waters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die.

—Genesis 6:17

Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!

—Psalm 150:6

But as for the towns of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not let anything that breathes remain alive.

—Deuteronomy 20:16 and often

Until the day breathes and the shadows flee,…

—Song of Solomon 2:17 and 4:6

A man tending a furnace works in burning heat, but three times as hot is the sun scorching the mountains; it breathes out fiery vapors, and its bright rays blind the eyes.

—Sirach 43:4

For your all-powerful hand,
which created the world out of formless matter,
did not lack the means to send upon them [the wicked] a multitude of bears, or bold lions,
or newly-created unknown beasts full of rage,
or such as breathe out fiery breath, …

—Wisdom 17-18a

Secular Quotes

Compiled from the following websites: Brainy Quote, and Good Reads.

Physical act of breathing

Breathing is underrated.

—Stacey Lee, American Author

Breathing air is a liberating experience. It freed our ancestors from the constraints of staying wet or having to remain within easy reach of water for refuge, respiration, or reproduction. But the biggest change it made in our lives was to expose us to a whole new range of sensory experience.

—Lyall Watson, 20th century South African Scientist

Breathing involves a continual oscillation between exhaling and inhaling, offering ourselves to the world at one moment and drawing the world into ourselves at the next…

—David Abram, American Philosopher

In fact, you are not breathing; breath is naturally happening to you. You can purposely end your own life, but you cannot purposely keep your own life going.… You don’t posses life; life expresses itself through you.

—Ilchi Lee, Korean Author

The importance of breathing need hardly be stressed. It provides the oxygen for the metabolic processes; literally it supports the fires of life. But breath as "pneuma" is also the spirit or soul. We live in an ocean of air like fish in a body of water. By our breathing we are attuned to our atmosphere.

—Alexander Lowen, American Psychotherapist and Author

At this moment, you are seamlessly flowing with the cosmos. There is no difference between your breathing and the breathing of the rain forest, between your bloodstream and the world’s rivers, between your bones and the chalk cliffs of Dover.

—Deepak Chopra, Indian Physician and Author

We too should make ourselves empty, that the great soul of the universe may fill us with its breath.

—Laurence Binyon, 19th-20th Century British Poet

Conscious breathing is the best antidote to stress, anxiety, and depression.

—Amit Ray, Indian Author

To control the breathing is to control the mind. With different patterns of breathing, you can fall in love, you can hate someone, you can feel the whole spectrum of feelings just by changing your breathing.

—Marina Abramovic, Serbian Artist

Breathing is central to every aspect of meditation training. It’s a wonderful place to focus in training the mind to be calm and concentrated.

—Jon Kabat-Zinn, American Educator

The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.

—Edith Wharton, 19th-20th Century American Author

But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.

—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., 19th Century American Writer

When a turbulent mind and wounded heart surrenders to grace, breathing is easy.

—T.F. Hodge, American Author

Prayer is as natural an expression of faith as breathing is of life.

—Jonathan Edwards, 18th Century American Clergyman

Love is a portion of the soul itself, and it is of the same nature as the celestial breathing of the atmosphere of paradise.

—Victor Hugo, 19th Century French Author

In love’s godlike breathing, there’s the innermost aspect of the universe.

—Alexander Scriabin, 19th-20th Century Russian Composer

and I wonder if Beethoven held his breath
the first time his fingers touched the keys
the same way a soldier holds his breath
the first time his finger clicks the trigger.
We all have different reasons for forgetting to breathe.

—Andrea Gibson, American Author

Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies.

—Erich Fromm, 20th Century American Psychologist

Wisdom is nothing but a preparation of the soul, a capacity, a secret art of thinking, feeling, and breathing thoughts of unity at every moment of life.

—Herman Hesse, 19th-20th Century German Author

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.

—Arundhati Roy, Indian Novelist

When a man has lost all happiness, he’s not alive. Call him a breathing corpse.

—Sophocles, 5th Century Greek Poet

There is a law that man should love his neighbor as himself. In a few hundred years it should be as natural to mankind as breathing or the upright gait; but if he does not learn it he must perish.

—Alfred Adler, 19th-20th Century Austrian Psychologist

In America there is institutional racism that we all inherit and participate in, like breathing the air in this room – and we have to become sensitive to it.

—Henry Louis Gates, American Critic

Breathing room

All she wanted was a breathing space in which to hurt.

—Margaret Mitchell, 20th Century American Author

What art offers is space – a certain breathing room for the spirit.

—John Updike, 20th Century American Novelist

Reviewers have called my books ‘novels in verse.’ I think of them as written in prose, but I do use stanzas. Stanza means ‘room’ in Latin, and I wanted there to be ‘room’ – breathing opportunities to receive thoughts and have time to come out of them before starting again at the left margin.

—Virginia Euwer Wolff, American Author

From an evolutionary perspective children are, literally, designed to learn. Childhood is a special period of protected immaturity. It gives the young breathing time to master the things they will need to know in order to survive as adults.

—Alison Gopnik, American Psychologist

We are all, in a sense, experts on secrecy. From earliest childhood we feel its mystery and attraction. We know both the power it confers and the burden it imposes. We learn how it can delight, give breathing space and protect.

—Sissela Bok, Swedish Philosopher

Living, breathing things

Life is a moving, breathing thing. We have to be willing to constantly evolve. Perfection is constant transformation.

—Nia Peeples, American Musician

The land and the ocean are living, breathing entities that supported us, clothed us, fed us, and nurtured our culture from time immemorial.

—Eden Robinson, Canadian novelist

You can’t separate a house from a family. It’s a living, breathing home.

—Leonard Lauder, American Businessman

It’s a living, breathing thing, acting.

—Frank Langella, American Actor

I still find new things every night, which is the beauty and fun of live theater. It’s a living, breathing art form.

—Brandon Uranowitz, American Actor

My worry is that opera will become an historic art form as opposed to a living, breathing thing.

—Renee Fleming, American Musician

And in fact I don’t believe there is such a thing as a definitive picture of something. The land is a living, breathing thing and light changes its character every second of every day. That’s why I love it so much.

—Fay Godwin, 20th century British Photographer

Nothing replaces being in the same room, face-to-face, breathing the same air and reading and feeling each other’s micro-expressions.

—Peter Guber, American Producer

People don’t appreciate that when you’re on the Internet, it’s a 24/7 job. Even if you’re not releasing episodes, your show is living and breathing on the Internet because there’s a community around it.

—Felicia Day, American actress

Things that seem natural as breathing

Breathing is a lot like creativity. Like an inhale, you receive an inspiration, you let it run through the unique magnificence of who you are, and then you release it into the world, letting it go, unattached to the way it needs to look.

—Jill Badonsky, American Author

Art is like breathing for me. If I don’t do it, I start to choke.

—Yoko Ono, American Artist

Writing makes you feel that there is a reason to go on living. If I couldn’t write, I would stop breathing.

—Paul Auster, American Author

I come from the theatre; my bones are in the theatre. It’s as natural as breathing to want to be in the theatre.

—Kenneth Branagh, Irish Actor

What keeps me interested is that I have to do it. It’s like people wake up and they have to breathe; I have to write songs; I have to make music. That’s like eating or breathing to me. It’s that simple.

—Diane Warren, American musician

If you ask someone if they like music, they look at you strangely. It seems to be a universal given. Like asking someone if they like breathing. It is like breathing. Or air, rather. Flowing without and within. A matrix within which our lives are set. The setting for the tableware of our beings.

—Jane Siberry, Canadian Musician

Handball, swimming, running, jumping, basketball, and boxing were as much a part of me as breathing.

—Gene Tunney, 20th Century American Athlete