Inspirational Tea Quotes

We love inspirational tea quotes.  Whether they are pun-driven, taken from our history or borrowed from our favourite books, there is a tea quote that everyone can identify with.  Here are many of our favourites.

“The path to Heaven passes through a teapot.” – Ancient proverb

“Tea time is a chance to slow down, pull back and appreciate our surroundings.” – Letitia Baldrige

“When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things. Where is beauty to be found? In great things that, like everything else, are doomed to die, or in small things that aspire to nothing, yet know how to set a jewel of infinity in a single moment.” – Muriel Barbery

“The very act of preparing and serving tea encourages conversation. The little spaces in time created by teatime rituals call out to be filled with conversation. Even the tea itself–warm and comforting–inspires a feeling of relaxation and trust that fosters shared confidences.” – Emilie Barnes

“Tea is best when enjoyed in pleasant surroundings, whether indoors or out, where the atmosphere is tranquil, the setting harmonious.” – John Blofeld

“Yes, that’s it! Said the Hatter with a sigh, it’s always tea time.” – Lewis Carroll

“You’ll never find a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.” – Winston Churchill

“Wouldn’t it be dreadful to live in a country where they didn’t have tea?” – Noel Coward

“I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.” – Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Each cup of tea represents an imaginary voyage.” – Catherine Douzel

“The first cup moistens my lips and throat. The second shatters my loneliness. The third causes the wrongs of life to fade gently from my recollection. The fourth purifies my soul. The fifth lifts me to the realms of the unwinking gods.” – Chinese Mystic, Tang Dynasty

“A true warrior, like tea, shows his strength in hot water.” – Chinese Proverb

“Water is the mother of tea, a teapot its father, and fire the teacher.” – Chinese Proverb

“Some people will tell you there is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson 

“There is no problem on earth that can’t be ameliorated by a hot bath and a cup of tea.” – Jasper Fforde

“The mere chink of cups and saucers tunes the mind to happy repose.”  – George Gissing

“If you are cold, tea will warm you; if you are too heated, it will cool you;
If you are depressed, it will cheer you; If you are excited, it will calm you.”  – William Ewart Gladstone

“The spirit of the tea beverage is one of peace, comfort and refinement.” – Arthur Gray

“Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves – slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

“Wherever you are drinking your tea, whether at work, in a cafe, or at home, it is wonderful to allow enough time to appreciate it.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

“Tea is the magic key to the vault where my brain is kept.” – Frances Hardinge

“There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be diminished by a nice cup of tea.” – Bernard-Paul Heroux

“Great love affairs start with Champagne and end with tisane” – Honore de Balzac

“I got nasty habits – I take tea at three.” – Mick Jagger

“There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.” – Henry James

"The earth harnesses powerful natural remedies. Through nature’s herbs, we can make positive changes to our world and the people within it." - Jason Johnston

“The tea session is modeled after the silence of retreat; a time to enjoy life far removed from daily existence.” – Sen Joo

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” – C. S. Lewis

“Enjoy life sip by sip, not gulp by gulp.” – The Minister of Leaves

“Tea is wealth itself, because there is nothing that cannot be lost,no problem that will not disappear, no burden that will not float away, between the first sip and the last.” – The Minister of Leaves

“The Philosophy of Tea is not mere aestheticism … for it expresses conjointly with ethics and religion our whole point of view about man and nature. It is hygiene, for it enforces cleanliness; it is economics, for it shows comfort in simplicity rather than in the complex and costly; it is moral geometry, inasmuch as it defines our sense of proportion to the universe.” – Kakuzo Okakura

"Tea … is a religion of the art of life.” – Kakuzo Okakura

“Tea is one of the main stays of civilization in this country.”  – George Orwell

“If you ask Zen people they will say tea is not something that you pour with unawareness and drink like any other drink. It is not a drink, it is meditation; it is prayer. So they listen to the kettle creating a melody, and in that listening they become more silent, more alert.” – Osho

“When you are drinking tea, it is basically a private conversation between the tea and your individual soul.”  – Lu Ann Pannunzio

“Tea is quiet and our thirst for tea is never far from our craving for beauty.” – James Norwood Pratt

“Ecstasy is a glass full of tea and a piece of sugar in the mouth.”  – Alexander Pushkin

“A cup of tea is an excuse to share great thoughts with great minds.” – Cristina Re

“Doing nothing is respectable at tea.” – Sasaki Sanmi

“I always fear that creation will expire before teatime.” – Sydney Smith

“Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea! How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.” – Sydney Smith

“There are those who love to get dirty and fix things. They drink coffee at dawn, beer after work. And those who stay clean, just appreciate things. At breakfast they have milk and juice at night. There are those who do both, they drink tea.” – Gary Snyder

“A practitioner of tea in the countryside sent some hold to Rikyu with a request that he purchase for him a tea utensil of any kind. Rikyu spent the entire amount of money on white cloth, sending it with the comment, ‘With tea, even when one has no nice utensils, if only one has clean cloth for wiping the bowl, it is possible to drink tea.’” – Sen Sotan

“In my own hands I hold a bowl of tea; I see all of nature represented in its green color. Closing my eyes, I find green mountains and pure water within my own heart. Silently sitting alone and drinking tea, I feel these become a part of me.”  – Sen Soshitsu

“Do not gulp the tea but sip it slowly allowing its fragrance to fill your mouth. There is no need to have any special attitude while drinking except one of thankfulness.” – Pojong Sunim

“I must drink lots of tea or I cannot work. Tea unleashes the potential which slumbers in the depth of my soul.”  – Leo Tolstoy

“Life is like a cup of tea. It’s all in how you make it.” – Unknown

“You can’t buy happiness, but you can buy tea and that’s kind of the same thing.” – Author unknown

Tea does our fancy aid, Repress those vapours which the head invade
And keeps that palace of the soul serene. – Edmund Waller, “Of Tea”

“No matter what is happening in your life, you always offer tea.” – Clemantine Wamariya

“Tea is the elixir of life.” – Eisai, Kissa Yojoki

“Tea tempers the spirit and harmonizes the mind; dispels lassitude and relieves fatigue, awakens thought and prevents drowsiness.” – Lu Yu

“There is something in the nature of tea that leads us into a world of quiet contemplation of life.” – Lin Yutang