What goes around comes around—both good and bad. Let these karma quotes inspire you to live your best life so you can reap future rewards.
30 Powerful Karma Quotes on Life, Love and Rewards
Updated on Oct. 01, 2024
Karma quotes are all around you: “What goes around comes around.” “Do unto others as you would have them do to you.” “You get back the same energy you put out.” “You reap what you sow.” Over the millennia, people have come up with many different ways to talk about the type of cosmic justice that says people are fated to get what they deserve—good or bad. People who believe in this call it karma, generally speaking, and see it as a way of making life fair, at least in the end.
But the word “karma” comes from Hindu and Buddhist practices and is specifically talking about how a person’s actions in this and previous states of existence decide their fate in future lives. Rather than being just an act of revenge, it encourages people to tell the truth and take responsibility for their actions and to expect and accept the consequences.
Religious or secular, karma can be one of those hard-to-define things that fall into the “you know it when you see it” category. Read on for karma quotes that will get you thinking about what you believe about the concept of karma, how it works in your life and how it affects your actions.
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Quotes about karma
1. “From the Buddhist perspective, it is impossible to build personal happiness on the sufferings of others.” —Daisaku Ikeda
2. “People pay for what they do, and, still more, for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it simply: by the lives they lead.” —James Baldwin
3. “You can have no dominion greater or less than that over yourself.” —Leonardo da Vinci
4. “How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.” —Wayne Dyer
5. “Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity.” —Edwin Hubbell Chapin
6. “Your believing or not believing in karma has no effect on its existence, nor on its consequences to you. Just as a refusal to believe in the ocean would not prevent you from drowning.” —F. Paul Wilson
7. “But this was what happened when you didn’t want to visit and confront the past: The past starts visiting and confronting you.” —Bret Easton Ellis
8. “Before you act, you have freedom, but after you act, the effect of that action will follow you whether you want it to or not. That is the law of karma.” —Paramahansa Yogananda
9. “Karma: getting what you deserve and deserving what you get.” —Unknown
10. “Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely. —Buddha
11. “If you err it is not for me to punish you. We are punished by our sins not for them.” —Elbert Hubbard
12. “By each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.” —David Mitchell
13. “You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
14. “When you carry out acts of kindness, you get a wonderful feeling inside. It is as though something inside your body responds and says, ‘Yes, this is how I ought to feel.'” —Harold Kushner
15. “Show a little faith in someone when they need it. It’s amazing how it comes back around to you.” ―Garon Whited
Karma quotes about cheating
16. “There’s a natural law of karma that vindictive people, who go out of their way to hurt others, will end up broke and alone.” —Sylvester Stallone
17.. “Karma’s gonna track you down/ Step by step from town to town/ Sweet like justice, karma is a queen.” —Taylor Swift
18. “What goes up comes down/ Hits the ground/ You’re gonna find out/ All about, all about/ Karma.” —Jessica Andrews
19. “When karma comes back to punch you in the face, I want to be there. Just in case it needs help.” —Unknown
20. “The cup of life’s for him that drinks, and not for him that sips.” —Robert Louis Stevenson
21. “Karma is justice. It does not reward or punish, because we have to earn all that we receive.” —Mary T. Browne
22 “It’s called karma, and it’s pronounced ha ha.” —Unknown
23. “Karma is like a rubber band. You can only stretch it so far before it comes back and smacks you in the face.” —Unknown
24. “Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.” ―Arthur Conan Doyle
25. “You might have burned me with your lies, but karma is about to set you on fire.” —Unknown
Karma quotes about love
26. “The more love you give away, the more love you will receive.” —Unknown
27. “Even chance meetings … are the result of karma … things in life are fated by our previous lives. That even in the smallest events there’s no such thing as coincidence.” —Haruki Murakami
28. “When watching after yourself, you watch after others. When watching after others, you watch after yourself.” —Buddha
29. “We need to … realize that the love we give out comes back to us from a variety of sources, and, in a more general sense, whatever we put out will come back to us.” —Jay Shetty
30. “When the karma of a relationship is done, only love remains. Let go. It’s safe.” —Elizabeth Gilbert
Why trust us
At Reader’s Digest, we’ve been sharing our favorite quotes for over 100 years. The sayings and quips that appear in the magazine’s “Quotable Quotes” (formerly “Remarkable Remarks”) are curated from interviews and essays originally published in the magazine, reprints from trusted titles and other verified sources. For this piece, Charlotte Hilton Anderson tapped her decades as an experienced reporter and journalist for Reader’s Digest to ensure that all information is accurate. We’ve gone the extra step and had Ambrose Martose, a fact-checker with 20-plus years of experience researching for national publications including National Geographic Adventure and Popular Mechanics, verify that all quotes are attributed correctly and have credible sourcing.. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.
