A tarot reading is unique to every tarot reader.

For most tarot readers, personal experience and knowledge become a factor in how to cards are interpreted.

While there are standard interpretations for each of the 78 cards, a tarot reader adds their own “spin” or insight and how the cards relate to a situation or problem.

Every tarot reader has a different background and although a good tarot reading should be unbiased, it’s nearly impossible for even a good tarot reader not to filter the cards with how they view life in general based on their skills, knowledge, education, background, personal beliefs (not just spiritual or religious), etc.

Throughout the years of doing tarot readings, quotes and sometimes song lyrics have come to mind as the best way to convey a message or interpretation of a card to clients.

These quotes have sometimes been shared on social media (check the pugs out on Instagram) to deliver insight, wisdom and guidance with tarot cards.

Some of the quotes listed here are a mixture from the Bhagavad Gita, the Mahabharata, the Ramayan, Upanishads, Bhagavatam and famous/well-known persons that offer wise words that can relate to the tarot.

27 Quotes to Live By in Tarot Readings

9 of Swords

“If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it’s not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.” – Dalai Lama XIV

The Chariot

“The body of a man is like the chariot; his soul, the driver; and his senses, the horses. Drawn by those excellent steeds when well trained, he that is wise and patient, performs life’s journey in peace.” – Mahabharata book v.34.59

Wheel of Fortune

“The non-permanent appearance of happiness and distress and their disappearance in due course are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed.” – Bhagavad Gita

The Moon

“Despite the combined light of the full moon and all the visible stars in a cloudless sky, the night does not go. But the moment the sun rises, the night makes a hasty exit.” – The Ramayana (*Interpretation: Darkness creates illusions but only divine knowledge can dispel them.)

10 of Wands

“Work smarter, not harder.” – unknown.

7 of Pentacles

“You have the right to work, but for the work’s sake only. You have no right to the fruits of work. Desire for the fruits of work must never be your motive in working. Never give way to laziness, either.” – Bhagavad Gita

8 of Pentacles

“You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off you.” – Maya Angelou

6 of Cups

“It becomes increasingly easy, as you get older, to drown in nostalgia.” – Ted Koppel

The High Priestess

“Ordinary people waited till life disclosed to them its secrets, but to the few, to the elect, the mysteries of life were revealed before the veil was drawn away.” – Oscar Wilde

The Hierophant

“To know the Absolute Truth, approach a guru who is both a knower of the scriptures and is practically situated on a platform of God-realization.” – Mundakopanishad 1.2.12

“Seekers of Truth should surrender themselves to a Spiritual Master who has understood the conclusion of the scriptures and taken complete shelter of God, leaving aside all material considerations.” – Bhagavatam 11.3.2

The Hermit

When meditation is mastered,
The mind is unwavering like the
Flame of a lamp in a windless place.
In the still mind,
In the depths of meditation,
The Self reveals itself.
Beholding the Self
By means of the Self,
An aspirant knows the
Joy and peace of complete fulfillment.
Having attained that
Abiding joy beyond the senses,
Revealed in the stilled mind,
He never swerves from the eternal truth.
– Bhagavad Gita

“One who wants this Bhakti must give up sense-enjoyments and even the company of people.” – Narada

8 of Cups

“One who gives up desires becomes like God.” – The Mahabharata

3 of Swords

“The scars of your love remind me of us. They keep me thinking that we almost had it all.” — Adele, “Rolling in the Deep”

“The broken heart. You think you will die, but you keep living, day after day after terrible day.” — Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

Death

“The Spirit is neither born nor does it die at any time. It does not come into being or cease to exist. It is unborn, eternal, permanent, and primeval. The Spirit is not destroyed when the body is destroyed.” – Bhagavad Gita

“Death is not only the end of a life, but a beginning of another one. As there is a balance to be maintained, death has to happen for another life to emerge.” – Bhagavad Gita

Judgement

*In some tarot decks, the Judgement card is renamed. In The Star Child Tarot, it is called “Awakening”. In Tarot of the Cat People, it is called “Rejuvenation”. The Judgement card is often interpreted as an epiphany moment.

“I want to go on a mountain-top
With a radio and good batteries
And play a joyous tune and
Free the human race
From suffering
It doesn’t scare me at all
I’m no f*cking Buddhist, but this is enlightenment.”
– Björk Guðmundsdóttir, “Alarm Call”

3 of Cups

“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“There’s not a word yet for old friends who’ve just met.” – Jim Henson

The Lovers

“If you live to be a hundred, I hope I live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you.” – Winnie the Pooh

Page of Pentacles

“If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything, it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.” – Shunryu Suzuki, Soto Zen monk

6 of Pentacles

The Bhagavad Gita describes three (3) types of charity:
• Sattvic
• Rajasic
• Tamasic

That gift which is given with the thought: “It is to be given,” to a worthy person, one who has done no prior favor to the giver, in a proper place at a proper time: that gift is considered sattwic [17.20]

But that gift which is given with the aim of recompense, or with regard to the giving’s fruit, or is given reluctantly, is considered rajasic [17:21]

The gift which is given at the wrong place or time, to unworthy persons, without respect or with disdain, is declared to be tamasic [17:22]

The Star

“We’re all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” – Oscar Wilde

What quote would you add to a tarot card?
Leave a comment with your favourite quote and match it to a tarot card. 🙂

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