Buddhist Quotes

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”
― Buddha Siddhartha Guatama Shakyamuni

“Too lazy to be ambitious,
I let the world take care of itself.
Ten days' worth of rice in my bag;
a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.
Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?
Listening to the night rain on my roof,
I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out.”
― Ryokan

“True change is within; leave the outside as it is.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, How to Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life

“Pain is not wrong. Reacting to pain as wrong initiates the trance of unworthiness. The moment we believe something is wrong, our world shrinks and we lose ourselves in the effort to combat the pain.”
― Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha

“There's a mess inside you:
You clean the outside.”
― Anonymous, The Dhammapada

“In the village, a sage should go about
Like a bee, which, not harming
Flower, colour or scent,
Flies off with the nectar.”
― Anonymous, The Dhammapada

“If you never see a fool
You'll always be happy.

The one who keeps company with fools
Will be sorry for a long time.
It's painful to live with fools,
Like being always with an enemy.”
― Anonymous, The Dhammapada

“The fool who knows his folly
Becomes wise by that fact.
But the fool who thinks he's wise -
He's called 'a fool' indeed!”
― Anonymous, The Dhammapada

“From the dear comes grief;
From the dear comes fear.
If you're freed from the dear
You'll have no grief, let alone fear.”
― Anonymous, The Dhammapada

“Better than a thousand sayings
Made up of useless words
Is one word of meaning
Which calms you to hear it.”
― Anonymous, The Dhammapada

“If you're determined to think of yourself as limited, fearful, vulnerable, or scarred by past experience, know only that you have chosen to do so.”
― Yongey Mingyur, Joyful Wisdom: Embracing Change and Finding Freedom

“If there is no wound in your hand
You can carry poison in your hand.
Poison does not attack one who is unwounded.
There is no evil for one who does not do evil.”
― Anonymous, The Dhammapada

“Meditation is not just blissing out under a mango tree. It completely changes your brain and therefore changes what you are.”
― Matthieu Ricard

“The aware do not die;
The unaware are as though dead already.”
― Anonymous, The Dhammapada

“I don't know whether I believe in God or not. I think, really, I'm some kind of a Buddhist. But the essential thing is to put oneself in a frame of mind which is close to that of prayer.”
― Henri Matisse

“Though you might conquer in battle
A thousand times a thousand men,
You're the greatest battle-winner
If you conquer just one - yourself.”
― Anonymous, The Dhammapada

“War can condition a person to be resilient, tolerant, dependable, strong, and capable of so much more than one who had experienced nothing of it; it can bring out the very best in us, but also the very worst. Where is it, I ask, the proper conduit through which a soldier should be raised from whence they would become an upstanding citizen of the world, instead of a single country?”
― Mike Norton

“One who utters speech that isn't rough
But instructive and truthful
So that he offends no one,
Him I call Brahmin.”
― Anonymous, The Dhammapada

“Though you recite much scripture,
If you are unaware and do not act according
You are like a cowherd counting others' cattle,
Not a sharer in the wanderer's life.”
― Anonymous, The Dhammapada

“But the scent of the good is blown against the wind:
A good man perfumes all directions.”
― Anonymous, The Dhammapada

“The victorious ones have said
That emptiness is the relinquishing of all views.
For whomever emptiness is a view,
That one has achieved nothing.”
― Nāgārjuna, The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā

“No sane person fears nothingness.”
― Robert A.F. Thurman, The Tibetan Book of the Dead

“Standing Deer

As the house of a person
in age sometimes grows cluttered
with what is
too loved or too heavy to part with,
the heart may grow cluttered.
And still the house will be emptied,
and still the heart.

As the thoughts of a person
in age sometimes grow sparer,
like the great cleanness come into a room,
the soul may grow sparer;
one sparrow song carves it completely.
And still the room is full,
and still the heart.

Empty and filled,
like the curling half-light of morning,
in which everything is still possible and so why not.

Filled and empty,
like the curling half-light of evening,
in which everything now is finished and so why not.

Beloved, what can be, what was,
will be taken from us.
I have disappointed.
I am sorry. I knew no better.

A root seeks water.
Tenderness only breaks open the earth.
This morning, out the window,
the deer stood like a blessing, then vanished.”
― Jane Hirshfield

“A person of little knowledge
Grows old as a plough-ox grows old.
His fleshes increases;
His wisdom does not increase.”
― Anonymous, The Dhammapada

“The ox is slow, but the earth is patient.”
― Zura

“We walk on frosted ground praising chrysanthemums bordering fields; sit on the edge of the woods waiting for the moon to rise. Not having to be alone is happiness; we do not talk of failure or success.”
― Chia Tao

“It [mind of absolute reality] is everywhere and nowhere. It’s somewhat like sky—so completely integrated with our existence that we never stop to question its reality or to recognize its qualities.”
― Yongey Mingyur, In Love with the World: A Monk's Journey Through the Bardos of Living and Dying

“Merely to call oneself a Buddhist is of little value.”
― Dalai Lama

“When your mind rests, the world also rest.”
― Haemin Sunim, The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down 16-Month 2018-2019 Wall Calendar: September 2018-December 2019

“Thinking of yourself as or calling yourself a "Buddhist" can be a disadvantage because if you wear the title "Buddhist" that may be an obstacle which prevents others from discovering the human being in you.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, Answers from the Heart Publisher: Parallax Press