The Quantum and the Lotus Quotes

“I think what everyone should be doing, before it's too late, is committing themselves to what they really want to do with their lives.”
― Matthieu Ricard, The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet

“our Earth is taking part in a fantastic cosmic ballet. First, it pulls us through space at a speed of nearly twenty miles per second during its annual journey around the Sun. The Sun then drags the Earth with it during its voyage through the Milky Way at a speed of 140 miles per second. The Milky Way is falling in turn at approximately fifty-five miles per second toward Andromeda. And there's more to come. The Local Group that contains our galaxy and Andromeda is falling at about 375 miles per second toward the Virgo cluster of galaxies, which is in turn moving toward a large complex of galaxies called the Great Attractor.”
― Matthieu Ricard, The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet

“Einstein said: “A human being is part of a whole, called by us the ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
― Matthieu Ricard, The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet

“the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
― Matthieu Ricard, The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet

“On a timeline that shows the 15 billion years of the universe as one year, the first human appears only at 10:30p on December 31 (about 3 million years ago). Stonehenge is built and Egyptian civilization arises at 11:50:54p (about 3,000 years ago). The Buddha appears on the timeline at 11:59:55p (2,500 years ago), and Christ shows up at 11:59:55p (2,000 years ago). The European Renaissance occurs at 11:59:59p (450 years ago), on the last day of the year.”
― Matthieu Ricard, The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet

“We can move gradually from total confusion, dominated by hatred and other mental poisons, to an intermediate stage of serenity, altruistic joy, and self-mastery before finally arriving at enlightenment, which will give us a true vision of phenomena's ultimate nature. At that point, knowledge functions with an immediate certitude that transcends discursive thought.”
― Matthieu Ricard, The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet

“only the heat of that compassion united with wisdom can melt the ore in our minds, so as to liberate the gold of our fundamental nature.”
― Matthieu Ricard, The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet

“The only ‘failure’ of quantum theory is its inability to provide a natural framework for our prejudices.”1”
― Matthieu Ricard, The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet

“It’s said that the Buddha’s enlightenment is great than that of a traveler setting out, in the same proportion as the heavens are bigger than what can be seen of them through the eye of a needle. But in both cases, what you see is the sky.”
― Matthieu Ricard, The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet

“Others, however, point out that science is incapable of revealing all truths, and that while technology has produced huge benefits, the ravages it has caused are at least as great. What is more, science is silent when it comes to providing wisdom about how we should live.”
― Matthieu Ricard, The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet

“Fundamental science is theoretical knowledge, while technology is utilitarian knowledge and contemplative science is liberating knowledge. They can thus complete each other without any conflict.”
― Matthieu Ricard, The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet

“For Aristotle, time was “the number of movement, ”but he was already wondering: “It is difficult to know if, in the soul, time exists or not.” In the fourth century, Saint Augustine rejected Aristotle's ideas: “Time is not the movement of a body.” He affirmed the existential (or psychological) aspect of time: time flows only in the soul, given that the object of expectation (the future) becomes the object of attention (the present) before becoming the object of memory (the past).”
― Matthieu Ricard, The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet

“The now that passes produces time, the now that remains produces eternity.”
― Matthieu Ricard, The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet

“Nature has evolved to be the inventor of complexity. Just as a jazz musician embroiders around a theme, thus improvising new melodic phrases according to his inspiration and the public's reactions, nature plays spontaneously with the physical laws that were fixed at the start of the universe. It uses them to create novelty9”
― Matthieu Ricard, The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet

“Nature is neutral. Man has wrested from nature the power to make the world a desert or to make the deserts bloom. There is no evil in the atom—only in men's souls.”
― Matthieu Ricard, The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet

“There's nothing odd about the fact that what we conceive corresponds to what we perceive.”
― Matthieu Ricard, The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet

“Sinon, n’a-t-il d’autre cause que lui-même ? A-t-il toujours été, étant lui-même sans cause ? Mais si la cause n’a pas de commencement, comment l’effet en aurait-il un ? La seule solution à ces impasses est non pas d’imaginer une volonté première, mais d’envisager la coexistence, depuis des temps sans commencement, de phénomènes animés et inanimés qui, de ce fait, ne peuvent jamais être fondamentalement incompatibles.”
― Matthieu Ricard, L'Infini dans la paume de la main: Du Big Bang à l'Éveil

“Buddhism stresses the importance of elucidating the nature of the mind through direct contemplative experience. Over the centuries it has devised a profound and rigorous approach to understanding mental states and the ultimate nature of mind. The mind is behind every experience in life. It is also what determines the way we see the world. It takes only the slightest change in our minds, in how we deal with mental states and perceive people and things, for “our” world to be turned completely upside-down.”
― Matthieu Ricard, The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet

“The main difference between the pursuit of knowledge in science versus the same pursuit in Buddhism is their ultimate goals. In Buddhism, knowledge is acquired essentially for therapeutic purposes. The objective is to free ourselves from the suffering that is caused by our undue attachment to the apparent reality of the external world and by our servitude to our individual egos, which we imagine reside at the center of our being.”
― Matthieu Ricard, The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet

“While the insights of science can help us change our world, only human thought and concern can enlighten us about the path we should follow in life. As a complement to science, therefore, we must also cultivate a “science of the mind, ”or what we can call spirituality. This spirituality is not a luxury but a necessity.”
― Matthieu Ricard, The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet

“As a complement to science, therefore, we must also cultivate a “science of the mind, ”or what we can call spirituality. This spirituality is not a luxury but a necessity.”
― Matthieu Ricard, The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet

“Even if we can go on deceiving others, it becomes harder to hide the truth from ourselves.”
― Matthieu Ricard, The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet

“In one of his sermons, the Buddha described reality as a display of pearls—each pearl reflects all of the others, as well as the palace whose façade they decorate, and the entirety of the universe. This comes down to saying that all of reality is present in each of its parts. This image is a good illustration of interdependence, which states that no entity independent of the whole can exist anywhere in the universe.”
― Matthieu Ricard, The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet

“How should I lead my life? How should I live in society? What is knowable?”
― Matthieu Ricard, The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet

“in 1963 because he liked the sound of the sentence “Three quarks for Muster Mark” in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. As for “Muster Mark, ”three quarks are needed to form a proton or a neutron. The electric charges of quarks are fractional (+/-1/3 or +−2/3) because their sum must equal the charge of a proton (+1) or a neutron (0).”
― Matthieu Ricard, The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet