Best Buddhism Quotes

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.

If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.

The greatest effort is not concerned with results.

We must look at our life without sentimentality, exaggeration or idealism. Does what we are choosing reflect what we most deeply value?

If you light a lamp for somebody, it will also brighten your path.

Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little

There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant.

The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go.

Easy to do are things that are bad and harmful to oneself. But exceedingly difficult to do are things that are good and beneficial.

The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.

One thing that attracted me to Buddhism was the support for this larger vision of values.

I’ve been practising Buddhism for forty years, and that’s what has led me to this path of discovering my own humanity and recognizing the humanity in others.

I think the attractiveness of Buddhism is that it doesn’t involve a belief in God. That appeals to a lot of people – intellectuals and well-educated people in particular.

Knowledge is the ability to love, the ability to feel, the ability to probe the depths and the heights of life. It is the experience of the experiencer, and at the same time, it is beyond that.

Mindfulness is passive meditation. It is passive because your energy and your attention are divided between your actions and your practice, your meditation.

Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.

Power is something that is abused. I suppose use and abuse are in the eye of the beholder.

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles.

When there is no thought in the mind, no thought of thought, when the mind is quiet but fully alert, we experience a little bit of enlightenment.

It is very important that your career raises your awareness. If your career is lowering your personal power, then it has got to change.

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

All know the way, but few actually walk it.

If there is any religion that could respond to the needs of modern science, it would be Buddhism.

If you study carefully, you will see that Buddhism is based on reason. There is an element of flexibility inherent in it, which is not found in any other religion.

Instead of becoming the world’s expert on Buddhism, just let go, let go, let go.

The first precept in Buddhism is Do not kill. This precept is not merely a legalistic prohibition, but a realization of our affinity with all who share the gift of life. A compassionate heart provides a firm ground for this precept.

In Buddhism, what is known as beginner’s mind is a way to look at the world as if for the first time: with interest, enthusiasm, and engagement. This may be the optimal state of mind for a healthy brain.

I think [imagination] very austere element of Buddhism is also linked with a strong antinatalist strain in the philosophy. The Buddha was enlightened when he destroyed the house of body and soul into which he would otherwise have been forever reborn. This is clearly antinatalism.

Western progress (from one damned thing to another) seems to be essentially the MO of nowhere fast. But, on the other hand, the don’t-set-foot-outside-your-own-village/cave ideal or injunction that you find in Buddhism and even in the Daoism of which I’m fonder, seems . . . defeatist. And more than that, it is in contradiction to what nature actually does. Somewhere, somehow, I feel as if these two opposing principles have to be reconciled.

If we do overcome linear time, I would hope this means dwelling more directly in the fertility of the imagination rather than denying it, as some aspects of Buddhism seem to.

The research reading I did for Fascination and Liberation included some Jung, and I noticed that he had a similar impression of Buddhism to myself, that, if it weren’t for certain qualifying clauses, the philosophy would be downright suicidal.

Another part of the rejection I mention was the realisation that Buddhism quite simply ignores or dismisses a whole hemisphere of human experience that finds expression in and is enshrined by the mystery religions.