Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes

Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.

If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve.

So the bodhisattva saves all beings, not by preaching sermons to them, but by showing them that they are delivered, they are liberated, by the act of not being able to stop changing.

Our being is continually undergoing and entering upon changes. ... We must, strictly speaking, at every moment give each other up and let each other go and not hold each other back.

Nothing is written stone, child. Even if it were, the stones can be shattered

And if things always stayed the same, Scarlett, what would be the reason for bothering to draw breath?

I shall sleep, and move with the moving ships, Change as the winds change, veer in the tide.

Each moment that passes changes you...You can't even own yourself. How can you ever hope to own anyone or anything else.

Once we see that everything is impermanent and ungraspable and that we create a huge amount of suffering if we are attached to things staying the same, we realize that relaxing and letting go is a wiser way to live. Letting go does not mean not caring about things. It means caring about them in a flexible and wise way.

Having totality means being capable of following "what is," because "what is" is constantly moving and constantly changing. If one is anchored to a particular view, one will not be able to follow the swift movement of "what is.

Thats the beautiful thing about being human: Things change.

Nothing is more creative than death, since it has the whole secret of life. It means that the past must be abandoned, that the unknown cannot be avoided, that 'I' cannot continue, and that nothing can be ultimately fixed. When a man knows this, he lives for the first time in his life. By holding his breath, he loses it. By letting go he finds it.

Man, I'm just into Buddhism, and I'm at peace with the fact that me, as this person, probably gonna not be around. Think about a hermit crab, okay? And it's a shell. It's like, they go from one shell to the next. And that's what I am. I'm just a hermit crab changin' shells.

When Things Fall Apart” and I quote “Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Things are always in transition, if we could only realize it. Nothing ever sums itself up in the way that we like to dream about. The off-center, in-between state is an ideal situation, a situation in which we don't get caught and we can open our hearts and minds beyond limit. It's a very tender, nonaggressive, open-ended state of affairs.

Throughout the history of el Bulli, there have been many changes in its organisation or philosophy. This is another one of those moments. There will be risk, and freedom, and creativity. But there won't be opening hours, or reservations, or routines.

Life is improvisation.

Sometimes, running away means you're headed in the exact right direction.

Everything can always be different!

It all depends on how you choose to live it. It's like forever, always changing.

Just because you start out as one thing, it doesn't mean you can't grow into something else.

Things change when you learn to loosen your grip. I think one way and the future is desperate. I think another way everything is in sight. Trees bend so branches don't have to break. We mend the wounds of our last mistake... I live one way holding onto the fence post. I live another way sliding off into space. Each life is loosely assembled... Birds swim, fish do fly. Proud man begins to cry. Birds swim, fish do fly. Things change, so why can't I?

Be a river - not a reservoir.

If you don't tell your stories, other people will tell their story about you. It's important that we nurture and protect these memories. Things change. Existence means change.

We are like children building a sand castle. We embellish it with beautiful shells, bits of driftwood, and pieces of colored glass. The castle is ours, off limits to others. We’re willing to attack if others threaten to hurt it. Yet despite all our attachment, we know that the tide will inevitably come in and sweep the sand castle away. The trick is to enjoy it fully but without clinging, and when the time comes, let it dissolve back into the sea.