Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes

I find it difficult to feel responsible for the suffering of others. That's why I find war so hard to bear. It's the same with animals: I feel the less harm I do, the lighter my heart. I love a light heart. And when I know I'm causing suffering, I feel the heaviness of it. It's a physical pain. So it's self-interest that I don't want to cause harm.

Having gone through what I went through, watching my family be torn to shreds and my children suffer immensely, I can't be the agent of doing that to someone else. I can't be the agent of causing someone to go to prison.

Truth is everybody is going to hurt you: you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.

If you have ever clothed another with woe, as with a garment of pain, you will never be quite as happy as though you had not done that thing.

To have lied is to have suffered.

I often tell people when you make a mistake, you not only hurt yourself, but you hurt the ones that love you.

Hush! Check those words. Do not cure ill with ill and make your pain still heavier than it is.

I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions.

The innocent are so few that two of them seldom meet - when they do meet, their victims lie strewn all round.

I lied for years and years. And the thing about lies and secrets is that they eat you alive from the inside. I would not wish that pain on anyone.

Forgiveness is not always easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it. And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness.

I am aware that I have caused you pain and anguish, but I think you will allow me to take my decision.

Some will not look on suffering because it creates responsibility.

I don't think I ever sit there and think to kick a wound harder.

The main cause of suffering is egoistic desire for one's own comfort and happiness.

You must hurt, or be hurt.

To be a human being is to suffer. But it's the unnecessary suffering, it's the suffering that we visit upon one another, that really should be stopped.

I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their happiness or satisfaction. Yet true happiness comes from a sense of inner peace and contentment, which in turn must be achieved through the cultivation of altruism, of love and compassion and elimination of ignorance, selfishness and greed.

So much harm comes into this world when the wrong thing is said. But that's nothing compared to the pain from what goes unsaid.

Now that another is suffering pain at thy hand, trust not that thy heart shall be exempt from affliction.

Indulgence in resentment and vengeance will only further increase miseries to oneself and others in this life and in lives to come.

Never underestimate what it takes to watch someone you love in pain.

I am now considered such a monster, that I hesitate to darken with my shadow, the doors of those I love, lest I should bring upon them misfortune.

For a moment, my heart aches for him. I should never have asked him to join me here; I should never have asked him to cross.

Everything he had ever done that had been better left undone. Every lie he had told — told to himself, or told to others. Every little hurt, and all the great hurts. Each one was pulled out of him, detail by detail, inch by inch. The demon stripped away the cover of forgetfulness, stripped everything down to truth, and it hurt more than anything.