Dalai Lama Quotes

If indeed the qualities such as love, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness are what happiness consists in, and if it is also true that compassion, defined as concern for others, is both the source and the fruit of these qualities, then the more we are compassionate, the more we provide for our own happiness.

Genuine happiness consists in those spiritual qualities of love, compassion, patience, tolerance and forgiveness and so on. For it is these which provide both for our happiness and others happiness.

Compassion and love constitute non-violence in action. They are the source of all spiritual qualities: forgiveness, tolerance, all the virtues. They give meaning to our activities and makes them constructive. There is nothing amazing about being rich or highly educated; only when the individual has a warm heart do these attributes become worthwhile.

We are in this world to learn and embody compassion and love.

Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul.

I think of compassion as the fundamental religious experience and, unless that is there, you have nothing.

Compassion is an act of tolerance where kindness and forgiveness reign. When we make the compassionate choice, we enhance the dignity of each individual, which is the very essence of loving them.

Compassion is the wish for another being to be free from suffering; love is wanting them to have happiness.

The real essentials of life - compassion, kindness, good will, forgiveness - are what is fundamental to living as a true human being.

If love means anything at all it means extending your hand to the unlovable.

It’s in our interest to take care of others. Self-centrednes s is opposed to basic human nature. In our own interest as human beings we need to pay attention to our inner values. Sometimes people think compassion is only of help to others, while we get no benefit. This is a mistake. When you concern yourself with others, you naturally develop a sense of self-confidence . To help others takes courage and inner strength.

To bear with patience wrongs done to oneself is a mark of perfection, but to bear with patience wrongs done to someone else is a mark of imperfection and even of actual sin.

I have learned more about love, selflessness and human understanding from the people I have met in this great adventure in the world of AIDS than I ever did in the cutthroat, competitive world in which I spent my life.

A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.

Skip the religion and politics, head straight to the compassion. Everything else is a distraction.

I know of only one duty, and that is to love.

Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

You can be aware and educated and informed, but you've got to place emphasis on being compassionate, having empathy and understanding.

I believe compassion to be one of the few things we can practice that will bring immediate and long-term happiness to our lives.

Genuine happiness and compassion go hand in hand.

Compassion has been advocated by all the great faiths because it has been found to be the safest and surest means of attaining enlightenment. It dethrones the ego from the center of our lives and puts others there, breaking down the carapace of the selfishness that holds us back from an experience of the sacred. And it gives us ecstasy, broadening our perspectives and giving us a larger, enhanced vision.

It is my observations, though, that happiness limits the amount of suffering one is willing to inflict upon others

Love and Compassion are the true religions to me. But to develop this, we do not need to believe in any religion.

There is no denying that consideration of others is worthwhile and that our happiness is inextricably bound up with the happiness of others. There is no denying that if society suffers, we ourselves suffer, and the more our hearts and minds are afflicted with ill-will, the more miserable we become. We can reject religion, ideology, received wisdom, but we cannot escape the need for love and compassion.