Dalai Lama Quotes

I never did a right thing or abstained from a wrong one from any consideration of reward or punishment.

The content of scientific theory itself offers no moral foundation for the personal conduct of life.

Ethics, as has been well said, are the finest fruits of humanity, but they are not its roots

...virtue is not merely a state in conformity with the right principle, but one that implies the right principle; and the right principle in moral conduct is prudence.

It's better to die doing good than to live doing evil.

It's more important to do the right thing than to do things right.

It is difficult for me to regard anyone who obeys no moral principle in his conduct to be a religious man.

As our own species is in the process of proving, one cannot have superior science and inferior morals. The combination is unstable and self-destroying.

That which is selfish is immoral, and that which is unselfish is moral.

What would our world be like if we ceased to worry about 'right' and 'wrong,' or 'good' and 'evil,' and simply acted so as to maximize well-being, our own and that of others? Would we lose anything important?

I have never made it a consideration whether the subject was popular or unpopular, but whether it was right or wrong; for that which is right will become popular, and that which is wrong, though by mistake it may obtain the cry or fashion of the day, will soon lose the power of delusion, and sink into disesteem.

Ambition without principle never was long under the guidance of good sense.

People will not follow a leader with moral incongruities for long. Every time you compromise character you compromise leadership. The foundation of firm leadership is character.

One’s concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one’s personal interest in the issue.

Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.

You can't be right by doing wrong; you can't be wrong by doing right.

Lord, give me the wisdom to know what's right and the courage to do what's right-even when it's hard.

Your honesty is not to be based either on religion or policy.Bothyourreligionand policy must be basedon it.

I do nothing I regret, man, because I try to do nothing abominable. As long as there is not an abomination, there is nothing to regret, you understand?

We talk so much about one's rights... so little about what is actually right.

The true guide of life is to do what is right.

What passes in the world for talent or dexterity or enterprise is often only a want of moral principle. We may succeed where others fail, not from a greater share of invention, but from not being nice in the choice of expedients.

Integrity, the choice between what's convenient and what's right.

Virtue is health, vice is sickness.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong, because you can remain the friend of the sufferer; who would want to be the friend of and have to live together with a murderer? Not even another murderer.