Dalai Lama Quotes

Nowhere is wisdom more necessary than in the guidance of charitable impulses. Meaning well is only half our duty; Thinking right is the other, and equally important, half.

Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.

If I could, Sister James, I would certainly choose to live in innocence. But innocence can only be wisdom in a world without evil. Situations arise and we are confronted with wrongdoing and the need to act.

Of a truth, Knowledge is power, but it is a power reined by scruple, having a conscience of what must be and what may be. . . .

Mankind censure injustice fearing that they may be the victims of it, and not because they shrink from committing it.

On the one hand, we may tell the truth, regardless of consequences, and on the other hand we may mellow it and sophisticate it to make it humane and tolerable.

My only fear is doing something contrary to human nature - the wrong thing, the wrong way, or at the wrong time.

To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.

In ethics, prudence is not an important virtue, but in the world it is almost everything.

It doesn't make you a monster to want, she said, her voice very gentle. It's what you do with it that matters.

There's right and there's wrong. You got to do one or the other. You do the one and you're living. You do the other and you may be walking around, but you're dead as a beaver hat.

...guilt leads to righteous action, but rarely is it the right action.

There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility.

Intention, good or bad, is not enough.

Too great a preoccupation with motives (especially one's own motive) is liable to lead to too little concern for consequences.

One of the hardest things to teach a child is that truth is more important than consequences.

...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.

I may have had good reasons. I may have had the best of intentions. But intentions aren’t enough, no matter how good they are. Intentions can lead you to a place where you’re able to make a choice. It’s the choice that counts.

The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions.

The right to do something doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.

Integrity is never painless.

A man who knows all goods and all truths, as many as can be known, but does not shun evils, knows nothing.

He deserves praise who does not what he may, but what he ought.

But goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.

A conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood.