Dalai Lama Quotes

Since 2009, 140 Tibetans have immolated themselves to protest Chinese policies that limit their freedom of movement, speech and religion, especially their right to venerate the Dalai Lama.

Tibet, why is it occupied? For political reasons maybe they have a reason. I don't know. But religiously, why? The fact that the religious community is being oppressed and persecuted is something that every single person in the world who has any religious faith and religious feeling for - for people who have faith should speak up.

Free Tibet before free trade.

It is time for the government of China to stop holding innocent religious figures in captivity merely for peacefully protesting China's occupation of Tibet.

I swear I will do everything in my power to change the situation in Tibet where human rights are being suppressed. Tibet seeks freedom and democracy and we agree on those values.

I loved 'Kundun.'

The Dalai Lama is just a temporal leader of Tibet.

When I was two years old, I heard about his [Dalai Lama] flight from Tibet. Being very little, I said, "Oh, good Tibetans, bad Chinese." Those were the black-and-white ways that I thought.

Jail-going is only the beginning, not the end of satyagraha. The acme of satyagraha for us would be to lay down our lives for the defence of India's just cause.

I would hesitate to give advice to the Dalai Lama and his people because they are suffering. The Dalai Lama suffered from exile and the people in Tibet suffer from oppression.

I became the Dalai Lama not on a volunteer basis.

In 1949, Mao Tse-tung's Communists established the People's Republic of China, and the following year, his People's Liberation Army invaded central Tibet.

The courage of the Syrian protesters is remarkable, for they face prison, torture, or death every time they lift a banner.

I am confident I will set foot again in Tibet in my lifetime.

Walking down the street with a portrait of the Dalai Lama will get one immediately arrested in most parts of China. Tiny medallions are routinely confiscated and destroyed.

This girl at 17 really led an army, this girl at 19 really burned at the stake by her own choice. And you sit there and you want to figure out why did she make these choices? How did she live such a life?

Martyrdom is evidence only of a man's honesty - it is no evidence that he is not mistaken. Men have suffered martyrdom for all sorts of opinions in politics and in religion; yet they could not therefore have all been in the right; although they could give no stronger evidence that they believed themselves in the right.

I think the self-burning itself on practice of non-violence. These people, you see, they easily use bomb explosive, more casualty people. But they didn't do that. Only sacrifice their own life. So this also is part of practice of non-violence.

Eradicating a religion of kindness is, I think, a terrible thing for the Chinese to attempt.

A good model of how to 'work with the enemy' internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet.

Die fearlessly at the hands of your neighbors without fighting back to shame Muslims by your moral example..

The fanatic ... sacrifices his life to prove his worth.

He goes seeking liberty, which is so dear, as he knows who for it renounces life.

I will not condone murder, therefore I disobey and continue to disobey Salazar [Dictator of Portugal]. My desire is to be with God against men, rather than with men against God., If thousands of Jews can suffer because of one Catholic [Hitler], then surely it is permitted for one Catholic to suffer for so many Jews. I could not have acted otherwise, and I therefore accept all that has befallen me with love.

I want to be a martyr.