Henepola Gunaratana Quotes

I really care about this stuff, I care about movies, and you just have to be strong and don't be stupid; freedom of choice is a big responsibility, and I'm lucky enough not to have to just take any movie to pay the rent, so there's no need to be greedy.

We can only judge what is right and proper by our own standards of right and wrong, which differs widely from the whites if I have been properly informed. The whites may do wrong all their lives, and then if they are sorry for it when they die, all is well, but with us it is different. We must continue to do good throughout our lives ... If the Great Spirit wished us to believe and do as the whites, He could easily change our opinions so that we could see, think, and act as they do... I believe that every man must make his own path.

No teacher, preacher, parent, friend, or wise man can decide what's right for you.

My greatest personal mistake is ever to allow a word or moment that “doesn’t count,” i.e., that I do not refer to my own basic principles. Every word, every action, every moment counts. (This is the pattern on which everybody makes mistakes [or] becomes irrational — not relating their one action or one conviction to another.

True freedom is not the liberty to do anything we please, but the liberty to do what we ought; and it is genuine liberty because doing what we ought now pleases us

I have lived according to rules that I embrace, but I don't feel like my job is to force others to embrace the rules that I embrace for myself.

As long as you're not hurting anyone, your choices are your choices.

Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone.

Absolute freedom is absolute nonsense! We gain freedom in anything through commitment, discipline, and fixed habit.

Character cannot be summoned at the moment of crisis if it has been squandered by years of compromise and rationalization. The only testing ground for the heroic is the mundane. The only preparation for that one profound decision which can change a life, or even a nation, is those hundreds of half-conscious, self defining, seemingly insignificant decisions made in private. Habit is the daily battleground of character.

I don't typically do what you're supposed to do. I focus on what I should do.

My choice is what I choose to do and if I'm causing no harm it shouldn't bother you. Your choice is who you choose to be and if you're causin' no harm, then your alright with me.

We follow the codes not because they bring gain, but because we loathe the people we would otherwise become.

From a very young age, my father put a lot of fear in me and it worked. I think it's important for children to have fear. I never was curious about drugs or alcohol. I was born in 1960 and back then the older kids were smoking pot. I wasn't interested in that ever and I always had this thing in me, for some reason, that if God was kind enough to give me a healthy body and mind, I was not going to screw it up.

All higher motives, ideals, conceptions, sentiments in a man are of no account if they do not come forward to strengthen him for the better discharge of the duties which devolve upon him in the ordinary affairs of life.

A disciplined conscience is a man's best friend. It may not be his most amiable, but it is his most faithful monitor.

If it is right for me, it is right. It is possible that it is wrong for others: let them take care of themselves!

Purity of soul cannot be lost without consent.

If you are an effective manager of your self, your discipline comes from within; it is a function of your independent will. You are a disciple, a follower, of your own deep values and their source. And you have the will, the integrity, to subordinate your feelings, your impulses, your moods to those values.

Most people don't base their morality on religion in spite what they say. If you ask people, "If you didn't believe in God, would you go out and kill your neighbour?" Most people will say, "No".

You take souls for vegetables.... The gardener can decide what will become of his carrots but no one can choose the good of others for them.

It may be that the human race is not ready for freedom. The air of liberty may be too rarefied for us to breathe... The paradox seems to be, as Socrates demonstrated long ago, that the truly free individual is free only to the extent of his own self-mastery. While those who will not govern themselves are condemned to find masters to govern over them.

The moral sense, or conscience, is as much part of a man as his leg or arm. It is given to all in a stronger or weaker degree.. It may be strengthened by exercise.

I need no master to punish me in order to behave as I ought. If I did, I would be no more than a child who obeys his father's rules only because he fears the whip, and not because he actually means good.

No moral system can rest solely on authority.