Dalai Lama Quotes

No man can live happily who regards himself alone, who turns everything to his own advantage. Thou must live for another, if thou wishest to live for thyself.

The cultivation of compassion is no longer a luxury, but a necessity, if our species is to survive.

If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years.

You know that your happiness and suffering depend on the happiness and suffering of others. That insight helps you not to do wrong things that will bring suffering to yourself and to other people.

The happiness of one's own heart alone cannot satisfy the soul; one must try to include, as necessary to one's own happiness, the happiness of others.

People are not considerate of others. They tend not to consider themselves as all living together, but see themselves only as individuals.

Because a human being is endowed with empathy, he violates the natural order if he does not reach out to those who need care. Responding to this empathy, one is in harmony with the order of things, with dharma; otherwise, one is not.

The chief thing is to love others like yourself, that's the chief thing, and that's everything; nothing else is wanted - you will find out at once how to arrange it all.

You will begin to succeed with your life when the pains and problems of others matter to you.

The really important kind of freedom involves...being able truly to care about other people...

Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?

There is another element that is a part of human happiness — and that is that unless we think of others and do something for them we miss the greatest sources of happiness.

If I am only happy for myself, many fewer chances for happiness. If I am happy when good things happen to other people, billions more chances to be happy!

Two Rules for Happy Living: 1. Be able to experience anything. 2. Cause only those things which others are able to experience easily.

Only the development of compassion and understanding for others can bring us the tranquility and happiness we all seek.

Since at the beginning and end of our lives we are so dependent on other's kindness, how can it be in ......the middle that we would neglect kindness towards others?

By developing a sense of respect for others and a concern for their welfare, we reduce our own selfishness, which is the source of all problems, and enhance our sense of kindness, which is a natural source of goodness.

Humans are not really very humane.

If we can cultivate a concern for others, keeping in mind the oneness of humanity, we can build a more compassionate world.

We should practice by showing one another love and helping one another. It is a mistake to pursue happiness and to seek to the avoid suffering by deceiving and humiliating other people. We must try to achieve happiness and eliminate suffering by being good-hearted and well-behaved.

The truest state of humanity is that you're living for other people.

Learning to cherish others is the best solution to our daily problems, and it is the source of all our future happiness and good fortune.

Lack of understanding of the true nature of happiness, it seems to me, is the principal reason why people inflict sufferings on others. They think either that the other's pain may somehow be a cause of happiness for themselves or that their own happiness is more important, regardless of what pain it may cause. But this is shortsighted. No one truly benefits from causing harm to another sentient being. . . . . In the long run causing others misery and infringing their rights to peace and happiness result in anxiety, fear, and suspicion within oneself.

You will never find a truly happy self-centered person. They simply don't exist.

Compassionate action involves working with ourselves as much as working with others.