Chogyam Trungpa Quotes

One has to grow hard but without ever losing tenderness.

In this world there are two great sources of strength. One rests with those who are not afraid to kill. The other rests with those who are not afraid to love.

It seems entirely possible to me that horrible things can be going on without us becoming horrible people.

Have a strong mind and a soft heart.

Only the gentle are ever really strong.

Hope is like compassion to me. It's like possibility and living in possibility.

When I was growing up, my mother, who had been through a lot of terrible things in life, taught me that when life is tough your instinct is to close your heart. But if you can accept what happened and reach out to someone, there will always be someone less fortunate, or someone that can bring a solution and help your life.

I feel that people are basically trying to do their best in the world. Even when you see people making mistakes, you understand why they're making a mistake. Everybody has flaws, everybody has demons, everybody has ghosts, but I think you watch people and you see everybody trying to do their best.

We are built to love. Have the bravery to open the heart you have contracted from life's disappointments. This is how the heroes roll.

I'm tender on the inside.

It takes strength to be kind; it's not a weakness.

I believe now that love is letting people in. Love is bigger than all of us.

Characters, like people, don't need to be right - only understood and, perhaps, accepted. We are all grey, lighter and darker, depending on our state of security.

Most people are weak and frightened, and run from anything which could be upsetting. Most people, also, are takers and not givers.

There is no tenderness without bravery.

Real suffering bravely borne, melts even a heart of stone. Such is the potency of suffering. And there lies the key to Satyagraha.

What the warrior renounces is anything in his experience that is a barrier between himself and others. In other words, renunciation is making yourself more available, more gentle and open to others.

How much more courage it took to be kind than to be cruel.

We must not mistake kindness for weakness. Kindness isn't weak. Kindness is a certain type of strength.

Be tough minded but tenderhearted.

There is nothing noble about suffering except the love and forgiveness with which we meet it. Many believe that if they are suffering they are closer to God, but I have met very few who could keep their heart open to their suffering enough for that to be true. (124)

And there is not anything in the world stronger than tenderness.

The conviction that the world and man is something that had better not have been, is of a kind to fill us with indulgence towards one another.

Open your heart and take us in, Love-love and me.

People are people. Don't be afraid of them.