Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes

If your emotional abilities aren't in hand, if you don't have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can't have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.

It's not psychopathology that counts. It's what you do with it.

When I've had a meltdown, people will say to me, "Well, you failed to keep your sense of humor."

Whoever grows angry amid troubles applies a drug worse than the disease and is a physician unskilled about misfortunes.

People who fail to use their emotional intelligence skills are more likely to turn to other, less effective means of managing their mood. They are twice as likely to experience anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and even thoughts of suicide.

There's no doubt I'm emotional.

Mostly in life people are trying not to have emotions.

I don't think I get that upset over things.

There are so many sensitive souls; they don't know what to do with their feelings.

I've got a lot better at dropping emotions if something goes wrong, or right.

If you start to dwell on your pain, the amount of pain will increase.

When we have emotional pain in our lives, we are going to seek to relieve that pain in some way.

It's the worst kind of cruelty — the thoughtless kind. You can't cope with it.

It is not to say that everything is fine and a positive attitude is all you need. But I share about values and principles and attitudes and I never tell people I understand their pain.

If you're intuitive and you have a desire for people to be happy and you want equilibrium and you want life to be good, then you'll worry. But we need to embrace the idea that, "No, I'm putting that aside, over there, in a box. I'll open that box when I wake up in the morning and deal with it then." I really find that men tend to do that, and it's great to be able to do.

Feeling irritated, restless, afraid, and hopeless is a reminder to listen more carefully.

Well, you can’t control what they do, but you can control how you respond to it…whether you allow it to drive you crazy, or occupy all of your thoughts, or whether you note what they’re doing, consider it, and make a conscious decision as to how much you’ll let it affect you

What we do about our feelings determines the quality of our relationship with ourselves.

We often add to our pain and suffering by being overly sensitive, over-reacting to minor things, and sometimes taking things too personally.

What do you know of my heart? What do you know of anything but your own suffering?

Try to take hold of your sensibility, and use it as if it were a faculty, like vision.

The quickest, simplest, and most powerful way I know to handle any emotion is to remember a time when you felt a similar emotion and realize that you've successfully handled this emotion before.

Teaching emotional intelligence skills to people with life-threatening illnesses has been shown to reduce the rate of recurrence, shrink recovery times, and lower death rates.

It would be impossible to estimate how much time and energy we invest in trying to fix, change and deny our emotions - especially the ones that shake us at our very core, like hurt, jealousy, loneliness, shame, rage and grief.