Dalai Lama Quotes

You may look through the streets of heaven, asking each how they came to b there, and you will look in vain everywhere for a person who is morally and spiritually strong, whose strength did not come to him in struggle. There is no exception anywhere. Every true strength is gained in struggle.

I know that in life there will be sickness, devastation, disappointments, heartache - it's a given. What's not a given is the way you choose to get through it all. If you look hard enough, you can always find the bright side.

Any personal crisis - you have to use it to get stronger.

I wouldn't ever say if you're having tough times then there must be something wrong with you or your attitude. Life's a fight. It's a good fight of faith. I encourage people to stay up, stay hopeful, stay faith-filled.

Overcoming adversity not only makes you stronger, it makes you more hopeful.

When you go through a moment, and you are down and losing your head, it gives you a lot of experience.

You have to have faith that there is a reason you go through certain things. I can't say I'm glad to go through pain, but in a way one must, in order to gain courage and really feel joy.

A lot of people deal with things that are bad. Once you've been through something, you grow from it and you take a lot in. You can always turn it into something positive.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I really believe that.

I found the purpose of my existence, and also the purpose of my circumstance. There's a purpose for why you're in the fire. If God can use a man without arms and legs to be His hands and feet, then He will certainly use any willing heart!

Suffer not thy wrongs to shroud thy fate, But turn, my soul, to blessings which remain.

A lot of suffering is just getting rid of dross in yourself, and lingering and hanging in the darkness is often - I say this against myself - a failure of imagination, to imagine the door into the light.

Life is not linear; you have ups and downs. It's how you deal with the troughs that defines you.

We acquire the strength we have overcome.

I think you need to go through some stuff to really appreciate life and understand what it means to persevere, overcome and have faith. I think those tough times make you a stronger person.

Whether we fear pain and suffering or not, pain and suffering will come to everyone. Why not keep our minds focused on where we want to go?

I am proof that one person can rise above any challenge, and if I can, then so will others if they are given the chance.

Is life so wretched? Isn't it rather your hands which are too small, your vision which is muddled? You are the one who must grow up.

Conventional wisdom tells us to avoid taking unalterable action while at a low point in life. I have never been conventional.

Everything's the same; I'm living with cancer and it's not going to stop me. But until you really test yourself and challenge yourself, I don't think you quite know.

To me, it's always been a challenge to look for the light: to look for those spaces in your heart where there is hope and faith and try to embrace that rather than crush it. I've spent so many years trying to crush those feelings of hope, and I certainly succeeded for quite a while.

I'd spent my childhood thinking bad things, bad things every day. It had made me sick, but it had made me determined.

We must accept life for what it actually is - a challenge to our quality without which we should never know of what stuff we are made, or grow to our full stature.

There is something in even the darkest situations that we can make a positive in our lives.

I've had to learn to fight all my life - got to learn to keep smiling. If you smile things will work out.