Buddhist quotes
1.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"My beliefs are that the truth is a truth until you organize it, and then it becomes a lie. I don't think that Jesus was teaching Christianity, Jesus was teaching kindness, love, concern, and peace. What I tell people is don't be Christian, be Christ-like. Don't be Buddhist, be Buddha-like."
"note the similarities with buddhism a buddhist who has achieved nirvana is not sad primarily because it does not know the concept of sad [...]"
"When I'm riding my bicycle I feel like a Buddhist who is happy just to enjoy his mundane existence"
"Like a fine flower, beautiful to look at but without scent, fine words are fruitless in a man who does not act in accordance with them."
"Let us live in joy, never falling sick like those who hate us. Let us live in freedom, without hatred even among those who hate."
"The man who foolishly does me wrong, I will return to him the protection of my most ungrudging love; and the more evil comes from him, the more good shall go from me."
"See the truth, and you will see me."
"Be lamps unto yourselves. Be refuges unto yourselves. Take yourself no external refuge. Hold fast to the truth as a lamp. Hold fast to the truth as a refuge. Look not for a refuge in anyone besides yourselves. And those, Ananda, who either now or after I am dead, Shall be a lamp unto themselves, Shall betake themselves as no external refuge, But holding fast to the truth as their lamp, Holding fast to the truth as their refuge, Shall not look for refuge to anyone else besides themselves, It is they who shall reach to the very topmost height; But they must be anxious to learn."
"If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox."
"Irrigators channel waters; fletchers straighten arrows; carpenters bend wood; the wise master themselves."
"Inflowing thoughts come to an end in those who are ever alert of mind, training themselves night and day, and ever intent on nirvana"
"You must take action yourself, for Buddhas only teach the way."
"The four catagories of existance, non-existance, both existance and non-existance, and neither existance nor non-existance, are spiderwebs among spiderwebs which can never take hold of the enormous bird of reality"
"Don't give way to heedlessness or to intimacy with sensual delight - for a heedful person, absorbed in jhana, attains an abundance of ease."
"A noble person is mindful and thankful for the favors he receives from others."
"As a single drop of water fills a bucket, so do small deeds of evil; as a single drop of water fills a bucket, so do small deeds of good."
"The recollected go forth to lives of renunciation. They take no pleasure in a fixed abode. Like wild swans abandoning a pool, they leave one resting place after another."
"Like fresh milk a bad deed does not turn at once. It follows a fool scorching him like a smouldering fire."
"One who conquers himself is greater than another who conquers a thousand times a thousand on the battlefield."
"Religion is one of the most important forces in the world. Whether you are a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew, or a Hindu, religion is a great force, and it can help one have command of one's own morality, one's own behavior, and one's own attitude."
