Life is painful. It has thorns, like the stem of a rose. Culture and art are the roses that bloom on the stem. The flower is yourself, your humanity. Art is the liberation of the humanity inside yourself.

it is impossible to build one's own happiness on the unhappiness of others. This perspective is at the heart of Buddhist teachings.

True love should be transformative; a process that amplifies our capacity to cherish not just one person but all people. It can make us stronger, lift us higher and deepen us as individuals. Only to the extent that we polish ourselves now can we hope to develop wonderful bonds of the heart in the future.

Japan learned from the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the tragedy wrought by nuclear weapons must never be repeated and that humanity and nuclear weapons cannot coexist.

No matter what kind of difficult situation one may find oneself in, some opening, some opportunity to fight one's way out, can always be found. What's most important is to hold fast to Hope, to face the future with courage.

We have both a weak self and a strong self; the two are completely different. If we allow our weak side to dominate, we will be defeated. The thought ,"I am still young and have a lot of time, so I can relax and take life easy" is a function of our own weakness.

The differences between people need not act as barriers that wound, harm and drive us apart. Rather, these very differences among cultures and civilizations should be valued as manifestations of the richness of our shared creativity.