My message is always the same: to cultivate and practice love, kindness, compassion and tolerance.

Rulers come and go. It's the people who are the real rulers of the country.

Attachment constrains our vision so that we are not able to see things from a wider perspective.

I always tell my Western friends that it is best to keep your own tradition. Changing religion is not easy and sometimes causes confusion. You must value your tradition and honor your own religion.

Compassion, along with love, is the face of altruism.

Even within one person, yesterday and today, there are differences. We must look at a deeper level.

In twenty years' time I'll be eighty-three, just an old man with a stick moving like a sloth bear. While I'm alive, I am fully committed to autonomy, and I am the person who can persuade the Tibetan people to accept it.