With realization of one's own potential and self-confidence in one's ability, one can build a better world.

The way to develop inner peace through meditation begins with the recognition that the destroyer of inner peace is not some external foe, but is within us. Therefore, the solution is within us too. However, that inner change does not take place immediately in the way that we switch on a light, but takes weeks, months and years.

Everything you do has some effect, some impact.

Don't ever mistake my silence for ignorance, my calmness for acceptance or my kindness for weakness. Compassion and tolerance are not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength.

We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.

I hold the view that death is rather like changing one's clothes when they are torn and old. It is not an end in itself. Yet death is unpredictable-you do not know when and howT it will take place.

The Chinese government wants me to say that for many centuries Tibet has been part of China. Even if I make that statement, many people would just laugh. And my statement will not change past history. History is history.