Whether you believe in God or not does not matter so much, whether you believe in Buddha or not does not matter so much; as a Buddhist, whether you believe in reincarnation or not does not matter so much. You must lead a good life. And a good life does not mean just good food, good clothes, good shelter. These are not sufficient. A good motivation is what is needed: compassion, without dogmatism, without complicated philosophy; just understanding that others are human brothers and sisters and respecting their rights and human dignity.

We need a sense of the oneness of the 7 billion human beings alive today. When I meet people, I don't think about being different from them, about being Tibetan, Buddhist or even the Dalai Lama. I only think about being a human being. We all share the potential for positive and negative emotions, yet one of our special qualities is our human mind, our intelligence. If we use it well we'll be successful and happy.

My hope and wish is that one day, formal education will pay attention to what I call 'education of the heart'.

At the beginning of this century, people never questioned the effectiveness of war, never thought there could be real peace. Now, people are tired of war and see it as ineffective in solving anything.

World economies are always so tenuous and we are subject to so many losses in life, but a compassionate attitude is something we can always carry with us.

Compassion, forgiveness, these are the real, ultimate sources of power for peace and success in life

The many factors which divide us are actually much more superficial than those we share. Despite all of the things that differentiate us - race, language, religion, gender, wealth and so on - we are all equal concerning our fundamental humanity.