Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.""Laughter is good for thinking because when people laugh, it is easier for them to admit new ideas to their minds.

We are the creators of our own happiness and suffering, for everything originates in the mind.

Prayer alone will not make a happy life. A happy life must be built. You must act.

The key to human happiness lies within our own state of mind, and so too do the primary obstacles to that happiness.

If we can manage to refrain from harming others in our everyday actions and words, we can start to give more serious attention to actively doing good, and this can be a source of great joy and inner confidence. We can benefit others through our actions by being warm and generous toward them, by being charitable, and by helping those in need.

The important thing is that men should have a purpose in life. It should be something useful, something good.

If I had not been a monk, I would have become an engineer.