Gautama Buddha Quotes

Looking deeply at life as it is in this very moment, the meditator dwells in stability and freedom.

Be a lamp unto yourselves! Work out your liberation with diligence! Fill your mind with compassion!

One who conquers himself is greater than another who conquers a thousand times a thousand on the battlefield.

Delusions, errors and lies are like huge, gaudy vessels, the rafters of which are rotten and worm-eaten, and those who embark in them are fated to be shipwrecked.

In exactly the same way, ... scatter your body, your feeling, your perception, your predispositions, your discriminative consciousness, break them up, knock them down, cease to play with them, apply yourself to the destruction of craving for them. Verily, ... the extinction of craving is Nirvana.

Don't believe a teaching just because you've heard it from a man who's supposed to be holy, or because it's contained in a book supposed to be holy, or because all your friends and neighbors believe it. But whatever you've observed and analyzed for yourself and found to be reasonable and good, then accept that and put it into practice.

There is, monks, an unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned. If, monks, there were no unborn... no escape would be discerned from what is born, become, made, conditioned. But because there is an unborn..., therefore an escape is discerned from what is born, become, made, conditioned.

To master the pride of defiant selfhood, that in truth is the highest bliss.

It is not life and wealth and power that enslave men, but the cleaving to life and wealth and power.

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly. There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.

All that we are is the result of what we have thought; it is founded on our thoughts; it is made up of our thoughts. A man's life is the direct result of his thoughts... We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world.

When one is overcome by this wretched, clinging desire in the world, one's sorrows increase like grass growing up after a lot of rain.

Know what you do not know.

Learn to ne happy with what you have.

Those which arise dependently are free of inherent existence.

In four ways ... should one who flatters be understood as a foe in the guise of a friend: He approves of his friend's evil deeds, he disapproves his friend's good deeds, he praises him in his presence, he speaks ill of him in his absence.

Let him the intelligent man admonish, let him teach, let him forbid what is improper ! - he will be beloved of the good, by the bad he will be hated.

It is impossible to underestimate the significance of your today's choices

The number of those endowed with human life is as small as the amount of earth one can place on a fingernail. Life as a human being is hard to sustain--as hard as it is for the dew to remain on the grass. But it is better to live a single day with honor than to live to 120 and die in disgrace.

One should follow a man of wisdom who rebukes one for one's faults, as one would follow a guide to some buried treasure. To one who follows such a wise man, it will be an advantage and not a disadvantage.

From a withered tree, a flower blooms

Let none find fault with others; let none see the omissions and commissions of others. But let one see one's own acts, done and undone.

Explanation of the unspeakable cannot be finished.

There is only one time when it is essential to awaken. That time is now.

Just as the bee takes the nectar and leaves without damaging the color or scent of the flowers, so should the sage act in a village.

Every experience, no matter how bad it seems, holds within a blessing of some kind. The goal is to find it.

When words are both true and kind, they can change the world.

‎You only lose that which you cling to.

If you determine your course With force or speed, You miss the way of the dharma. Quietly consider What is right and what is wrong. Receiving all opinions equally, Without haste, wisely, Observe the dharma.

Do not breathing in the chronological, do not dream of the later, drain the intellect on the bring about twinkling.

Let yourself be open and life will be easier.

If you sleep, Desire grows in you Like a vine in the forest. Like a monkey in the forest You jump from tree to tree, Never finding the fruit - From life to life, Never finding peace. If you are filled with desire Your sorrows swell Like the grass after the rain. But if you subdue desire Your sorrows shall fall from you Like drops of water from a lotus flower.

There are five things which no one is able to accomplish in this world: first, to cease growing old when he is growing old; second, to cease being sick; third, to cease dying; fourth, to deny dissolution when there is dissolution; fifth, to deny non-being.

Sandalwood, tagara, lotus, jasmine - the fragrance of virtue is unrivalled by such kinds of perfume.

To avoid causing terror to living beings, let the disciple refrain from eating meat... the food of the wise is that which is consumed by the sadhus [holymen]; it does not consist of meat... There may be some foolish people in the future who will say that I permitted meat-eating and that I partook of meat myself, but... meat-eating I have not permitted to anyone, I do not permit, I will not permit meat-eating in any form, in any manner and in any place; it is unconditionally prohibited for all.

If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox.

As a bee without harming the flower, its colour or scent, flies away, collecting only the honey, even so should the sage wander in the village.

To become vegetarian is to step into the stream which leads to nirvana.

Anyone who is not working toward the truth is missing the whole point of living.

To live a single day and hear a good teaching is better than to live a hundred years without knowing such teaching.

Do not judge yourself harshly. Without mercy for ourselves we cannot love the world.

A person writing at night may put out the lamp, but the words he has written will remain. It is the same with the destiny we create for ourselves in this world.

Watering the flowers and the trees, whispering to them, talking to them. Then, they will grow to be more bright and luxuriant.

He who causes suffering shall suffer. There is no escape.

If by leaving a small pleasure one sees a great pleasure, let a wise man leave the small pleasure, and look to the great.

When the sleeping snake is gone, then you can rest at ease.

Whatever grounds there are for making merit productive of a future birth, all these do not equal a sixteenth part of the liberation of mind by loving-kindness. The liberation of mind by loving-kindness surpasses them and shines forth, bright and brilliant.

How wonderful, how miraculous, all beings, but all beings, are fully endowed with the wisdom and power of the Tathagat. But, sadly, human beings, due to sticky attachments, are not aware of it