Gautama Buddha Quotes

Crying with the wise is better than laughing with the fool.

Love is a fleeting emotion, to reach true nirvana one must know themselves and forsake love, for it breeds contempt

Well-makers lead the water (wherever they like) ; fletchers bend the arrow ; carpenters bend a log of wood ; wise people fashion themselves.

Like a beautiful flower, full of colour, but without scent, are wise words when spoken, but fruitless these words are when not carried out by the speaker.

Awakening is natural,delusion is not

Live contemplating the body through mindfulness. Live contemplating feelings. In this way you will be aware of and control wrong desires.

Form is emptiness, emptiness is form

Whatever the hateful do to the hateful, or an enemy to an enemy, worse is the harm of a misguided mind directed at oneself.

Those who recognize the existence of suffering, its cause, its remedy, and its cessation, have fathomed the four noble truths. They will walk in the right path.

Do not think lightly of good, that nothing will come of it. A whole water pot will fill up from dripping drops of water.

Yet the Teaching is simple. Do what is right. Be pure. At the end of the way is freedom.

If it is not truthful and not helpful, don't say it. If it is truthful and not helpful, don't say it. If it is not truthful and helpful, don't say it. If it is truthful and helpful, wait for the right time.

As a flower that is lovely and beautiful, but is scentless, even so fruitless is the well-spoken word of one who practices it not.

Believe nothing on the faith of traditions, even though they have been held in honor for many generations and in diverse places. Do not believe a thing because many people speak of it. Do not believe on the faith of the sages of the past. Do not believe what you yourself have imagined, persuading yourself that a God inspires you. Believe nothing on the sole authority of your masters and priests. After examination, believe what you yourself have tested and found to be reasonable, and conform your conduct thereto.

Not even death can wipe out our good deeds

Seeing the Way is like going into a dark room with a torch; the darkness instantly departs, while the light alone remains. When the Way is attained and the truth is seen, ignorance vanishes and enlightenment abides forever.

There is no meditation without wisdom, and there is no wisdom without meditation. When a man has both meditation and wisdom, he is indeed close to nirvana.

In the end it is nothing other than the loving kindness with which the woman cares for her child that makes the difference. Her concern concentrates on one thing just like the Buddhist practice of concentration. She thinks of nothing but her child, which is similar to Buddhist compassion. That must be why, although she created no other causes to bring about it, she was reborn in the Brahma heaven.

The holy man is beyond time, he does not depend on any view nor subscribe to any sect; all current theories he understands, but he remains unattached to any of them.

There are these two kinds of gifts: a gift of material things & a gift of the Dhamma. Of the two, this is supreme: a gift of the Dhamma.

O men! you can take life easily but, remember, none of you can give life! So, have mercy, have compassion! And, never forget, that compassion makes the world noble and beautiful.

The kingdom of heaven is closer than the brow above the eye but mankind does not see it.

Do not learn how to react. Learn how to respond.

If the selflessness of phenomena is analyzed and if this analysis is cultivated, it causes the effect of attaining nirvana. through no other cause does one come to peace.

You are what you think about.

Which do you think is more my friend, the water in the four great oceans or the tears that you have shed on this long way of taking birth again and again?

There is no fire like passion. There are no chains like hate. Illusion is a net, Desire is a rushing river.

All that we are is the result of what we have thought; what we think we become.

Wakefulness is the way to life. The fool sleeps As if he were already dead, But the master is awake And he lives forever.

There are no chains like hate...dwelling on your brother's faults multiplies your own. You are far from the end of your journey.

Every human being is the author of his own health or disease.

It is our own thoughts that lead us into trouble, not other people.

The self of which you speak, whether it is the great self or the small self, is only a concept that does not correspond to any reality.

The secret of health for both mind and body is...live the present moment wisely and earnestly.

Meditation brings wisdom; lack of meditation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what holds you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom.

As you walk and eat and travel, be where you are. Otherwise you will miss most of your life.

Bring your mind to noble silence. Unify your mind in noble silence. Concentrate your mind in noble silence... Enter into rapture and pleasure born of silence derived of concentration and awareness that is free from thought and fabrication.

They are not following dharma who resort to violence to achieve their purpose. But those who lead others through nonviolent means, knowing right and wrong, may be called guardians of the dharma. Those who really seek the path to Enlightenment dictate terms to their mind. Then they proceed with strong determination.

Monks, one thing, if practiced and made much of, conduces to great thrill, great profit, great security after the toil, to mindfulness and self-possession, to the winning of knowledge and insight, to pleasant living in this very life, to the realization of the fruit of release by knowledge. What is that one thing: It is mindfulness centered on the body.

If beings knew, as I know, the results of giving & sharing, they would not eat without having given.

When you like a flower, you just pluck it. But when you love a flower, you water it daily.

Don't just do something, be there.

If you're respectful by habit, constantly honoring the worthy, four things increase: long life, beauty, happiness, strength.

Journey over, sorrowless, freed in every way, and with all bonds broken - for such a man there is no more distress.

One of his students asked Buddha, "Are you the Messiah?" "No," answered Buddha. "Then are you a healer?" "No," Buddha replied. "Then are you a teacher?" the student persisted. "No, I am not a teacher." "Then what are you?" asked the student exasperated. "I am awake," Buddha replied.

The fragrance of sandalwood and rosebay does not travel far. But the fragrance of virtue rises to the heavens.

Let your mind become clear like a still forest pool.

When your mind is set in meditative equipoise, you can see reality exactly as it is