If contemplation of other people's pain just increases distress, then I think we should see it in another way. If we don't center too much on ourselves, then [we] increase our courage and our determination to remedy the pain, not our distress. If we have unconditional compassion, then it increases our courage. So that's the difference, self-centered motivation versus altruistic motivation.

There is no such thing as good and bad in an absolute sense. There is only the good and bad- the harm in terms of happiness and suffering- that our thoughts and our actions do to ourselves and others.

Whatever you train, you change your brain.

Children, old people, vagabonds laugh easily and heartily: they have nothing to lose and hope for little. In renunciation lies a delicious taste of simplicity and deep peace.

When hearing a door creak, the optimist thinks it's opening and the pessimist thinks it's closing.

To love oneself is to love life. It is essential to understand that we make ourselves happy in making others happy.

The basic root of happiness lies in our minds; outer circumstances are nothing more than adverse or favourable.