18 Quotes by Heinrich Harrer

They were nice, friendly people, and they invited us to share their fire and drink a cup of rancid butter tea with them.

I have always envied the Tibetans their simple faith, for all my life I have been a seeker. Though I learned, while in Asia, the way to meditate, the final answer to the riddle of life has not been vouchsafed to me. But I have at least learned to contemplate the events of life with tranquillity and not let myself be flung to and fro by circumstances in a sea of doubt.

I lacked the advice and guidance of experienced counsellors and so wasted many years before I realised that one must not pursue several aims at the same time.

One of the best characteristics of the Tibetan people is their complete tolerance of other creeds. Their monastic theocracy has never sought the conversion of infidels.

But we had no intention of becoming shopkeepers or merely earning money. We needed work that would at the same time procure us satisfaction. And more than anything, we desired to make ourselves useful.

It was inevitable that Red China would invade Tibet, and then there would be no place for us two friends of Tibetan independence.

What has since happened in Tibet is hardly to be believed. More than 1.2 million Tibetans lost their lives and of about six thousand monasteries, temples, and shrines, 99 percent were either looted or totally destroyed. In.

Decades of destruction, suppression, genocide, sterilization, and political indoctrination could not break the Tibetans’ will for freedom, or their deep-rooted religious beliefs. On.

The Tibetans do not mourn for the dead in our sense of the word. Sorrow for the parting is relieved by the prospect of rebirth, and death has no terrors for the Buddhist.