864 Quotes by Thich Nhat Hanh

All love may begin by being passionate, especially for younger people. But in the process of living together, they have to learn and practice love, so that selfishness--the tendency to possess--will diminsh, and the elemetns of understanding and gratitude will settle in, little by little, until their love becomes nourishing, protecting, and reassuring," (41).

We are imprisoned in our small selves, thinking only of the comfortable conditions for this small self, while we destroy our large self.

To practice nonviolence, first of all we must learn to deal peacefully with ourselves.

If you are lost in a forest at night, you can follow the North Star to find your way out. You follow the North Star, but your goal is to get back home; it’s not to arrive at the North Star.

There is a Zen story about a man riding a horse that is galloping very quickly. Another man, standing alongside the road, yells at him, "Where are you going?" and the man on the horse yells back, "I don't know. Ask the horse." I think that is our situation. We are riding many horses that we cannot control.

We have to be in the present time, because only the present is real, only in the present can we be alive. We do not practice for the sake of the future, to be reborn in a paradise, but to be peace, to be compassion, to be joy right now.

If you have a gun, you can shoot one, two, three, five people; but if you have an ideology and stick to it, thinking it is the absolute truth, you can kill millions.

If you wish to have children, please do something for the world you will bring them into. That will make you someone who works for peace, in one way or another.

Being in touch with oneself is the meaning of meditation, to be aware of what is going on in your body, in your feelings, in your mind.