Top 200 Daisaku Ikeda Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “Music speaks directly to the heart. This response, this echo within the heart, is proof that human hearts can transcend the barriers of time and space and nationality. Exchanges in the field of culture can play an important role in enabling people to overcome mistrust and prejudice and build peace.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

102. “Genuine happiness can only be achieved when we transform our way of life from the unthinking pursuit of pleasure to one committed to enriching our inner lives, when we focus on ‘being more’ rather than simply having more.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

103. “Likewise, education can direct people toward good or evil ends. When education is based on a fundamentally distorted worldview, the results are horrific.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

104. “Dig beneath your feet, there you will find a spring. The place where you are now is crucial. Never try to avoid that which you must do.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

105. “What matters is the value we’ve created in our lives, the people we’ve made happy and how much we’ve grown as people.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

106. “No one can live entirely on their own, nor can any country or society exist in isolation.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

107. “Strength is Happiness. Strength is itself victory. In weakness and cowardice there is no happiness. When you wage a struggle, you might win or you might lose. But regardless of the short-term outcome, the very fact of your continuing to struggle is proof of your victory as a human being.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

108. “People can only live fully by helping others to live. When you give life to friends you truly live. Cultures can only realize their further richness by honoring other traditions. And only by respecting natural life can humanity continue to exist.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

109. “The person who lives life fully, glowing with life’s energy, is the person who lives a successful life.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

110. “Become like the sun. If you do so, all darkness will be dispelled. No matter what happens, live confidently with the conviction that you, yourself are the “sun.” Of course, in life there are sunny days and cloudy days. But even on cloudy days, the sun is still there. Even when you are suffering, it is vital that you strive to keep the sun shining brightly in your heart.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

111. “Youthfulness is not determined by age. It is determined by one’s life force. One who possesses hope is forever young. One who continually advances is forever beautiful.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

112. “True happiness means forging a strong spirit that is undefeated, no matter how trying our circumstances.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

113. “There is no true joy in a life lived closed up in the little shell of the self. When you take one step to reach out to people, when you meet with others and share their thoughts and sufferings, infinite compassion and wisdom well up within your heart. Your life is transformed.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

114. “Speak out tirelessly with conviction.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

115. “World peace is not something that can be realized simply by politicians signing treaties, or by business leaders creating economic cooperation. True and lasting peace will be realized only by forging bonds of trust between people at the deepest level, in the depths of their very lives.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

116. “Patience is, in and of itself, a great challenge and it often holds the key to breaking through a seeming impasse.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

117. “It is important that we have the inner richness to be able to look up at the stars or the moon and compose a poem once in a while. When we open wide our minds and fix our gaze on the universe, we fix our gaze on our own life.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

118. “There are no greater treasures than the highest human qualities such as compassion, courage and hope. Not even tragic accident or disaster can destroy such treasures of the heart.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

119. “There is no one as strong as a person whose heart is always filled with gratitude.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

120. “While conservatism and self-protection might be likened to winter, night, and death, the spirit of pioneering and attempting to realize ideals evokes images of spring, morning, and birth.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

121. “The wisdom and experience of older people is a resource of inestimable worth. Recognizing and treasuring the contributions of older people is essential to the long-term flourishing of any society.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

122. “The effects of human rights education can be dramatic in awakening people to the value and power of their own lives, as shown in the following stories.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

123. “I believe that a culture of peace must be the essential foundation of our efforts for peace.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

124. “The place where you are now is vital. The path toward victory opens from where you stand.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

125. “I can do more. I can grow. I can become a bigger and better human being.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

126. “The differences between people need not act as barriers that wound, harm and drive us apart. Rather, these very differences among cultures and civilizations should be valued as manifestations of the richness of our shared creativity.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

127. “Encouragement inspires people and lights the flame of courage in their hearts. To have that effect, however, one must develop a radiant state of life and engage people with every ounce of one’s being. Such a spirit touches people’s lives and gives them hope and inspiration.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

128. “Great art is created only through diligent and painstaking effort to perfect and polish oneself.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

129. “Salute to the Smiling Faces of the 21st Century.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

130. “Whatever your circumstances, whatever your past, the forces that determine your future are nowhere but within your own heart and mind. It is here that the star of your destiny shines.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

131. “Happiness does not exist as an isolated quality, nor does it conform to a single fixed pattern. Happiness is something that breathes and lives in the relationships between one person and another.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

132. “The idea of interdependence is central to Buddhism, which holds that all things come into being through the mutual interactions of various causes and conditions.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

133. “When human beings live together, conflict is inevitable. War is not.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

134. “The eyes of a poet discover in each person a unique and irreplaceable humanity. While arrogant intellect seeks to control and manipulate the world, the poetic spirit bows with reverence before its mysteries.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

135. “Like the ocean that remains calm in its depths even when waves rage over its surface, and like the sun that continues shining on high even during storms, we can at each moment create value and develop our state of life, enjoying our existence to the fullest in times of both suffering and joy.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

136. “I firmly believe that the mission of religion in the 21st century must be to contribute concretely to the peaceful coexistence of humankind.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

137. “Envying another’s beauty will diminish your own. But when you praise beauty in others your own beauty deepens.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

138. “A person fully awakened to the jewel-like dignity of their own life is capable of truly respecting that same treasure in others.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

139. “It is only through such real-life daily struggles and challenges that a genuine sensitivity to human rights can be inculcated. This is a truth that is not limited to school education: it applies to all of us.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

140. “The reactions of the human heart are not mechanical and predictable but infinitely subtle and delicate.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

141. “Anyone who has ever made a resolution discovers that the strength of their determination fades with time. The important thing is not that your resolve never wavers, but that you don’t get down on yourself when it does and throw in the towel.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

142. “One cannot, without reflection, make some into bearers of goodness and others into miscreants, judging them by relative positive or negative criteria. These, like everything else, change according to historical circumstances, the character of a society, the time and subjective points of view.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

143. “You must not for one instant give up the effort to build new lives for yourselves. Creativity means to push open the heavy, groaning doorway to life.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

144. “A genuinely happy person is one who has rendered others happy.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

145. “Buhhdism is wisdom. As long as we have wisdom, we can put all things to the best use, we can turn everything in the direction of happiness.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

146. “1. Become people who seek the truth, create value and possess wisdom and enthusiasm. 2. Do not cause trouble to others, and always take responsibility for your own actions. 3. Be considerate and polite, reject violence and value trustworthiness and cooperation. 4. Boldly speak out for your beliefs and act courageously for the sake of truth and justice. 5. Cultivate an enterprising spirit and become respectable leaders of Japan and the world.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

147. “It is natural for us, as human beings, to look forward. Our eyes naturally look ahead. In this sense, we are made for moving toward a goal.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

148. “I have for some time urged that a nuclear abolition summit to mark the effective end of the nuclear era be convened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the 70th anniversary of the bombings of those cities, with the participation of national leaders and representatives of global civil society.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

149. “Humanity has experienced many revolutionary changes over the course of history: revolutions in agriculture, in science, industrial production, as well as numerous political revolutions. But these have all been limited to the external aspects of our individual and collective lives.”

— Daisaku Ikeda

150. “There are some among the so-called elite who are overbearing and arrogant. I want to foster leaders, not elitists.”

— Daisaku Ikeda