Top 120 Matthieu Ricard Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Happiness is a skill, emotional balance is a skill, compassion and altruism are skills, and like any skill they need to be developed. That’s what education is about.”

— Matthieu Ricard

2. “Worries are pointless. If there’s a solution, there’s no need to worry. If no solution exists, there’s no point to worry.”

— Matthieu Ricard

3. “Nothing goes right on the outside when nothing is going right on the inside.”

— Matthieu Ricard

4. “It is in learning music that many youthful hearts learn to love.”

— Matthieu Ricard

5. “Happiness is a state of inner fulfillment.”

— Matthieu Ricard

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

— Matthieu Ricard

7. “By breaking down our sense of self-importance, all we lose is a parasite that has long infected our minds. What we gain in return is freedom, openness of mind, spontaneity, simplicity, altruism: all qualities inherent in happiness.”

— Matthieu Ricard

8. “Wisdom and compassion should become the dominating influences that guide our thoughts, our words, and our actions.”

— Matthieu Ricard

9. “It’s not the magnitude of the task that matters, it’s the magnitude of our courage.”

— Matthieu Ricard

10. “For a few moments, be aware of your potential for change. Whatever your present situation is, evolution and transformation are always possible. At the least, you can change your way of seeing things and then, gradually, your way of being as well.”

— Matthieu Ricard

11. “Happiness is the result of inner maturity. It depends on us alone, and requires patient work, carried out from day to day. Happiness must be built, and this requires time and effort. In the long term, happiness and unhappiness are therefore a way of being, or a life skill.”

— Matthieu Ricard

12. “Envy and jealousy stem from the fundamental inability to rejoice at someone else’s happiness or success.”

— Matthieu Ricard

13. “Anyone who enjoys inner peace is no more broken by failure as he is inflated by success. He is able to fully live his experiences in the context of a vast and profound serenity, since he understands that experiences are ephemeral and that it is useless to cling to them.”

— Matthieu Ricard

14. “True freedom means freeing oneself from the dictates of the ego and its accompanying emotions.”

— Matthieu Ricard

15. “Happiness is the main object of our aspirations, whatever name we give to it: fulfilment, deep satisfaction, serenity, accomplishment, wisdom, fortune, joy or inner peace, and however we try to seek it: creativity, justice, altruism, striving, completion of a plan or a piece of work.”

— Matthieu Ricard

16. “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.”

— Matthieu Ricard

17. “Meditation is not just blissing out under a mango tree. It completely changes your brain and therefore changes what you are.”

— Matthieu Ricard

18. “Genuine fearlessness arises with the confidence that we will be able to gather the inner resources to deal with any situation that comes our way.”

— Matthieu Ricard

19. “Knowledge does not mean mastering a great quantity of different information, but understanding the nature of mind. This knowledge can penetrate each one of our thoughts and illuminate each one of our perceptions.”

— Matthieu Ricard

20. “Humility does not mean believing oneself to be inferior, but to be freed from self-importance. It is a state of natural simplicity which is in harmony with our true nature and allows us to taste the freshness of the present moment.”

— Matthieu Ricard

21. “The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed. – GANDHI T.”

— Matthieu Ricard

22. “Altruism is like rings in the water when you toss a pebble. At first the circles are very small, then they get larger, and finally they embrace the entire surface of the ocean. – ALEXANDRE JOLLIEN.”

— Matthieu Ricard

23. “Empathy is the faculty to resonate with the feelings of others. When we meet someone who is joyful, we smile. When we witness someone in pain, we suffer in resonance with his or her suffering.”

— Matthieu Ricard

24. “Authentic happiness is not linked to an activity; it is a state of being, a profound emotional balance struck by a subtle understanding of how the mind functions.”

— Matthieu Ricard

25. “In the freshness of the present moment, past is gone, future is not yet born, and – if one remains in pure mindfulness and freedom – disturbing thoughts arise and go without leaving a trace. That is basic meditation.”

— Matthieu Ricard

26. “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.”

— Matthieu Ricard

27. “While it may be difficult to change the world, it is always possible to change the way we look at it.”

— Matthieu Ricard

28. “A storm may be raging at the surface, but the depths remain calm. The wise man always remains connected to the depths. On the other hand, he who knows only the surface and is unaware of the depths is lost when he is buffeted by the waves of suffering.”

— Matthieu Ricard

29. “Let us live simply in the freshness of the present moment, in the clarity of pure awakened mind.”

— Matthieu Ricard

30. “Happiness is a state of inner fulfillment, not the gratification of inexhaustible desires for outward things.”

— Matthieu Ricard

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

— Matthieu Ricard

32. “I continued to be confronted with suffering, but love and compassion conferred a constructive quality to my way of approaching others’ sufferings, and amplified my inclination and determination to come to their aid. So it was clear, from my perspective, that if there was an “empathy fatigue” leading to the syndrome of emotional exhaustion, there was no fatigue of love and compassion.”

— Matthieu Ricard

33. “When the mind is full of memories and preoccupied by the future, it misses the freshness of the present moment. In this way, we fail to recognize the luminous simplicity of mind that is always present behind the veils of thought.”

— Matthieu Ricard

34. “We deal with our mind from morning till evening and it can be our best friend or our worst enemy.”

— Matthieu Ricard

35. “The goal of meditation is precisely to make your mind smooth and manageable so that it can be concentrated or relaxed at will; and especially to free it from the tyranny of mental afflictions and confusion.”

— Matthieu Ricard

36. “Understanding that the essential nature of consciousness is neutral shows us that it is possible to change our mental universe. We can transform the content of our thoughts and experiences. The neutral and luminous background of our consciousness provides us with the space we need to observe mental events rather than being at their mercy. We then also have the space we need to create the conditions necessary to transform these mental events.”

— Matthieu Ricard

37. “Enlightenment is eliminating mental confusion, eliminating hatred, jealousy, mental toxins, cravings. That’s very simple and straightforward. Whether you can do it or not is another matter.”

— Matthieu Ricard

38. “No change occurs if we just let our habitual tendencies and automatic patterns of thought perpetuate and even reinforce themselves, thought after thought, day after day, year after year. But those tendencies and patterns can be challenged.”

— Matthieu Ricard

39. “Neuroscience has proven that similar areas of the brain are activated both in the person who suffers and in the one who feels empathy. Thus, empathic suffering is a true experience of suffering.”

— Matthieu Ricard

40. “If you want to know the future, look at what is in your mind.”

— Matthieu Ricard

41. “To grant forgiveness to someone who has truly changed is not a way of condoning or forgetting his or her past crimes, but of acknowledging whom he or she has become.”

— Matthieu Ricard

42. “The world of ignorance and suffering – called samsara in Sanskrit – is not a fundamental condition of existence but a mental universe based on our mistaken conception of reality.”

— Matthieu Ricard

43. “Take care of the minutes, for the hours will take care of themselves,” Lord Chesterfield once told his son. This is the best path to gradual change.”

— Matthieu Ricard

44. “The fleeting experience of pleasure is dependent upon circumstance, on a specific location or moment in time. It is unstable by nature, and the sensation it evokes soon becomes neutral or even unpleasant. Likewise, when repeated it may grow insipid or even lead to disgust;.”

— Matthieu Ricard

45. “Try to rest in the present moment, free of concepts. Watch the nature of the gap between thoughts, which is free from mental constructs. Gradually extend the interval between the disappearance of one thought and the emergence of the next. Remain in a state of simplicity that is free of mental constructs, yet perfectly aware; beyond effort, yet alert and mindful.”

— Matthieu Ricard

46. “With the help of experience, we can deal with negative emotions before they surface. We can “see them coming” and learn to distinguish those that bring suffering from those that contribute to happiness.”

— Matthieu Ricard

47. “The mind is malleable. Our life can be greatly transformed by even a minimal change in how we manage our thoughts and perceive and interpret the world. Happiness is a skill. It requires effort and time.”

— Matthieu Ricard

48. “Meditation gives you more inner strength and confidence, and if you don’t feel vulnerable, you can put that to the service of others. So it’s not just about sitting and cultivating caring mindfulness. It’s building up a way of being and then using it for the service of others.”

— Matthieu Ricard

49. “Love is the only thing that doubles every time it’s given,” said Albert Schweitzer.”

— Matthieu Ricard

50. “Peace is not weak. Standing up to a tank is harder than dropping a suicide bomb.”

— Matthieu Ricard