Top 500 Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “If you nourish your hatred and your anger, you burn yourself. Understanding is the only way out. If you understand, you will suffer less, and you will know how to get to the root of injustice.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

102. “For true love to be there, you need to feel complete in yourself, not needing something from outside.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

103. “Self-love is the foundation for your capacity to love the other person. If you don’t take good care of yourself, if you are not happy, if you are not peaceful, you cannot make the other person happy. You cannot help the other person; you cannot love. Your capacity for loving another person depends entirely on your capacity for loving yourself, for taking care of yourself. Healing.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

104. “Right View cannot be described. We can only point in the correct direction. Right View cannot even be transmitted by a teacher. A teacher can help us identify the seed of Right View that is already in our garden, and help us have the confidence to practice, to entrust that seed to the soil of our daily life.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

105. “Your body is not just yours. It is a gift and a responsibility.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

106. “No one can be by himself or herself alone. We have to inter-be, connected with everyone and everything else.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

107. “Western civilization places so much emphasis on the idea of hope that we sacrifice the present moment. Hope is for the future. It cannot help us discover joy, peace, or enlightenment in the present moment.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

108. “Love is a living, breathing thing. There is no need to force it to grow in a particular direction. If we start by being easy and gentle with ourselves, we will find it is just there inside of us, solid and healing.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

109. “The ability to apologize sincerely and express regret for the unskillful things we say or do is an art. A true apology can relieve a great deal of suffering in the other person.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

110. “Stillness is the foundation of understanding and insight.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

111. “There are two ways to wash the dishes. The first is to wash the dishes in order to have clean dishes and the second is to wash the dishes to wash the dishes.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

112. “According to the Buddha’s teachings, the most basic condition for happiness is freedom. Here we do not mean political freedom, but freedom from the mental formations of anger, despair, jealousy, and delusion. These mental formations are described by the Buddha as poisons. As long as these poisons are still in our heart, happiness cannot be possible.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

113. “Equanimity means to let go, not to abandon.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

114. “Whatever the tasks, do them slowly and with ease, in mindfulness.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

115. “In this food I see clearly the presence of the entire universe supporting my existence.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

116. “Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible. Life itself is possible. If a grain of corn is not impermanent, it can never be transformed into a stalk of corn. If the stalk were not impermanent, it could never provide us with the ear of corn we eat.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

117. “Understanding is the essence of love. If you cannot understand, you cannot love.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

118. “Reconciliation can also be with your own self. If you don’t reconcile with yourself, happiness with another person is impossible.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

119. “Love, respect, and friendship all need food to survive.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

120. “Fear is based on ignorance. Lack of understanding is also a primary cause of anger.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

121. “The past no longer exists, and the future is not here yet.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

122. “I don’t exercise to get fit or be healthier; I do it to enjoy being alive.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

123. “The person you love has all kinds of seeds in her: joy, suffering, and anger. If you water her anger, then in just five minutes you can bring the anger out in her. If you know how to water the seeds of her compassion, joy, and understanding, then these seeds will blossom. If you recognize the good seeds in her, you are watering her self-confidence and she will become the source of her own happiness as well as yours.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

124. “What is happening in the present moment is life.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

125. “Each of us is like the waves and also like the water. Sometimes we’re excited, noisy, and agitated like the waves. Sometimes we’re tranquil like still water. When water is calm, it reflects the blue sky, the clouds, and the trees. Sometimes, whether we’re at home, work, or school, we become tired, agitated, or unhappy and we need to transform into calm water. We already have calmness in us; we just need to know how to make it manifest.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

126. “Be a friend to yourself. If you are a true friend to yourself, you can be a true friend to a loved one. A romantic crush is short-lived, but friendship and loving kindness can last very long and continue to grow.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

127. “This is, because that is. This is not, because that is not. This is like this, because that is like that.” This is the Buddhist teaching of Genesis.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

128. “Breathing in, I see all my ancestors in me: my mineral ancestors, plant ancestors, mammal ancestors, and human ancestors. My ancestors are always present, alive in every cell of my body, and I play a part in their immortality.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

129. “True love is made of four elements: loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. In Sanskrit, these are, maitri, karuna, mudita, and upeksha.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

130. “May our heart’s garden of awakening bloom with hundreds of flowers.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

131. “When we read a magazine, we consume. When we watch a television program, we consume. Whatever we consume affects our body and mind. If we consume toxic magazine articles, movies, or video games, they will feed our craving, our anger, and our fear.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

132. “The only place where we can touch Jesus and the Kingdom of God is within us.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

133. “Aimlessness does not mean doing nothing. It means not putting something in front of you to chase after. When we remove the objects of our craving and desires, we discover that happiness and freedom are available to us right here in the present moment.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

134. “When we cannot communicate, we suffer, and we spill our suffering on to other people. We can find ways to open the doors of communication again.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

135. “The fruit of mindfulness practice is the realization that peace and joy are available within us and around us, right here and right now.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

136. “Invite your fear into consciousness, and smile through it; every time you smile through your fear, it will lose some of its strength.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

137. “Our suffering is us, and we need to treat it with kindness and nonviolence.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

138. “Without compassion, you are utterly alone.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

139. “I am a continuation like the rain is the continuation of the cloud.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

140. “FREEDOM IS THE basis of all happiness. Without freedom, there is no happiness.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

141. “The future is being made out of the present, so the best way to take care of the future is to take care of the present moment. This is logical and clear. Spending a lot of time speculating and worrying about the future is totally useless. We can only take care of our future by taking care of the present moment, because the future is made out of only one substance: the present. Only if you are anchored in the present can you prepare well for the future. Although.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

142. “Often, our pride stands in the way of our asking for help. In true love there is no place for pride. To love each other means to trust each other. If you don’t tell the person you love of your suffering, it means you don’t love this person enough to trust her. You have to realize that this person is the best person to help you. We need to be able to get help from the person we.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

143. “Waking up this morning I smile. I have twenty-four hours to live. I vow to live them deeply and learn to look at the beings around me with the eyes of compassion.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

144. “Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

145. “The roots of a lasting relationship are mindfulness, deep listening and loving speech, and a strong community to support you.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

146. “Emperor Wu asked Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen Buddhism in China, how much merit he had earned by building temples all over the country. Bodhidharma said, “None whatsoever.” But if you wash one dish in mindfulness, if you build one small temple while dwelling deeply in the present moment – not wanting to be anywhere else, not caring about fame or recognition – the merit from that act will be boundless, and you will feel very happy.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

147. “If you touch one thing with deep awareness, you touch everything.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

148. “Smiling is a kind of mouth yoga. When we smile, it releases the tension in our face. Others notice it, even strangers, and are likely to smile back. By smiling, we initiate a wonderful chain reaction, touching the joy in anyone we encounter. A smile is an ambassador of goodwill.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

149. “TO ME, THE definition of hell is simple: it is a place where there is no understanding and no compassion.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

150. “If your love is true love, it will benefit not only humans, but also animals, plants, and minerals. When you love one person, it’s an opportunity for you to love everyone, all beings. Then you are going in a good direction, and that is true love. But if you love someone and you get caught up in suffering and attachment, then you get cut off from others. That’s not true love.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh