Top 500 Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes (2025 Update)
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351. “Flowers decompose, but knowing this does not prevent us from loving flowers. In fact, we are able to love them more because we know how to treasure them while they are still alive. If we learn to look at a flower in a way that impermanence is revealed to us, when it dies, we will not suffer. Impermanence is more than an idea. It is a practice to help us touch reality.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

352. “We will receive the fruits of any act we have done, whether wholesome or unwholesome.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

353. “When a farmer uses a kind of fertilizer that does not have any effect, he has to change the fertilizer. The same is true for us. If, after several months, the practice we are doing has not brought about any transformation and healing, we have to reconsider the situation.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

354. “Ending our consumption of violent images and toxic communication gives us the chance to transform the violence and suffering in us.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

355. “Listen Bhikkhus, just as a buffalo boy recognizes each of his own buffaloes, a bhikkhu recognizes each of the essential elements of his own body. Just as a buffalo boy knows the characteristics and tendencies of each buffalo, a bhikkhu knows which actions of body, speech, and mind are worthy and which are not. Just as a buffalo boy scrubs his animals clean, a bhikkhu must cleanse his mind and body of desires, attachments, anger, and aversions.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

356. “If one person keeps calm and smiles at a provocation, the whole world will have a better chance for peace.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

357. “In modern society most of us don’t want to be in touch with ourselves; we want to be in touch with other things like religion, sports, politics, a book – we want to forget ourselves. Anytime we have leisure, we want to invite something else to enter us, opening ourselves to the television and telling the television to come and colonize us.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

358. “We must begin to live fully and truly, every moment of our daily lives.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

359. “We fall back into the past, we jump ahead into the future, and in this we lose our entire lives.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

360. “The most basic precept of all is to be aware of what we do, what we are, each minute. Every other precept will follow from that.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

361. “No view can ever be the truth. It is just from one point; that is why it is called a “point of view.” If we go to another point, we will see things differently and realize that our first view was not entirely right. Buddhism is not a collection of views. It is a practice to help us eliminate wrong views. The quality of our views can always be improved. From the viewpoint of ultimate reality, Right View is the absence of all views.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

362. “Without suffering, you cannot grow. Without suffering, you cannot get the peace and joy you deserve.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

363. “Do not think the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. Learn and practice nonattachment from views in order to be open to receive others’ viewpoints.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

364. “Your concept or perception of reality is not reality. When you are caught in your perceptions and ideas, you lose reality.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

365. “Ignorance is in each cell of our body and our consciousness. It’s like a drop of ink diffused in a glass of water.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

366. “It is my prayer that nations will no longer send their young people to fight each other, not even in the name of peace. I do not accept the concept of war for peace, nor of a ‘just war,’ in the same way that I cannot accept the concepts of ‘just slavery,,’ ’just hatred, or ’just racism.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

367. “You have the right to pursue economic growth, but not at the expense of life.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

368. “To be a friend means to offer happiness. If love doesn’t offer happiness, if it makes the other person cry all the time, then it’s not love; it’s the opposite.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

369. “Death is essential to making life possible. Death is transformation. Death is continuation. When we die, something else is born, even if it takes time to reveal itself or for us to be able to recognize it.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

370. “Words can travel thousands of miles. May my words create mutual understanding and love. May they be as beautiful as gems, as lovely as flowers.3.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

371. “Compassion doesn’t mean that you have to love that person who’s so difficult. But if you stop and look deeper, you’ll see that person’s difficulties. If you can accept him, then you can love him.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

372. “The energies of wisdom, compassion, inclusiveness, fearlessness, patience, and non-discrimination – never disparaging anyone – are all the qualities of awakened beings. Cultivating.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

373. “The miracle is not to walk on water or in thin air, but to walk on Earth. Walk in such a way that you become fully alive and joy and happiness are possible. That is the miracle that everyone can perform... If you have mindfulness, concentration, and insight then every step you make on this Earth is performing a miracle.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

374. “The notions and ideas we have about happiness can entrap us. We forget that they are just notions and ideas. Our idea of happiness may be the very thing that’s preventing us from being happy. When we’re caught in a belief that happiness should take a particular form, we fail to see the opportunities for joy that are right in front of us.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

375. “A wave has a right to live her life as a wave, but she must also learn to live her life as water because she is not only a wave. She is also water. And water lives without the fear carried by the wave.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

376. “Without suffering, we do not have the opportunity to cultivate compassion and understanding; and without understanding, there can be no true love. So.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

377. “A few years ago, I asked some children, “What is the purpose of eating breakfast? One boy replied, “To get energy for the day.” Another said, “The purpose of eating breakfast is to eat breakfast.” I think the second child is more correct.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

378. “When you climb a beautiful mountain, invite your child within to climb with you. When you contemplate the sunset, invite her to enjoy it with you.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

379. “A person who looks at the table and can see the universe is a person who can see the way.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

380. “When a person’s speech is full of anger, it is because he or she suffers deeply. Because he has so much suffering, he becomes full of bitterness. He is always ready to complain and blame others for his problems. This is why you find it very unpleasant to listen to him and try to avoid him.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

381. “Often in daily life, our body and mind may not be together. Sometimes our body is here but our mind is lost in the past or in the future. We may be possessed by anger, hatred, jealousy, or anxiety. If we practice the teaching of the Buddha on how to breathe mindfully, we bring mind and body together, and they become one again. This is what is meant by the expression, “oneness of body and mind.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

382. “Our idea of happiness may be the very thing that’s preventing us from being happy.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

383. “If you know how to go back to her and listen carefully every day for five or ten minutes, healing will take place.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

384. “We will not just say, “I love him very much,” but instead, “I will do something so that he will suffer less.” The mind of compassion is truly present when it is effective in removing another person’s suffering.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

385. “There are those who say that in their heaven there is no suffering. But if there is no suffering, how can there be happiness? We need compost to grow flowers, and mud to grow lotuses.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

386. “To practice aimlessness is to identify what it is you’re looking for, waiting for, or running after, and let it go. By removing these objects of seeking that are pulling you away from the here and now, you will discover that everything you want is already right here in the present moment. You don’t need to “be someone” or do something in order to be happy and free.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

387. “God the Father is in God the Son; and the Holy Spirit is in the Son and in the Father. That is interbeing.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

388. “Peace is based on respect for life, the spirit of reverence for life.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

389. “We really have to understand the person we want to love. If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love. If we only think of ourselves, if we know only our own needs and ignore the needs of the other person, we cannot love. We must look deeply in order to see and understand the needs, aspirations, and suffering of the person we love. This is the ground of real love. You cannot resist loving another person when you really understand him or her.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

390. “The problem is whether we are determined to go in the direction of compassion or not. If we are, then can we reduce the suffering to a minimum? If I lose my direction, I have to look for the North Star, and I go to the north. That does not mean I expect to arrive at the North Star. I just want to go in that direction.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

391. “Whatever views we hold, we should be careful not to get caught up in thinking that our view is the “best” and that only we have the truth.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

392. “When we surround ourselves with people who are committed to understanding and loving, we’re nourished by their presence and our own seeds of understanding and love are watered. When we surround ourselves with people who gossip, complain, and are constantly critical, we absorb these toxins.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

393. “No act of killing can be justified.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

394. “I am determined not to spread news that I do not know to be certain and not to utter words that can cause division or discord.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

395. “Our practice is to water the flower in our loved one, and not bring them more garbage.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

396. “Why wander all over the world looking for something you already have? You are already the richest person on Earth.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

397. “It is not by going out for a demonstration against nuclear missiles that we can bring about peace. It is with our capacity of smiling, breathing, and being peace that we can make peace.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

398. “The only moment to be alive is in the present moment.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

399. “Often our perceptions are incorrect. We get in touch with an object and think that it embodies love, happiness, a self, or purity. We tend to think that love is something sentimental that will fill the emptiness inside us. We blame our suffering on another person or group, or on bad luck, but outside conditions are not the reason it appears. Our suffering was already there.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

400. “Sorrow, fear, and depression are all a kind of garbage. These bits of garbage are part of real life, and we must look deeply into their nature. You can practice in order to turn these bits of garbage into flowers. It is not only your love that is organic; your hate is, too. So you should not throw anything out. All you have to do is learn how to transform your garbage into flowers.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh