Top 500 Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes (2024 Update)
Page 9 of 10

401. “Creating happiness is an art. Living together is an art. Even with a lot of goodwill, you can still make the other person very unhappy. Goodwill is not enough. We need to know the art of making the other person happy. Art is the essence of life. Try to be artful in your speech and actions. The substance of art is mindfulness. When you are mindful, you are more artful.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

402. “You can arrange your schedule so you have enough time to eat. The place and teh food should be appropriate. Tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are. Tell me where you eat, and I will tell you who you are.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

403. “If we accept life and everything that belongs to life – the moments of happiness, joy, and peace, but also sickness, old age, and death – then we don’t suffer anymore. So suffering is okay. Not only is suffering okay, but thanks to suffering we have an opportunity to experience well-being.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

404. “Many years ago, I recognized that by understanding your own tradition better, you also develop increased respect, consideration, and understanding for others. I had had a naive thought, a kind of prejudice inherited from my ancestors. I thought that because Buddha had taught for forty-five years and Jesus for only two or three, that Buddha must have been a more accomplished teacher. I had that thought because I did not know the teachings of the Buddha well enough. One.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

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

— Thich Nhat Hanh

406. “1. Tell the truth. Don’t lie or turn the truth upside down. 2. Don’t exaggerate. 3. Be consistent. This means no double-talk: speaking about something in one way to one person and in an opposite way to another for selfish or manipulative reasons. 4. Use peaceful language. Don’t use insulting or violent words, cruel speech, verbal abuse, or condemnation.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

407. “Whether you can see the Buddha or not depends on you, on the state of your being.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

408. “I stopped committing acts that cause suffering to other living beings. All living beings want to live. All fear death. We must nurture a heart of compassion and protect the lives of all beings.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

409. “The way we perceive the world around us depends entirely on our way of looking at it.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

410. “When we compare, we see ourselves as superior, inferior, or as trying to be equal. But with this kind of comparing comes discrimination, and with discrimination comes suffering.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

411. “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

412. “We have millions of ways to lose this precious time – we turn on the TV, or pick up the telephone, or start the car and go somewhere. We are not used to being with ourselves, and we act as if we don’t like ourselves and are trying to escape from ourselves. Meditation.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

413. “You cannot take the mind out of the body, and you cannot take the body out of the mind.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

414. “True love gives us a lot of space. Because you are connected spiritually and emotionally as well as physically, you do not need to always be in the same place or doing the same thing. You do not worry if your beloved is over here today and you are over there.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

415. “True love gives us beauty, freshness, solidity, freedom, and peace. True love includes a feeling of deep joy that we are alive. If we don’t feel this way when we feel love, then it’s not true love.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

416. “If you are really joyful and your joy is healthy, then that benefits other people. If you’re not joyful, not fresh, or not smiling, then that doesn’t benefit anyone. If you’re inhabited by joy and freshness, even if you do nothing, we profit from you.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

417. “There is no distinction between means and ends. There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way. There is no way to enlightenment, enlightenment is the way.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

418. “Mindfulness makes you and the other person happy and free. The other person may be caught in her worries, anger, and forgetfulness, but with mindfulness you can save her and yourself.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

419. “If you have enough spiritual strength, you will give birth to a spiritual child, and through your life and practice, you continue giving birth, even after you die.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

420. “Refrain from discussing subjects that can destroy your awareness of the people around you and the food. If someone is thinking about something other than the good food on the table, such as his difficulties in the office or with friends, it means he is losing the present moment and the food. You can help by returning his attention to the meal.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

421. “If we want the lotus bud to appear, it will appear. If we want it to grow, it will grow. When the lotus flower in our heart has grown, wherever we walk the Pure Land appears.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

422. “To love is, first of all, to accept ourselves as we are.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

423. “When conditions are sufficient, we manifest in a particular way. When conditions are no longer sufficient, we no longer manifest in that way. This doesn’t mean that we don’t exist. If we’re afraid of death, it’s because we don’t understand that things do not really die.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

424. “Beginning anew” means being determined not to repeat the negative things we have done in the past. A new era begins when we commit ourselves to living in mindfulness. When we vow to ourselves, “I am determined not to behave as I did in the past,” transformation occurs immediately.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

425. “My friend, things appear and disappear according to causes and conditions. The true nature of things is not being born, and not dying. Birth and death are nothing more than concepts. Our true nature is the nature of no-birth and no-death, and we must touch our true nature in order to be free.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

426. “Don’t look outside yourself for happiness. Let go of the idea that you don’t have it. It is available within you.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

427. “If one’s perceptions were accurate, reality revealed itself with ease; but if one’s perceptions were erroneous, reality was veiled. People were caught in endless suffering because of their erroneous perceptions: they believed that which is impermanent is permanent, that which is without self contains self, that which has no birth and death has birth and death, and they divided that which is inseparable into parts.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

428. “Our quality of being determines our quality of doing.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

429. “You have to practice going back to your wounded child every day. You have to embrace him or her tenderly, like a big brother or a big sister.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

430. “Just because we do not perceive something, it is not correct to say it does not exist.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

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

— Thich Nhat Hanh

432. “To live, we must die every instant. We must perish again and again in the storms that make life possible.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

433. “When we can see our partner as not separate from us, not better or worse or even equal to ourselves, then we have the wisdom of nondiscrimination. We see the happiness of others as our happiness, their suffering as our suffering.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

434. “We tend to postpone being alive to the future, the distant future, we don’t know when. It’s as if now is not the moment to be alive. We may never be alive at all in our entire life.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

435. “4. All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them. I cannot keep anything. I come here empty-handed, and I go empty-handed.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

436. “Be in touch with what is wondrous, refreshing, and healing, both inside and around yourself.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

437. “Every time we buy or consume something, we may be condoning some form of killing.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

438. “So the place where you should look for the kingdom of God or the Pure Land of the Buddha, the place where you should look for your happiness, your peace, and your fulfillment, has to be in the present moment. It’s so simple and clear. But since we have the tendency to slide back into the past or to run into the future, we have to recognize that habit and learn how to be free from it to really establish ourselves in the present moment. When.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

439. “Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the whole earth revolves – slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future. Live the actual moment. Only this actual moment is life. Don’t be attached to the future. Don’t worry about things you have to do. Don’t think about getting up or taking off to do anything. Don’t think about “departing.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

440. “Our happiness and suffering are the happiness and suffering of others.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

441. “The greatest gift we can offer anyone is our true presence.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

442. “Do everything in mindfulness so you can really be there, so you can love.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

443. “There are many cells in your body that are dying as you read these words. Fifty to seventy billion cells die each day in the average human adult. You are too busy to organise funerals for all of them! At the very same time, new cells are being born, and you don’t have the time to sing Happy Birthday to them. If old cells don’t die, there’s no chance for new cells to be born. So death is a very good thing. It’s very crucial for birth. You are undergoing birth and death in this very moment.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

444. “We are primarily responsible for our anger, but we believe very naively that if we can say something or do something to punish the other person, we will suffer less. This kind of belief should be uprooted. Because whatever you do or say in a state of anger will only cause more damage in the relationship. Instead, we should try not to do anything or say anything when we are angry.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

445. “Breathe in and tell yourself that a new day has been offered to you, and you have to be here to live it.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

446. “The basic condition for us to be able to hear the call of beauty and respond to it is silence.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

447. “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

448. “Contemplating a beautiful sunrise, you’re not distracted by thinking about the past or the future. The more concentrated you become, the more you see the beauty all around you. So concentration is a source of happiness.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

449. “Compassion is mindfulness. If you can maintain that awareness, you are protected. Your seeds of irritation and anger will not be watered and you can listen for one hour without being affected by what she says. You don’t want to correct her, even if her speech is full of wrong perceptions and accusations – you feel only compassion, “Oh dear, she is the victim of so many wrong perceptions.” You don’t want to punish or criticize her because you have compassion.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

450. “Look at the tree in the front yard. The tree doesn’t seem to be doing anything. It stands there, vigorous, fresh, and beautiful, and everyone profits from it. That’s the miracle of being. If a tree were less than a tree, all of us would be in trouble. But if a tree is just a real tree, then there’s hope and joy. That’s why if you can be yourself, that is already action. Action is based on non-action; action is being. There are people who do a lot, but who also.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh