Top 500 Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes (2026 Update)
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401. “If we can relax when our strong emotions come, then we don’t pass fear on to our children and to future generations.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

402. “When we take a moment to sit and breathe before we eat, we can get in touch with the real hunger in our body. We can discover if we’re eating because we’re hungry or if we’re eating because it’s the time to eat and the food is there.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

403. “In the West, we are very goal oriented. We know where we want to go, and we are very directed in getting there. This may be useful, but often we forget to enjoy ourselves along the route.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

404. “I am convinced that happiness is not possible unless it is based on freedom.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

405. “When you feel tired or irritated, you can lie down with your arms at your sides, allowing all your muscles to relax, maintaining awareness of just your breath and your smile.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

406. “A guided meditation is an opportunity to look deeply into the mind, to sow wholesome seeds there, and to strengthen and cultivate those seeds so that they may become the means for transforming the suffering in us.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

407. “We disregard the wonders of the present moment, thinking that heaven and the ultimate are for later, not for now.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

408. “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

409. “Even when we’re sitting still, with no external stimuli, an endless internal dialogue may be going on in our head. we’re constantly consuming our thoughts. Cows, goats, and buffalo chew their food, swallow it, then regurgitate and rechew it multiple times. We may not be cows or buffalo, but we ruminate just the same on our thoughts – unfortunately, primarily negative thoughts. We eat them, and then we bring them up to chew again and again, like a cow chewing its cud.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

410. “My dear friends, my dear disciples, don’t take refuge in anything outside of you.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

411. “Why wander all over the world looking for something you already have?”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

412. “As a culture, we place great stock in external appearance. Our attachment to physical beauty is something that we need to let go of, yet it seems that the majority of people are racing toward it.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

413. “To be in the here and the now – solid and fully alive – is a very positive contribution to our collective situation.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

414. “In the process of meditation, fetters are undone; internal blocks of suffering such as resentment, fear, anger, despair, and hatred are transformed; relationships with humans and nature become easier; freedom and joy can penetrate us. We become aware of what is inside and around us;.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

415. “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

416. “Life is real; it’s not a dream when mindfulness is there.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

417. “We can look around and see that a person who lives with happiness and compassion has the capacity to make others happy.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

418. “If monks and nuns do not cherish their time of practice, they will have nothing to offer the world.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

419. “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

420. “You should have a chance to observe him when he sleeps. Look deeply, and see the tenderness that is revealed, the suffering, the hope, the despair that can be expressed during sleep. Sit there for fifteen minutes or half an hour, and just look. Understanding and compassion will arise in you, and you will know how to be there for your partner.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

421. “We must practice living deeply, loving, and acting with charity if we wish to truly honor Jesus.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

422. “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

423. “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

424. “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

425. “The sea is either calm or stormy. If one wants a calm sea one cannot get it by suppressing the stormy sea. One must wait for this same sea to become calm.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

426. “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

427. “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

428. “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

429. “Buddhist meditation is based on the principle of nonduality. This means that if we are mindfulness, if we are love, we are also ignorance, we are also suffering, and there is no reason to suppress anything at all.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

430. “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

431. “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

432. “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

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

— Thich Nhat Hanh

434. “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

435. “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

436. “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

437. “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

438. “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

439. “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

440. “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

441. “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

442. “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

443. “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

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

— Thich Nhat Hanh

445. “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

446. “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

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

— Thich Nhat Hanh

448. “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

449. “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

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

— Thich Nhat Hanh