Dalai Lama

Being neededdoes not entail selfish pride or unhealthy attachment to the worldly esteem of others. Rather, it consists of a natural human hunger to serve our fellow men and women.

Education can’t focus only on developing our wonderful brain. We also need warm-heartedness. This is my view.

From adversity we can learn the value of patience.

The most crucial use of knowledge and education is to understand the importance of developing a good heart.

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.

Not only higher forms of life but also many of the smallest insects are social beings who, without any religion, law or education, survive by mutual cooperation based on an innate recognition of their interconnectedness.

Be the witness of your thoughts. You are what observes, not what you observe.

Who would then deny that when I am sipping tea in my tearoom I am swallowing the whole universe with it and that this very moment of my lifting the bowl to my lips is eternity itself transcending time and space?

Do not worship me, I am not God. I’m only a man. I worship Jesus Christ.

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can’t readily accept the God formula, the big answers don’t remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

I love learning about different religions, and discovering the different ways to worship, and to love the greatness and the higher being that surrounds us all. I definitely believe in a bigger presence, and I really respect all religions; at their core they all teach the same message – community and kindness and looking out for each other.

Well, I don’t know, but I’ve been told the streets in heaven are lined with gold. I ask you how things could get much worse if the Russians happen to get up there first; Wowee! pretty scary!

It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.

Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen.

A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes.

One who conquers himself is greater than another who conquers a thousand times a thousand on the battlefield.

It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.

Don’t worry that you won’t attain oneness. Work on it!

If you are a Christian, you are in danger. If you decided to abandon your faith and become an atheist, you also are to be liquidated according to their concept. You are in danger if you decide to become a Muslim. It is not going to save you anyway because they believe traditional Islam is hostile to their goals.

You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?