51 Buddhism Quotes

In the vast and intricate philosophy of Buddhism, countless teachings and thoughts have been distilled into quotes that capture its wisdom, serenity, and compassion. These timeless sayings offer profound insights into the nature of life, suffering, and enlightenment, providing guidance for those seeking inner peace and understanding. Whether you are new to Buddhism or have been exploring its depths for years, our curated collection of the top 51 Buddhism quotes promises to inspire and enlighten, offering reflections that resonate with the essence of this ancient tradition. Dive in and let these pearls of wisdom illuminate your path.

1. “You only lose what you cling to.” - Guatama Buddha

2. “Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You’ve got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it.” - Ray Bradbury

3. “The secret of Buddhism is to remove all ideas, all concepts, in order for the truth to have a chance to penetrate, to reveal itself.” - Thich Nhat Hanh

4. “You don't understand. I only prostitute the part of the body that isn't important, and nobody suffers except my karma a little bit. I don't do big harm. You prostitute your mind. Mind is seat of Buddha. What you do is very very bad. You should not use your mind in that way” - John Burdett

5. “Whereever you are, you are one with the clouds and one with the sun and the stars you see. You are one with everything. That is more true than I can say, and more true than you can hear.” - Shunryu Suzuki

6. “There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man's whole life is a succession of moment after moment. There will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue. Live being true to the single purpose of the moment.” - Yamamoto Tsunetomo

7. “Of course, even when you see the world as a trap and posit a fundamental separation between liberation of self and transformation of society, you can still feel a compassionate impulse to help its suffering beings. In that case you tend to view the personal and the political in a sequential fashion. "I'll get enlightened first, and then I'll engage in social action." Those who are not engaged in spiritual pursuits put it differently: "I'll get my head straight first, I'll get psychoanalyzed, I'll overcome my inhibitions or neuroses or my hang-ups (whatever description you give to samsara) and then I'll wade into the fray." Presupposing that world and self are essentially separate, they imagine they can heal one before healing the other. This stance conveys the impression that human consciousness inhabits some haven, or locker-room, independent of the collective situation -- and then trots onto the playing field when it is geared up and ready.It is my experience that the world itself has a role to play in our liberation. Its very pressures, pains, and risks can wake us up -- release us from the bonds of ego and guide us home to our vast, true nature. For some of us, our love of the world is so passionate that we cannot ask it to wait until we are enlightened.” - Joanna Macy

8. “People who are diagnosed as having "generalized anxiety disorder" are afflicted by three major problems that many of us experience to a lesser extent from time to time. First and foremost, says Rapgay, the natural human inclination to focus on threats and bad news is strongly amplified in them, so that even significant positive events get suppressed. An inflexible mentality and tendency toward excessive verbalizing make therapeutic intervention a further challenge.” - Winifred Gallagher

9. “Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen.” - Bodhidharma

10. “Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the right road to the Gate.” - Huang Po

11. “The heart is what is important." There is nothing more vulnerable, nothing more corruptible than the human mind; nor is there anything as powerful, steadfast and ennobling.” - Daisaku Ikeda

12. “it is impossible to build one's own happiness on the unhappiness of others. This perspective is at the heart of Buddhist teachings.” - Daisaku Ikeda

13. “We are fragmented into so many different aspects. We don´t know who we really are, or what aspects of ourselves we should identify with or believe in. So many contradictory voices, dictates, and feelings fight for control over our inner lives that we find ourselves scattered everywhere, in all directions, leaving nobody at home.Meditation, then, is bringing the mind home.” - Sogyal Rinpoche

14. “Do not ask for less responsibility to be free and relaxed--Ask for more strenght!” - Master Chen Yen

15. “Whether our action is wholesome or unwholesome depends on whether that action or deed arises from a disciplined or undisciplined state of mind. It is felt that a disciplined mind leads to happiness and an undisciplined mind leads to suffering, and in fact it is said that bringing about discipline within one's mind is the essence of the Buddha's teaching.” - Dalai Lama XIV

16. “Courage is often associated with aggression, but instead should be seen as a willingness to act from the heart.” - Donna Quesada

17. “When you blame, you open up a world of excuses, because as long as you're looking outside, you miss the opportunity to look inside, and you continue to suffer.” - Donna Quesada

18. “No one should ever despair because the entrance to his or her chosen career path is clogged. There is an ancient saying: "The persistent drip wears through stone.” - Kentetsu Takamori

19. “One evening Milarepa returned to his cave after gathering firewood, only to find it filled with demons. They were cooking his food, reading his books, sleeping in his bed. They had taken over the joint. He knew about nonduality of self and other, but he still didn’t quite know how to get these guys out of his cave. Even though he had the sense that they were just a projection of his own mind—all the unwanted parts of himself—he didn’t know how to get rid of them. So first he taught them the dharma. He sat on this seat that was higher than they were and said things to them about how we are all one. He talked about compassion and shunyata and how poison is medicine. Nothing happened. The demons were still there. Then he lost his patience and got angry and ran at them. They just laughed at him. Finally, he gave up and just sat down on the floor, saying, “I’m not going away and it looks like you’re not either, so let’s just live here together.” At that point, all of them left except one. Milarepa said, “Oh, this one is particularly vicious.” (We all know that one. Sometimes we have lots of them like that. Sometimes we feel that’s all we’ve got.) He didn’t know what to do, so he surrendered himself even further. He walked over and put himself right into the mouth of the demon and said, “Just eat me up if you want to.” Then that demon left too.” - Pema Chodron

20. “It is only when we begin to relax with ourselves that meditation becomes a transformative process. Only when we relate with ourselves without moralizing, without harshness, without deception, can we let go of harmful patterns. Without maitri (metta), renunciation of old habits becomes abusive. This is an important point.” - Pema Chodron

21. “Compassion is not complete if it does not include oneself.” - Allan Lokos

22. “One doesn't have to be religious to lead a moral life or attain wisdom.” - Allan Lokos

23. “I do not dispute with the world, it is the world that disputes with me. A speaker of Dhamma does not dispute with anyone in the world.” - Bhikkus

24. “It is not what you can do for your country, but what you can do for all of mankind.” - Mike Norton

25. “One of the best ways to support the development of patience is to cultivate happiness with yourself.” - Allan Lokos

26. “Patience is both the tool for and the result of, our efforts.” - Allan Lokos

27. “Our actions speak for us & they speak loudly.” - Allan Lokos

28. “So what is a good meditator? A good meditator meditates.” - Allan Lokos

29. “Absent a sense of the preciousness of one's own life, why respect the life of anyone else?” - Kentetsu Takamori

30. “When we are aware of our weaknesses or negative tendencies, we open the opportunity to work on them.” - Allan Lokos

31. “While meditating we are simply seeing what the mind has been doing all along.” - Allan Lokos

32. “Pain is not wrong. Reacting to pain as wrong initiates the trance of unworthiness. The moment we believe something is wrong, our world shrinks and we lose ourselves in the effort to combat the pain.” - Tara Brach

33. “Greed kills us all.” - Kentetsu Takamori

34. “Attachment leads to suffering.” - Buddha

35. “How wonderful it would be if people did all they could for one other without seeking anything in return! One should never remember a kindness done, and never forget a kindness received.” - Kentetsu Takamori

36. “If the whole universe can be found in our own body and mind, this is where we need to make our inquires. We all have the answers within ourselves, we just have not got in touch with them yet. The potential of finding the truth within requires faith in ourselves.” - Ayya Khema

37. “That's why it's called a practice. We have to practice a practice if it is to be of value.” - Allan Lokos

38. “Before I had studied Chan for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and rivers as rivers. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and rivers are not rivers. But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest. For it's just that I see mountains once again as mountains, and rivers once again as rivers.” - Qingyuan Weixin

39. “We are participatory beings who inhabit a participatory reality, seeking relationships that enhance our sense of what it means to be alive. In terms of dharma practice, a true friend is more than just someone with whom we share common values and who accepts us for what we are. Such a friend is someone with whom we share common values and who accepts us for what we are. Such a friend is someone whom we can trust to refine our understanding of what it means to live, who can guide us when we’re lost and help us find the way along a path, who can assuage our anguish through the reassurance of his or her presence.” - Stephen Batchelor

40. “The Buddha is found in other people - even the ones we do not like very much.” - Francis Harold Cook

41. “Buddha wrote a code which he said would be useful to guide men in darkness, but he never claimed to be the Light of the world. Buddhism was born with a disgust for the world, when a prince's son deserted his wife and child, turning from the pleasures of existence to the problems of existence. Burnt by the fires of the world, and already weary with it, Buddha turned to ethics.” - Fulton J. Sheen

42. “A student, filled with emotion and crying, implored, "Why is there so much suffering?"Suzuki Roshi replied, "No reason.” - Shunryu Suzuki

43. “To have some deep feeling about Buddhism is not the point; we just do what we should do, like eating supper and going to bed. This is Buddhism.” - Shunryu Suzuki

44. “On considering these instances it is indubitably clear that sati has a crucial role to fulfill in the realm of samatha. This might be why the Cūḷavedalla Sutta speaks of satipaṭṭhāna as the "cause" of concentration (samādhinimitta)....On the other hand, however, to consider satipaṭṭhāna purely as a concentration exercise goes too far and misses the important difference between what can become a basis for the development of concentration and what belongs to the realm of calmness meditation proper. In fact, the characteristic functions of sati and concentration (samādhi) are quite distinct. While concentration corresponds to an enhancement of the selective function of the mind, by way of restricting the breadth of attention, sati on its own represents an enhancement of the recollective function, by way of expanding the breadth of attention. These two modes of mental functioning correspond to two different cortical control mechanisms in the brain. This difference, however, does not imply that the two are incompatible, since during absorption attainment both are present. But during absorption sati becomes mainly presence of the mind, when it to some extent loses its natural breadth owing to the strong focusing power of concentration.” - Anālayo

45. “Love has no meaning without understanding” - Thich Nhat Hanh

46. “Another aspect inviting contemplation is the fact that the affective tone of any feeling depends on the type of contact that has caused its arising. Once this conditioned nature of feelings is fully apprehended, detachment arises naturally and one's identification with feelings starts to dissolve.” - Anālayo

47. “Let whatever happens, be what needs to happen, so that I may awaken.” - T. Scott McLeod

48. “Rather than allowing our response to an even affect our breathing, we can learn instead to let our breathing change our relationship to the event.” - Cyndi Lee

49. “And the Buddha pointed out that his confusion was justified, for 'the dharma is profound, difficult to see, difficult to understand, peaceful, excellent, beyond the sphere of logic, subtle, and to be understood by the wise'. The reason for this is that it is not readily comprehended by one who holds a different view and has different learnings and inclinations, different involvements and instruction. It is clear from this statement that the conception of nibbāna in beyond logical reasoning, not because it is an Ultimate Reality transcending logic, but because logic or reason, being the 'slave of passions', makes it difficult for one who has a passion for an alien tradition to understand the conception of nibbāna.” - David J. Kalupahana

50. “The path to enlightenment is really very simple - all we need to do is stop cherishing ourself and learn to cherish others. All other spiritual realisations will naturally follow from this.” - Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

51. “Can the water in the valleys ever stop and rest?When the water finally reaches the sea, it becomes great waves.” - Francis Harold Cook