Quotes from Thich Nhat Hanh

The essence of love and compassion is understanding, the ability to recognize the physical, material, and psychological suffering of others, to put ourselves "inside the skin" of the other.

What are you ruminating on? Old suffering?

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.

When conditions are sufficient, we manifest. When conditions are no longer sufficient, we no longer manifest. It does not mean that we do not exist. Like radio waves without a radio, we do not manifest.

Your body is not just yours. It is a gift and a responsibility.

What we need are people who are capable [...] of not taking sides so that they can embrace the whole of reality.

Live in a way that encourages deep happiness in yourself and others. You can vow to bring joy to one person in the morning and to help relieve the suffering of one person in the afternoon. Ask yourself, "Who can I make smile this morning?" This is the art of creating happiness.

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.

Our suffering is impermanent, and that is why we can transform it. And because happiness is impermanent, that is why we have to nourish it.

When you have trouble sleeping, follow your breathing in and breathing out. Bring your awareness to the different parts of your body in turn, and allow them to relax.

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

What you read and write can help you heal, so be thoughtful about what you consume.

Many of us slog through life without conscious awareness or intention. We set ourselves a course and we barrel ahead, without stopping to ask whether this path is fulfilling our most important goals. That's partly because many of us believe that happiness is not possible in the here and now. We think we need to struggle now so that we will be happy in the future. So we postpone happiness and try to run into the future and attain the conditions of happiness that we don't have now.

My aim is not to give you knowledge. My aim is to help you break free from your views.

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.

Go back and take care of yourself. Your body needs you, your perceptions need you, your feeling needs you. The wounded child in you needs you. Your suffering needs you to acknowledge it.

One day my left hand was holding a nail and my right hand a hammer. I was trying to hang a picture and I was not very mindful. Instead of pounding on the nail I pounded on the finger. Right away my right hand put the hammer down and took care of my left hand as if she were taking care of herself.

We may have suffered a lot because of our attachment to those things, but we don't have the courage to release them; it doesn't feel safe to do so. But it may be that we continue to suffer because of our attachment to those things. It may be a person, a material object, or a position in society, anything. We think that without that person or thing we will not be safe, and that is why we're caught by it.

When a feeling or thought arises, your intention should not be to chase it away, even if by continuing to concentrate on the breath the feeling or thought passes naturally from the mind. The intention isn't to chase it away, hate it, worry about it, or be frightened by it. So what exactly should you be doing concerning such thoughts and feelings? Simply acknowledge their presence.

Desirelessness is the basic condition that makes possible the feelings of joy, peace, and ease that come with living a simple life. Simplicity means to have few desires, to be content with a simple life and just a few possessions. Desirelessness is the basis of true happiness, because in true happiness there must be the elements of peace, joy, and ease.

Time has much more value than money. Time is life. Money is nothing compared with life. In two hours of drinking tea together, we don't get money, but we do get life.

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.

Violence can never bring about peace and understanding. Only by looking deeply in order to understand the true roots of violence can we achieve peace.

You discover that the main cause of your suffering is the seed of anger in you, because it has been watered too often, by yourself and by other people.