Dalai Lama

The mind must be developed by you alone. There is no way for others to do the work and for you to reap the results. Reading someone else's blueprint of mental progress will not transfer its realizations to you. You have to develop them yourself.

A Compassionate state of mind brings inner peace, and therefore a healthier body.

We all need basic human values rooted in trust and affection.

If we can manage to refrain from harming others in our everyday actions and words, we can start to give more serious attention to actively doing good, and this can be a source of great joy and inner confidence. We can benefit others through our actions by being warm and generous toward them, by being charitable, and by helping those in need.

If you become more concerned for the welfare of others, you will experience a sense of calm, inner-strength, and self confidence.

It is a wonderful thing if one can use one's place of work as a place of spiritual practice as well.

If you want change, create the causes.

Peace has a great deal to do with warm-heartednes s and respect for the lives of others, avoiding doing them harm and regarding their lives as being as precious as our own. If, on that basis, we can also be of help to others, so much the better.

Cultivating a close, warmhearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease.

It is my fundamental conviction that compassion - the natural capacity of the human heart to feel concern for and connection with another human being - constitutes a basic aspect of our nature shared by all human beings, as well as being the foundation of our happiness. All ethical teachings, whether religious or nonreligious, aim to nurture this innate and precious quality, to develop it and to perfect it.

Developing concern for others, thinking of them as part of us, brings self-confidence , reduces our sense of suspicion and mistrust, and enables us to develop a calm mind.

People often expect the other person to respond first in a positive way, instead of taking the initiative to create that possibility. I feel that's wrong; it can act as a barrier that just promotes a feeling of isolation from others. To overcome feelings of isolation and loneliness, your underlying attitude makes a tremendous difference - approaching others with the thought of compassion in your mind is the best way.

Whatever the intellectual quality of the education given our children, it is vital that it include elements of love and compassion, for nothing guarantees that knowledge alone will be truly useful to human beings.

Even more important than the warmth and affection we receive, is the warmth and affection we give. It is by giving warmth and affection, by having a genuine sense of concern for others, in other words through compassion, that we gain the conditions for genuine happiness. More important than being loved, therefore, is to love.

Whenever there is a challenge, there is also an opportunity to face it, to demonstrate and develop our will and determination.

We need to understand how destructive emotions affect us and constructive emotions can help us, so that we can maintain our peace of mind.

Smile if you want a smile from another face.

We can solve many problems in an appropriate way, without any difficulty, if we cultivate harmony, friendship and respect for one another.

A new way of thinking has become the necessary condition for responsible living and acting. If we maintain obsolete values and beliefs, a fragmented consciousness and self-centered spirit, we will continue to hold onto outdated goals and behaviors.

We cannot overcome anger and hatred simply by suppressing them. We need to actively cultivate the antidotes: patience and tolerance.

Genuine harmony must come from the heart. It cannot come from the barrel of a gun.