Do not live with a vocation that is harmful to humans and nature. Do not invest in companies that deprive others of their chance to live. Select a vocation that helps realise your ideal of compassion.
Nhat HanhRead
We can help many people suffer less and realize a lot of happiness without being rich or influential. If love and compassion are in out hearts, every thought, word, and deed can bring about a miracle
Interpretation
What this quote means
True wealth comes from love and compassion rather than material possessions.
This quote by Nhat Hanh emphasizes that it is not wealth or influence that enables us to bring happiness to others, but rather the qualities of love and compassion that reside in our hearts. By embodying these virtues in our thoughts, words, and actions, we have the power to create positive change and uplift those around us, demonstrating that small, loving gestures can lead to miraculous transformations in people's lives.
Themes
LoveCompassionHappinessHelpWealthService
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could inspire a charity event focused on helping those in need.
More from Nhat Hanh
All quotes →I have lost my smile, but don't worry. The dandelion has it.
Nhat HanhRead
I realize that many elements of the Buddhist teaching can be found in Christianity, Judaism, Islam. I think if Buddhism can help, it is the concrete methods of practice.
Nhat HanhRead
Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I am committed to cultivating compassion and learning ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to support any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, and in my way of life.
Nhat HanhRead
The therapist does not treat patients by simply giving them another set of beliefs. He or she tries to help them see which kinds of ideas and beliefs have led to their suffering. Many patients want to get rid of their painful feelings, but they do not want to get rid of their beliefs, the viewpoints that are the very roots of their feelings.
Nhat HanhRead
Scientists tell us that we have enough technology to save our planet. . . . Yet we don't take advantage of this new technology. . . . The technological has to work hand-in-hand with the spiritual. Our spiritual life is the element that can bring about the energies of peace, calm, brotherhood, understanding, and compassion. Without that, our planet doesn't stand a chance.
Nhat HanhRead
Similar quotes
I think that love is more like a light that you carry. At first childish happiness keeps it lighted and after that romance. Then motherhood lights it and then duty . . . and maybe after that sorrow. You wouldn't think that sorrow could be a light, would you, dearie? But it can. And then after that, service lights it. Yes. . . . I think that is what love is to a woman . . . a lantern in her hand.
Bess Streeter AldrichRead
Charity means love towards the neighbor and compassion, for anyone who loves his neighbor as himself also has as much compassion for him in his suffering as he does for himself in his own.
Emanuel SwedenborgRead
A love affair is like a short story--it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning was easy, the middle might drag, invaded by commonplace, but the end, instead of being decisive and well knit with that element of revelatory surprise as a well-written story should be, it usually dissipated in a succession of messy and humiliating anticlimaxes.
F. Scott FitzgeraldRead
Music I heard with you was more than music, and bread I broke with you was more than bread. Now that I am without you, all is desolate; all that was once so beautiful is dead.
Conrad AikenRead
Feelings dwell in man; but man dwells in his love. That is no metaphor, but the actual truth. Love does not cling to the I in such a way as to have the Thou only for its " content," its object; but love is between I and Thou. The man who does not know this, with his very being know this, does not know love; even though he ascribes to it the feelings he lives through, experiences, enjoys, and expresses.
Martin BuberRead
Service is the only thing that's important about love. Everybody is worried about 'losing yourself' - all this narcissism. Duty. We can't stand that idea now either... But duty might be a suit of armor you put on to fight for your love.
Meryl StreepRead