Daisaku Ikeda Quotes
Just as a diamond can only be polished by another diamond, it is only through genuine, all-out engagement with others that people can polish their character, and help each other to reach greater heights.
Ikeda, Daisaku. My Dear Friends in America: Collected Addresses to the SGI-USA. World Tribune Press, 2001, p. 287.
As hard as it is for us to imagine today, while her husband was President of the United States, the First Lady wrote a nationally syndicated newspaper column every single day with politics frequently the subject. While she usually agreed with the President, there were occasions where they seemed to not see things exactly the same. She tended to be more liberal than he. However, there were those who believed that when she criticized politicians, it was with FDR’s knowledge and blessing and she sometimes did his “dirty work.” Eleanor Roosevelt was one of the most influential people in the country—certainly more-so than any First Lady before and since.
Daisaku Ikeda is a Japanese Buddhist philosopher, educator, author, and nuclear disarmament advocate. He has served as the third president and then honorary president of the Soka Gakkai, the largest of Japan's new religious movements. Ikeda is the founding president of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI), the world's largest Buddhist lay organization, which declares approximately 12 million practitioners in 192 countries and territories, of whom more than 1.5 million reside outside of Japan as of 2012.:269
